Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Thai Orchid

Wrapping up the weekend still.... we tried Thai Orchid finally. WIBIA just this morning reviewed another of Indy's Thai restaurants. Siam Square is still solidly in the lead position for my favorite local Thai place, but it was good to try something new.


Thai Orchid is an attractive restaurant, though it shares a wall with a fireworks shop. So, I assume it could get explosive over there. The wait staff is attentive and they all help out regardless of table assignment. To get a gauge of the place, the better half and I tried a curry and also the pad thai. Pretty standard fare, but I am a curry fanatic, so I have to give that a try at any new Thai place.

You start with a small dish of salad/slaw. It is in a perky rice vinegar dressing with crushed peanuts. Very tasty.


We got the red curry with chicken at medium-hot, and the pad thai also at medium hot. They offer 3 other levels higher than medium hot, and I found this heat level was barely registering. With the red curry, it was a very tasty broth, good balance of flavors, nice amount of chicken, and a good serving size. A very good curry, but not quite to the richness level that I most admire from Siam Square.


For the pad thai, it seemed overly sweet, and it also seemed like the amount of fish sauce was out of proportion with the dish. I don't rate noodle dishes exceptionally highly in general, but this was lower on the quality scale compared to most pad thai offerings in town. I also did not notice egg on this pad thai dish. I find that neither distressing nor pleasing, but... just noticeable. For Pad Thai, while not my favorite, I find the favorite offering to be from Jasmine on 96th.


The verdict: 3.5 belly rubs (out of 5). Good value and service, plenty of food, nice curry, a bit off on the pad thai.

While on this topic, I'll note my overall favorite Thai restaurants.
1. Siam Square
2.
3.
4. tied: Thai Orchid and Jasmine Thai
5. Sawasdee

I just feel like Siam Square is so much better than the others, I need to build a buffer there and hope for more competition.

2 comments:

wibia said...

The pics actually look pretty good. Clean and fresh.... Looks almost too sterile! Btw, thanks for the link love.

wibia said...

The pics actually look pretty good. Clean and fresh.... Looks almost too sterile! Btw, thanks for the link love.