JB Garden (Greenwood). It's OK, acceptable quality for the price, as well as the convenience of having another Chinese place in Greenwood. A baked BBQ pork bao, order of 4 shu mai & a hom sui gok is under $4. The shu mai is possibly made on-site.
JB Garden's chow mein is the minimalist dim sum kind, not the fixins-heavy dinner kind. If you want the latter, you go to Mandarin Gate or Yen Wor anyway.
The one thing that could have been better was that everything -- even the 'hot' tea -- could have been much warmer.
No shrimp items.
Cash only.
Tables: 2 sets of 2.
Plastic utensils (forks).
Showing posts with label Foam or Plastic Containers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foam or Plastic Containers. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Monday, July 28, 2008
I think they forgot something
As noted previously, Thai food has a fairly small basic ingredient set. Perhaps the most important of these is basil.
The basic stir fry with basil, peppers, onion and meat is called a kra pao, or on English-speaker-friendly menus, ‘Thai basil.’ I always order it because it's my favorite, but because it's a good dish with which to gauge the quality of a Thai restaurant. It allows me to focus on how well it is prepared, rather than wondering what's in it.
Really, I'm doing them a favor. Thai basil should be foolproof.
Thai Herbs (Downtown), a hole in the wall catering to the office worker demographic, manages to get it wrong. On a recent visit I ordered the beef version of Thai basil. What the cook came up with was acceptable lunch fare, but should more properly be labeled 'beef stir fry.'
It contained only 3 or 4 tiny slivers of basil. I've had more basil in dishes that weren't supposed to have basil in them.
A cheap cut of beef is fine, but it has to be sliced thin -- otherwise it takes too long to cook, and comes out tough.
The vegetables were cooked perfectly, sauteed onion and bell pepper, and green beans still crisp. But because they were not overcooked, it doesn't explain the origin of the extra water in the too-thin sauce. I suspect sauce prepared in advance, instead of created in the wok with the rest of the dish.
There are plenty of Thai restaurants in Seattle charging what Thai Herbs charges, yet they deliver a far superior product.
The basic stir fry with basil, peppers, onion and meat is called a kra pao, or on English-speaker-friendly menus, ‘Thai basil.’ I always order it because it's my favorite, but because it's a good dish with which to gauge the quality of a Thai restaurant. It allows me to focus on how well it is prepared, rather than wondering what's in it.
Really, I'm doing them a favor. Thai basil should be foolproof.
Thai Herbs (Downtown), a hole in the wall catering to the office worker demographic, manages to get it wrong. On a recent visit I ordered the beef version of Thai basil. What the cook came up with was acceptable lunch fare, but should more properly be labeled 'beef stir fry.'
It contained only 3 or 4 tiny slivers of basil. I've had more basil in dishes that weren't supposed to have basil in them.
A cheap cut of beef is fine, but it has to be sliced thin -- otherwise it takes too long to cook, and comes out tough.
The vegetables were cooked perfectly, sauteed onion and bell pepper, and green beans still crisp. But because they were not overcooked, it doesn't explain the origin of the extra water in the too-thin sauce. I suspect sauce prepared in advance, instead of created in the wok with the rest of the dish.
There are plenty of Thai restaurants in Seattle charging what Thai Herbs charges, yet they deliver a far superior product.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Thai Civil War
The reality of many restaurants with ethnic menus is that a lot of the dishes are variations on a core of basic ingredients. The exceptional restaurant knows how to take those basics and vary them in interesting ways. The standard restaurant fails to innovate and just exists in time and space.
A prime example of this contrast is currently on display in a little Thai civil war going on near Pioneer Square. In one corner: upstart Thai 65 (93 Marion, $7.50-$9.50). In the other corner, your returning champion, cube worker fave Mae Phim (94 Columbia, everything $5.99).
These establishments are on opposite sides of the venerable Colman Building (which also houses the two Irish pubs Fadó and Owl & Thistle -- Fadó on First Avenue, Owl on the Post Alley side).
The basic ingredient set for Thai food is rice noodles, the sweet sauce, chilis, a vegetable assortment, meat or tofu, coconut milk (when called for), and BASIL.
Yet in terms of the final product Thai 65 and Mae Phim are light years apart.
Mae Phim (foam takeouts)
I've had a few dishes from Mae Phim (but not the soup), and what stands out is that nothing stands out. It all tastes the same -- and not in a good way. The way it's supposed to taste is stir-fried, but the way Mae Phim does it, it comes out tasting braised.
That is: simmered. As a result the flavor lacks the desired taste accompaniment to the sizzle you hear when Thai food is cooked right.
Other quibbles: too much coconut milk transforms braised into bland; small portions on top of a big pile of rice fools you into thinking you're getting more.
And perhaps the biggest sin -- not spicy enough. On the familiar 1-to-5 stars of Thai hotness, 3 is usually on the fence between medium-hot and almost-too-much. Mae Phim's 3 stars is a 1 everywhere else.
Thai 65 (paper takeouts)
On the other hand, Thai 65 is everything Mae Phim is not (and never was). Take a bite of cashew chicken or kra pao and and there it is -- the stir-fry zip and noticeable differentiation of flavors, even though you know both contain many of those same basic ingredients. The flavors are wok-fresh, whereas Mae Phim smacks of pre-cooking.
Especially good is the orange chicken -- not just sliced chicken in syrup, but breaded white meat, delicately soft on the outside, not hard and crusty. The orange sauce does not overpower.
Finally, a tip: Thai 65's hotness scale has a 1 handicap; a 3 is what every other Thai place calls a 4. So be warned.
Mae Phim est mort. Vive le Thai 65.
A prime example of this contrast is currently on display in a little Thai civil war going on near Pioneer Square. In one corner: upstart Thai 65 (93 Marion, $7.50-$9.50). In the other corner, your returning champion, cube worker fave Mae Phim (94 Columbia, everything $5.99).
These establishments are on opposite sides of the venerable Colman Building (which also houses the two Irish pubs Fadó and Owl & Thistle -- Fadó on First Avenue, Owl on the Post Alley side).
The basic ingredient set for Thai food is rice noodles, the sweet sauce, chilis, a vegetable assortment, meat or tofu, coconut milk (when called for), and BASIL.
Yet in terms of the final product Thai 65 and Mae Phim are light years apart.
Mae Phim (foam takeouts)
I've had a few dishes from Mae Phim (but not the soup), and what stands out is that nothing stands out. It all tastes the same -- and not in a good way. The way it's supposed to taste is stir-fried, but the way Mae Phim does it, it comes out tasting braised.
That is: simmered. As a result the flavor lacks the desired taste accompaniment to the sizzle you hear when Thai food is cooked right.
Other quibbles: too much coconut milk transforms braised into bland; small portions on top of a big pile of rice fools you into thinking you're getting more.
And perhaps the biggest sin -- not spicy enough. On the familiar 1-to-5 stars of Thai hotness, 3 is usually on the fence between medium-hot and almost-too-much. Mae Phim's 3 stars is a 1 everywhere else.
Thai 65 (paper takeouts)
On the other hand, Thai 65 is everything Mae Phim is not (and never was). Take a bite of cashew chicken or kra pao and and there it is -- the stir-fry zip and noticeable differentiation of flavors, even though you know both contain many of those same basic ingredients. The flavors are wok-fresh, whereas Mae Phim smacks of pre-cooking.
Especially good is the orange chicken -- not just sliced chicken in syrup, but breaded white meat, delicately soft on the outside, not hard and crusty. The orange sauce does not overpower.
Finally, a tip: Thai 65's hotness scale has a 1 handicap; a 3 is what every other Thai place calls a 4. So be warned.
Mae Phim est mort. Vive le Thai 65.
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