Week 1: Pad Thai

Pad Thai
1986 N Hill Field Rd #8

Cuisine: Thai
Entrée price: $8-$16

I got to pick the very first restaurant of our 52. I thought we should start the year off with a little adventure, so I chose something daring: Thai food.


At less than a mile from our house, the Pad Thai restaurant might be the closest to our house of any on our list of 52. It's also one of the smallest, with fewer than twenty tables. It's in a small strip-mall next to two vacant units.

The menu contains a small number of entées, but it makes up for it with a lot of appetizers and salads. Plus, how many Thai entées do I even know about? (The answer is one or two.) I ordered something I'd never heard of: Pad Kra Pow (which is Thai for stir-fry with basil). It had a pepper next to it on the menu, which I assumed to mean it was spicy. I was right. I started to feel a burn by the end of my meal, but nothing like some other Thai food I've had. It came with chicken or pork. I chose the chicken. Most of the meat was ground, which is something I'm used to in beef, but not chicken. It had a lot of bell peppers and onions, but the best part of the dish was the green beans. They were so fresh and so lightly steamed that they were still crunchy. Perfect.

Todd ordered the Thai hot wings. These were pretty much like your typical hot wings, but with what looked to me like curry sauce on top of lettuce and cucumber. He said it was the spiciest dish he'd ever eaten. I tried some of the sauce and I agree that it was very hot. He gobbled the wings down pretty quickly, although he slowed down a bit at the end as the heat intensified. He didn't care for the lettuce and cucumber.

Kenna ordered the fried spring rolls with sweet and sour sauce. She didn't like them, but since she doesn't (yet) like Asian food, I wouldn't have expected her to like them. I tried one and thought the sauce was the good, but the rice paper wasn't as light and crispy as I would have liked.

Brent: 4 stars
Todd: 3 stars
Kenna: 2 stars