9Zaab Thai Street Food

"9Zaab in East Cambridge is one of our favorite Thai restaurants in the city, thanks to a beef boat noodle soup that we would eat pretty much every day without complaint. The menu doesn’t initially appear to be especially cheap (that boat noodle soup is $15.95). But this is the only restaurant we know of where, if you spend at least $60, you get to spin a Price Is Right style wheel hanging on the wall with a chance to win 15% off your bill, free dessert, or additional entrees that would otherwise cost up to $16. Come here with a group, have some outstanding noodles, and then get some free stuff." - dan secatore

"9Zaab offers many different Thai dishes, including a number of great soups. In the mood for rice? Try the khao tom Thai rice soup. For an egg noodle soup, order ba mee moo dang, and for rice noodles, try the boat noodle soup." - Karen Wilber

"9Zaab, located in East Cambridge, is one of a growing number of Boston-area Thai restaurants that have broken away from the longstanding Thai-food-in-America playbook, realizing that plenty of non-Thai diners are happy to go beyond the usual pad thai, drunken noodles, and such. At 9Zaab, the specialty is street food, especially rice dishes such as khao mun gai, khao moo dang, and khao na ped. The sai ua (Northern Thai sausage), yum nam tok (“waterfall” beef salad), and laab zaab mama (spicy ground meat with instant noodles) are in my usual rotation. 9Zaab is a suitable spot for dining in — it’s spacious and decorated nicely — but it’s also a reliable delivery option, one I’ve enjoyed many times in 2019. —RLB" - Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Terrence Doyle

"9zaab is a tiny Thai street noodle place in East Cambridge. There might be more people depicted in the life-size mural on the wall than can fit inside the restaurant itself. It doesn’t have a liquor license yet, but what it does have is food that’s so good you might go for lunch and then put on glasses and a fake mustache to go again for dinner. The savory and sweet broth in the beef boat noodle soup will make you sad for other broths that don’t contribute as much to society, and the sweet Chinese sausage in the khao na gai is as good an advertisement for pork as you can find. 9zaab is casual and very affordable, especially since, if you spend $60 or more, you get to spin a Price Is Right-style wheel for the chance to win 15% off your meal." - Dan Secatore

"Three-year-old East Cambridge Thai restaurant Pandan Leaf (569 Cambridge St.) is no more, but its owners have replaced it with a new Thai restaurant, 9Zaab, with a focus on Thai street foods (and an attractive renovation). The pivot away from the ubiquitous Thai-American build-your-own-curry type of a menu and into more of a street food focus is probably a smart one; relatively new Thai restaurants like Dakzen and Kor Tor Mor have been finding eager fan bases for their street food-inspired menus." - Rachel Leah Blumenthal