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| - They deserve a bigger lunch crowd.
That's the distinct impression after my two visits so far, anyway. Maybe they get good traffic at other times, but I'm just real afraid that a spot like this serving up great food will just get lost in the neighborhood of excellent restaurants that is Spring Mountain. Don't let them quietly into the night.
I was pretty sick the first visit, where I shared some shrimp pad thai and beef red curry with a friend, so I'm mostly discounting that one. However, when I opened up the leftover curry that night, my stuffy nose cleared up for a few shining minutes and I got the full flavor of some delicious curry.
Attempt #2 was today. I was so sad that nobody else was even there when I first arrived, and the chef finally stepped out to the front of the restaurant after a few minutes. I still hadn't decided what to order at that point, but after talking to the chef for a moment, I went with the pad see ew with beef.
Lunch comes with a free appetizer, which happened to be the same as last time for me. It was a small bowl of the house salad with peanut sauce, and a fried chicken and shiitake mushroom with a bit of sweet sauce underneath. The salad is very fresh and the peanut sauce is sweet but not very heavy, and the dumpling was cooked through with a crunchy skin and a pretty soft, ground-up interior. Might've lacked just a touch of salt, but it's good otherwise.
The pad see ew was delightful. I might have had it once or twice before (yeah, need to diversify my Thai repertoire), but this one deserves to be called the best I've eaten so far. Every piece of flat noodle was soft and freshly made, the sauce is balanced between sweet and savory, the Chinese broccoli added a great crunch, and the beef was just plentiful enough. On top of all that, the portion size is a solid lunch value for $6.95, even though it's the same price all day.
I ended up having most of my free-with-Yelp-check-in Thai tea after the meal. It was good and not overly sweet. Make sure to advantage of the check-in offer since it's normally $1.95. And make sure just to come here and try it. They'll also deliver for $15+ orders within 3 miles and serve takeout, but I'll stick to sitting down at a table in their hopefully-not-so-empty-in-the-future room.
Hyphenator, out.
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