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Nida from Nida’s Sushi at the North Market brings Thai to High with her new restaurant. There was a low key, private opening on November 17th attended by several of CU’s eaters including me.
Nida’s offers sushi, Thai /Asian cuisine and cocktails. We sampled most of the menu. The Green Curry and Phad Thai received very high marks – there was nothing sampled that did not satisfy. A couple of the specialties of the house are: Pad Priew Wan Pla: sauteed fried whitefish with Thai sweet and sour sauce, pineapple, green pepper, cucumber, carrots, onion, and tomato; Chu Chee Duck: honey glazed duck with red curry paste, coconut milk, green pepper and basil.
Phad Thai with Tofu
We were also happy to see an array of cocktails served up by bartendress Vivian.
Pictured below are Thai Iced Tea (Thai Tea infused Vodka with sweetened condensed milk) and Tom Yum Bloody Mary (mixed with lemongrass, galangal and lime leaves).
Vivan is mixing it up at the bar. She has a new creation that may become a destination drink. The Bangkok Buckeye joins peanut infused Vodka with chocolate spirits resulting in an absolute zen state victory.
Thai on High
976 N. High Street
Short North
614 299 9199
Open for Lunch and Dinner
CU Tested, Roland Approved
Yay bartender!!!! The Thai Iced Tea is scrumptious, the atmosphere is lovely, and the food is delish. Now I regret that I don’t live across the street, anymore…
The space, the (drink) menu, the service – all CU certified. It can’t help but succeed. Only a matter of time before there’s a full-fledged ‘Columbus Underground’ restaurant.
The BB is a thing of beauty. Spicy, too.
The Dragon’s Eye is my cocktail of choice. I also like the Thai Iced Coffee.
Big thumbs up!
Big thumbs up!
I thought the thai tea was my fave until I tried your Dragon’s Eye last time.
Yumz.
enjoyed both the food and drink here last night.. So far no favourite drinks. They have all been good.
I’ve tried to let this go. I’ve tried to just love Nida’s as it is, because I’d really really like to, but I have to be honest: I’m getting disappointed. I’ve been there probably 10 times now, and every time I go the service seems to get worse. I’m writing this because I want this restaurant to succeed, and better to hear from friends than enemies.
I think they have the right number of servers, but only one is worth her salt. It can take forever to get food, even when it’s not that busy. I took some friends from out of town the other night, and I’d talked it up so highly that I was embarrassed by the service and had to apologize to them. We waited in the vestibule without so much of an acknowledgment of our existence by ANY staff for more than five minutes. It was like they were trying not to make eye contact with us. (This was also true of the other 18 people [we counted] crowded in the entrance. We overheard one person say that the customers were the elephant in the room– obvious but ignored.) Then, once we were seated, we sat, again unattended, for another five minutes until I stopped a server to see if we could get some menus and to find out who our server actually was. It took him another five minutes to talk to us after that.
It was busy. It’s a new restaurant. But service is important. I work with the public and I know what it’s like to be slammed and to want to kill anyone who looks your way, but sometimes a smile and an “I’ll be with you as soon as possible” goes a long way. It’s not good when customers feel like the ignored and unwanted elephants in the room. I wouldn’t be so unhappy if a) I didn’t think that this restaurant is capable of hiring and training good staff to serve good food and b) I didn’t WANT to go back. But I do. I want to give them my support, but I’m not going to keep giving it if I feel like I’m a pain in the neck.
I’m sure people have had lots of great experiences there, as have I, but there’s always room for improvement.
Your experience mirrors ours. The service leaves a lot to be desired if you sit at the tables.
The food was also on the oddly bland side. This was only accentuated by the yoyo server who brought useless cocktail lime wedges when asked for more lime halves to pump up the pho.
A.
We had slow service when we dined in, but it was the day before opening, so we thought it would be worked out over time. I got some food to go once and it was much faster.
Hopefully Nida can take these comments and improve. I’d like to see this place do well, as I love their sushi and drinks. :D
I agree, I’ve been to Nida’s about 10 times now and the service situation is still a struggle. Luckily, I deal with it because I like the food, but I’m sure I’ll be triggered at some point. The service reminds me of that place ROJO that used to be in the old La Fogata space. ROJO’s service was awful and they never quite recovered from the bad reputation for service.
I would say that no matter what you do as a restaurateur that someone is bound to have a bad experience and bad service. North Star seems to have perfected dealing with managing a bad customer experience to me. If you don’t get your meal in 19 minutes, no matter what you get one of those coupons. They couldn’t buy the conversations and advertising those coupons generate. Especially since they are so generous with them.
Nida’s should just own the fact that someone is bound to have bad service and use it as a marketing opportunity. Instead, people are leaving pissed off.
Went to Nida’s for the first time last Friday and I absolutely love it. Very nice decor and vibe. We sat at the bar where the wonderful Viv was tending. I had the Ginger Martini and the Leche (sp?) Martini, both were high caliber. As far as food, I had the Pad Pak with beef. Very simple dish with delicious vegetables. It was tasty and satisfying. All in all I give it ***1/2.
hi folks, just wanted to respond to some of the comments since so many of you have been faithful diners and libation guzzlers.
we recognize that there has been a lapse in service, especially on busy nights such as friday and saturday. we *are* still relatively new and are fervently working on how to improve customer experiences. we’ve been focusing on streamlining workflow and more efficient communication amongst the team. friday night was a learning experience for all of us, and despite on off situations on saturday night (gallery hop), the wait was shorter, there were less gaps in service, and orders (drinks included) were fashionably punctual.
thanks everyone for the encouraging words. i hope we can turn this around and give y’all consistently enjoyable dining (and drinking!) experiences.
Thanks for posting this shmack. ;) It sound like everyone is rooting for Nida’s to do well.
Yay Shmack! I’ll be back :)
Came in last night. Service was GREAT. They’ve been listening :)
I was in Monday for lunch and had excellent service.
We went to Nida’s last night for the first time. We sat at the bar and had no problems with the service. I had the Thai beef salad and an entre and it was about the best I’ve had here in CMH. My partner had the Pad Thai with chicken and shrimp. It had good flavor, but only two shrimp and the pieces of chicken were so large that they had to be cut up before they could be eaten. I also had a Thai coffee martina which was very tasty, especially after the condensed milk had been dissolved in the drink.
Overall, a good new addition to the CMH Thai restaurant choices.
We were back on Wednesday. Service and food both of a much higher order. New sushi chef too, I believe. Alec said the new form of the Dragon Roll was superior.
Well done.
A.
Nida’s Thai on High, an outgrowth of the long-established Nida’s Sushi stall in the North Market, is a narrow space with a modern industrial decor.
The room has a few tables and even fewer booths. A sushi bar highlights the open kitchen.
The mostly Thai main menu includes some Pan-Asian entries; a separate sushi menu is also provided.
READ MORE
Wow, somebody was in a mood.
That doesn’t even strike me as a particularly attentive review. The cocktails are hardly “variations on old standards” — as a big fan of old standards, and someone who’s intimately familiar with Nida’s cocktail menu, I gotta say, I just don’t see the resemblance.
Most of the food items reviewed aren’t ones I usually order, unfortunately, so it’s hard to say more. But phrases like “modern industrial decor” leave me expecting big black gears hanging from the ceiling.