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| - PROS: Americanized Thai food that's edible...in PARMA. Pretty large servings. Decent-sized, airy interior, good for groups. Cute, mod decor. (I'm a sucker for colorful lamps, soft light and dark wood paneling.)
CONS: Food ranging from sub-par to very mediocre at best. Spotty follow-up on the part of the wait service, even when the place is practically deserted.
AMBIANCE: Casual fine dining. Intimate/romantic and classy but not imposingly ritzy.
SECRET AWESOME DISCOVERY: Mixing in a side of udon with the duck choo chee dish=amazing marriage of texture and flavor.
...
Wow. Why are the ratings for this place as inflated as Pam Anderson's tits?
The ratings for this place are waaaaaay too high. Even 3 stars is being generous--it's really 2 stars in my experience with Thai food, but (not to continue the broken record of my fellow Yelpers) it's Parma for chrissakes. That there's Thai food in Parma is a notable feat in itself. Hence the extra star.
Dinner for two:
Appetizer: soft shell crab tempura
Entrees: Country Pad Thai and Duck Choo Chee with udon as side
Extra side: jasmine rice
The appetizer was probably our least favorite. Unless you're a huge fan of soft shell crab or chomping through soft shells and savoring a fishy taste, you can safely pass on this palette teaser. The mango salsa was syrupy but decent. Could've been turned up a notch by switching out the iceberg lettuce for something more textured and fragrant like arugula, frisee, lollo rosa, or even just some chard or romaine to counter the sugar of the mango and the fishy-ness of the crab. Another thing that threw me off was that it was only one huge piece of fried crab, cut in half. I was expecting finger-food-type strips of tempura crab, not one crab, halved. So definitely not something to order for a party of more than 2 people.
The Country Pad Thai was decent but on the bland side and not spicy at all (yikes). We literally couldn't take another bite till the waiter came to our rescue with some authentically strong, chili flake sauce. The dish came with shrimp (with shells on), unwieldy, slab-like chicken breast slices,overly dried out fried tofu cubes, plenty of green onions (which I liked), and a small slice of lime to add some much-needed zest to the dish. Could've been vastly improved with more spice, lime juice, bean sprouts and crushed peanuts/peanut sauce--all of which were so sparingly used that I honestly thought they had omitted them entirely.
And finally, the Duck Choo Chee was better, taste-wise, but overboard on the coconut milk. The sauce, in which soggy-skinned fatty duck morsels, bell peppers, and carrots were swimming, must have been at least 85% pure coconut milk. Everything was tasty, creamy, and overwhelmingly coconut-y--which may be a good thing, if you're really into coconut. Our side of plain and dry udon--which we'd expected to come in soup as it's traditionally served--turned out to be the best addition to the coconutty dish. Mixed in the sauce, the thick, textured Japanese noodles offered a nice counterbalance to the creaminess without absorbing the sauce too much. Try it! You'll agree.
If this place is capable of making anything slightly authentic or good, it might be available off-menu via direct orders with the chef. Till I find a way to get in on that super secret off-menu selection, I'd rather go hungry than come back, next time an Asian food craving hits me in Parma.
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