There is a particular corner of King West where Toronto keeps a few of its pleasures close together. On the south west stands the Wheat Sheaf, the oldest tavern in the city and, these days, one of its more reliably fun live-music rooms. A few doors further, a Wild Wing, honest about itself, where the beer is cold and the top of the heat board reads "Xtra Hot." Into the gap between them has slipped Wang Lang, and we are pleased to report it more than earns its place on an already good corner — on the evidence of one visit, it may be the best reason to stand on it.
We went once, ordered widely, and left without a single complaint about the food. This is rarer than it sounds. Most restaurants have a dish they would quietly like you to forget — the obligatory salad, the dessert nobody finished. Wang Lang does not appear to have one. Across two of us and four plates, there was not a miss on the table.
The Hoi Jo Puu came early — crab and pork rolled in bean-curd skin and fried to a shattering gold — and disappeared so quickly we briefly considered ordering a second round and pretending it had been the plan. The Moo Hor Bai Cha Plu followed, pork tucked into wild betel leaves, the dish on the table least likely to appear on the average King West menu and the one that most rewarded ordering. Then the mains. The Pad Gra Prow was minced and crisped at the edges, rich with garlic and a fistful of Thai holy basil, the kind of dish that is ubiquitous in Thai restaurants and almost always disappointing, and tasted as though Chef Num-Oy actually missed home. The Pad See Ew had the char that most Toronto versions only pretend to — Chinese broccoli caught hard against a screaming wok, dark soy clinging, still with a spine to it. A plain iced tea, cold and unfussy, did its job, which by the end of the meal turned out to be managing the heat.
"Xtra Hot next door dares you to finish it. This was heat that actually wanted to be tasted."
A word about the heat, because one of us earned it. Asked how spicy he would like the Pad Gra Prow, one reviewer made the fatal, vain mistake of saying "spicy." What arrived was not the blunt, one-note burn you brace for. It came in layers — bird's eye chili, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, holy basil — still legible beneath the heat. The pain was real. The flavour shone through it. We sweated. And here the service revealed itself: as the perspiration began, fresh napkins were dropped at the table without a word, without a smirk, without anyone breaking stride. No one mentioned it. We were grateful.
The one real frustration
We have to talk about the menu, because Wang Lang nearly lost us before the first plate. It is enormous — genuinely, intimidatingly long — and it is delivered by QR code. We will say this plainly: of all the things the pandemic inflicted on dining, the QR-code menu may be the most quietly irritating. Reading a long menu on a phone is not browsing; it is scrolling, the most joyless verb in the language. You cannot scan it, cannot hold two pages against each other, cannot let your eye fall on the thing you didn't know you wanted. We came close to giving up and defaulting to the first options out of sheer logistical fatigue, and we are people who came specifically to eat. A printed sheet — even a single condensed page of the kitchen's best work — would solve this in an afternoon. Wang Lang, print a menu. Your food is too good to be hidden behind a camera app.
The verdict
For years the honest answer to "where should I go for Thai in Toronto?" has been Pai, and the slightly smug answer, the one that signalled you knew things, has been Koh Lippe. Wang Lang belongs in that conversation now, and on the evidence of a single, greedy visit, it may belong at the front of it. It recalls Thai Diner in Nolita — that same confidence, that same refusal to apologize for flavour — but with a more traditional hand.
The bill, for two people and four dishes, came to $110 after tax and tip. We have visited restaurants this month that charged more than that for a single plate and delivered a fraction of the joy. Wang Lang does the opposite. Fix the menu, and there is nothing standing between this place and the top of the list. Tip accordingly. We did — 25%.
