Rearn Thai Restaurant

Located at 5120 West Market St. in Greensboro, Rearn Thai Restaurant serves Thai cuisine for lunch (Monday through Saturday) and dinner (Monday through Sunday). Patio seating is available.

If you go by everything before your first forkful, it is easy to see Rearn Thai as a top-notch Asian eatery. It is almost certainly Greensboro’s best-looking Thai establishment. The interior is clean and well-lit. Light woods and overhead tapestries lend character, and there is plenty of space.

Moreover, Rearn offers a fairly extensive menu. In addition to the expected curries, soups, and noodle dishes, you’ll find seafood specialties (i.e. crispy softshell crab) and Heavenly Trays, multi-dish samplers that seem like Thai versions of Indian thalis. Many of the dishes are available with a choice of protein ranging from vegetables and tofu to chicken, pork, or beef to seafood. Spiciness can be customized too.

Unfortunately, the food isn’t on the same level as the aesthetics. An order of pork dumplings was plated nicely but lacked depth of flavor. An order of beef with basil leaves, on the other hand, had nearly the opposite problem. The beef came drenched in an unappealing river of sauce (with a side of rice to act as a dam). However, the sauce delivered all the right tasty, savory notes, there was plenty of basil, and the dish was prepared to the requested medium spiciness. Then again, some of the beef cuts were a bit on the chewy side, a problem shared by my wife’s beef with snowpeas and asparagus. The execution was all-around hit-or-miss.

At the very least, Rearn’s pricing is in-line with the competition. Our beef dishes were $11 a piece (vegetarian is less, seafood is more), and the portion sizing is respectable. Service is efficient and a bit taciturn though not rude.

With a well-kept interior but a somewhat indifferent kitchen, Rearn calls to mind a dethroned king, a once-dominant restaurant that hasn’t kept up in the face of competition. This isn’t to say that you’re in for a bad meal here but rather that there is no shortage of better options.

7.25/10