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| - Thailicious= delicious! We were excited to try out this new restaurant based on the great reviews. Nestled in the Laguna Village shopping center, it's nice to see another Asian restaurant take over where the previous Szechuan restaurant was. They've remodeled the place, adding color, new seating and tables to create a soothing, contemporary atmosphere with an Asian twist.
The menu is fairly extensive and has all your stand-by favorites such as pad Thai, drunken noodles, and your various forms of curry. They also have some more unique dishes and chef's specialties. I decided on a more pedestrian entree this visit, settling on the chicken red curry, medium spiciness. I also tried some of the tom yum soup and the holy basil chicken.
The tom yum soup was a delicious pungent mix of spices and flavors. It was a great start to our meal. The red curry sauce had an interesting balance of delicate flavor from the coconut milk, with a strong punch of spice and kick from the curry paste itself, and the chiles used for heat. The spiciness level was a perfect medium- just spicy enough to tingle your palate and tongue, but not so spicy that you'd be in pain afterwards (Or drinking gallons of water!). While I enjoyed the sauce and the vegetables in the dish, the chicken in the entree was overcooked and tasted pretty tough. On the other hand, the holy basil was divine. The chicken was tender, cooked perfectly, with a great mix of veggies and flavors.
One bowl of rice comes with the entrees, which I appreciated, but I would have liked to see more rice included because the meager portion wasn't enough to eat with the lovely red curry sauce I had.
We ended the meal with some Thai tea creme brulee. It was a unique twist on a French classic, executed wonderfully. I would definitely order it again!
Service was decent, and waters were refilled as needed.
Overall, a pretty satisfying meal. I'd definitely go here again to try more dishes!
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