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lollardfish) wrote2005-11-13 01:09 am
lollardfish) wrote2005-11-13 01:09 am
Chai - No, not the tea. The restaurant
Despite glamour and merriment aplenty last night, Shannon and I decided we needed a date night out. I had planned to go to some nice-ish restaurant and a movie, but stopping in at United Noodles after picking her up from work changed that. We browsed and bought and bought and bought some more. There are neat fried tofu things just waiting to be stuffed with the sweet and spicey chinese "style" sausages (ones without MSG). There are bonito flakes and panko breadcrumbs. There's all sorts of goodness to go into our fish-stock and coconut milk shrimp soup tomorrow (like tom kha. We're going to use a DEADLY PEPPER! from Larry's garden). But then I saw the kim chi. I didn't buy any, but I decided we'd go to the cute little korean place by the Cedar Cultural Center.
Lo! Misery! I walk in and the walls are painted a cheerful fresh yellow. There's a ... door ... rather than the odd plastic curtain thing. The tables and chairs are new. The people are almost stylish. Almost. A lot of them were still folkies. The waitress is a nice young thai woman in black who asks us if we're dining in or taking out. Stall! Stall!
I ask for menus, catch my breath, and realize that the nice old koren couple who ran the old place must have sold the place. This isn't that surprising, as they were old when I first ate there ten years ago. The menu looks nice - some Thai staples, entree prices between 7 and 9 dollars, and so we eat. And my ... we were pleased.
First our food. The perfect combination of bitter and sweet in the thai iced coffee (his) and tea (hers). We ordered a fried crab-avocado roll. It took a bit to get to us, but the kitchen is small and the other table that arrived when we arrived ordered the same thing. It was mild, subtle, flavored with cilantro, and lovely. Then came duck: Roasted duck in ginger with shitakes and bok choy and other glorious things. It was cooked to absolute perfection and the sauce, alone, was worth the modest price (9$ for a healthy serving of duck is good value!). The cellophane noodle seafood extravaganza (I could look up these names as I took a take-out menu) offered, again, perfectly cooked scallops and squid (no easy task) and a few shrimp. The sauce saturated everything without blurring the separate flavors into obscurity. For desert: Bananas fried in a (wonton?) wrapper, served in a big martini glass, on top of some sort of rubbery leaf (perhaps banana?), with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, fudge, and two halved strawberries.
I loved the menu. A lot of thai places offer pages and pages of dishes. Chai (the name of the owner and the restaurant, we were told) had one page for starters, one for soup/salad, one entree, one noodle, 3 curries (green, panang, massaman), and desert/drinks. Each dish seemed fairly well thought out. Some were standard, some a little different. They were all served with this delightful arrangement of carrot and dikon strings.
Nothing was spicy. Now, we didn't order anything spicy. But I'm used to even the non-chili-marked items in Thai places having a little heat, but not so here. That said, they were succulent, and succulent non-spicy Thai food is probably essential for success in Minnesota. I reserve judgement until I go back and try something marked as hot.
So I miss the Korean place. But good, affordable, Thai on the West Bank is a nice addition.
Lo! Misery! I walk in and the walls are painted a cheerful fresh yellow. There's a ... door ... rather than the odd plastic curtain thing. The tables and chairs are new. The people are almost stylish. Almost. A lot of them were still folkies. The waitress is a nice young thai woman in black who asks us if we're dining in or taking out. Stall! Stall!
I ask for menus, catch my breath, and realize that the nice old koren couple who ran the old place must have sold the place. This isn't that surprising, as they were old when I first ate there ten years ago. The menu looks nice - some Thai staples, entree prices between 7 and 9 dollars, and so we eat. And my ... we were pleased.
First our food. The perfect combination of bitter and sweet in the thai iced coffee (his) and tea (hers). We ordered a fried crab-avocado roll. It took a bit to get to us, but the kitchen is small and the other table that arrived when we arrived ordered the same thing. It was mild, subtle, flavored with cilantro, and lovely. Then came duck: Roasted duck in ginger with shitakes and bok choy and other glorious things. It was cooked to absolute perfection and the sauce, alone, was worth the modest price (9$ for a healthy serving of duck is good value!). The cellophane noodle seafood extravaganza (I could look up these names as I took a take-out menu) offered, again, perfectly cooked scallops and squid (no easy task) and a few shrimp. The sauce saturated everything without blurring the separate flavors into obscurity. For desert: Bananas fried in a (wonton?) wrapper, served in a big martini glass, on top of some sort of rubbery leaf (perhaps banana?), with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, fudge, and two halved strawberries.
I loved the menu. A lot of thai places offer pages and pages of dishes. Chai (the name of the owner and the restaurant, we were told) had one page for starters, one for soup/salad, one entree, one noodle, 3 curries (green, panang, massaman), and desert/drinks. Each dish seemed fairly well thought out. Some were standard, some a little different. They were all served with this delightful arrangement of carrot and dikon strings.
Nothing was spicy. Now, we didn't order anything spicy. But I'm used to even the non-chili-marked items in Thai places having a little heat, but not so here. That said, they were succulent, and succulent non-spicy Thai food is probably essential for success in Minnesota. I reserve judgement until I go back and try something marked as hot.
So I miss the Korean place. But good, affordable, Thai on the West Bank is a nice addition.
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The presentation of the food really caught my eye, too. A lot of even quite good Asian places just pile the food on the plate, albeit a bit artfully in general. This place really tried to make things look spiffy too.
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Good idea, though.
The concert starts at 8:00, if I remember the tickets. What time do the Cedar doors open?
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K.
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I was highly amused.
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And reminds me of a restaurant i went to in Chicago once, many years ago. Sadly, i don't remember the name of the place and the only person i know who would (my father) has passed away ...