The recipes used at Best Thai on Coleman Boulevard in Frisco Square come straight from Thailand family recipes.
“I like to do a lot of cooking still, so I’m always trying to create new items based on the recipes from my family,” said Booney Virattanajun, who co-owns Best Thai with Jess Virattanajun. “We always cook with food from Thailand, including fresh vegetables, good quality meats and Grade A jasmine and brown rice.”
Best Thai has been a family business since the family opened its first restaurant in Dallas in 1996.
One specialty that comes from a family recipe originating in Thailand is the Pad Thai Noodle, which is rice noodles stir-fried with a choice of meat, bean sprouts, eggs and green onions in the Best Thai sweet and sour sauce, topped with peanuts.
The shrimp fried rice ($13) is served with eggs, onions and tomatoes.[/caption]
Other menu items range from soups and salads to traditional Thai dishes, curry dishes and even seafood.
“We specialize in having a variety of choices. I control the menu, and we like to change it about every six months,” Booney said. “We also have a lot of recipes with no meat for our vegan customers.”
Booney credits part of the success in Frisco the past 13 years to the restaurant’s atmosphere.
“We treat customers like family, and we are very family oriented,” she said. “We have a lot of loyal, repeat customers because they feel comfortable when they get here.”
Booney said her son, Jason Boonyaratapan, who got his degree in finance from the University of Texas at Arlington, is primarily responsible for the operation of the Frisco location of Best Thai now, and most customers watched him grow up in the restaurant.
“He really takes care of this location in Frisco Square,” she said. “And a lot of people know him because he grew up in the business.”
Sticky rice with mango ($7) is one of several desserts served at Best Thai.[/caption]
One challenge the restaurant has faced during its years in Frisco Square is parking. However, Booney said Best Thai’s food brought people in during the two to three years when the entire street was closed because of development in the area.
“We were a pioneer in this area,” she said. “We were here first before the stadium and city hall. Developing in Frisco Square began with the stadium’s arrival, so we had to survive through the hard times when construction made it difficult to get here.”
In addition to the restaurant, which is one of six locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Best Thai has a catering business. When Best Thai caters an event or opens a buffet, Booney puts her special touch on the food, and the resulting meal looks like a work of art.
