Thai Spoons

Thai Spoons was very close to the hotel, so we ate dinner there after I got in. The place was pretty deserted, but pick-up orders became popular toward the end of our meal. There was a credit card minimum so we ordered an appetizer - which ended up being the best part of the meal. The Thai Shrimp Rolls were simple: fried shrimp in rice paper. But the "sweet & sour chili sauce" with which it was served made a great accompaniment. I had pad thai, no peanuts. The fried tofu in it tasted like egg, and the chicken was kinda strange. It also lacked a sweet flavor, and I'm not even sure I ate half of it. Jonathan had curry. He didn't finish it, but didn't take it home, either.

New Plum Tree Garden & Lemonleaf Grill

Well, we finally found the Asian place near us that's really good. It took almost 11 months, but it's probably safe to say that any and all Chinese we get from here on out will be from New Plum Tree Garden in Langhorne. They also have a Thai menu, and it was pretty good too, but we already have a Thai place, hehe. (No website, but the menu is online.)

We called in an order for pickup, and it was ready when we got there, so that's a big plus. I ordered one of the chef's specialties, the Shrimp Amazing. It had really large shrimp and a variety of vegetables, cooked in a Peking sauce that was slightly spicy with a great flavor. It came with white rice, and the overall dish really lived up to its name! Jonathan went for the Thai side, and had Khao Pahd Supparot. It's a coconut & pineapple fried rice with chicken, peanuts, and fried onions. He thought it was kinda different, not overly strong in flavor, and very good.

For an appetizer we got two shrimp egg rolls, which were a tad over-wrapped (if that makes sense), but otherwise very good. The shrimp were plentiful and the overall flavors were balanced nicely. We also got the gang sarong, which were deep-fried shrimp wrapped in thin, crispy noodles. They were okay... not worth the price, but the sauce with which they were served was fantastic.

Royal Thai

In my second class on the very first day of ninth grade, I met a boy named Alan. He was new to our 6-12 school, and the only person he knew was one of my best friends at the time. So, we had lunch together that day, and became good friends (we had 4-6 classes together each year), and we've kept in touch through the years. He lives in Georgia now, but whenever we're in Florida, I try to ask him if he'll be around (he has family there). Luckily enough, he was in Orlando for a conference while we were in Melbourne for a week, so we made dinner plans one night.

We met at Royal Thai (off Semoran Blvd.), and it was great to catch up for a while. We were also very impressed with the Thai food! Jonathan and Alan both had the panang curry, while I went with "drunken noodles." It was chicken and shrimp in flat rice noodles with vegetables and chili sauce. It wasn't fantastic, but it was good. The entire place smelled wonderful, and the prices were very reasonable. Both boys thought the panang was really good, although it looked very typical to me. It was different, however, that the meal was served on a plate instead of in a bowl, and that the rice was scooped out of a big pot by the server instead of giving each person a small plate of it. We all decided that it was pretty good and we'd go there again. It was a shame we only got to see Alan for about an hour, but I'll take an hour every three years over nothing! :)

Oishi Restaurant

Yes, we've been dining out a lot lately. It seems that since the snow has stopped, everyone has come back to life and our social calendar is filling up again. But, when we're introduced to fantastic little places like Oishi, it becomes apparent how wonderful evenings dining out with friends are.

Bryan & Emily suggested we all go for sushi, and Oishi is a place that they've discovered in Newtown. It's incredibly popular with the locals, and even with a reservation we had to wait twenty minutes or so for a table. Service is prompt and friendly, and there's no sense of urgency once you're seated, which is good.

It's a BYOB place (many restaurants in PA are, because of the strict liquor laws), and it's the first time that Jonathan and I actually did bring in our own wine. We had picked up some Fu-Ki Plum Wine at one of our local liquor stores, and it was delicious. We also have tried the cherry flavor... I don't care for it but Jonathan does.

We started off with the Tartar Tuna, since that's a dish we liked a lot in Cali. But, it was very different here, and I'm not at all convinced it was worth $10 (aside from the very generous serving of caviar on top). It wasn't blended like tartars in Cali were... instead it was arranged in a little cylindrical tower with mango. It was okay, I wouldn't get it again. The photo is impressive. Bryan and Emily had some edamame, which was served warm and salted here, unlike at Mirim. Jonathan liked it, too.
The entrees came with soup or salad, and I was the only one who went with the salad. And that was the wrong choice, LoL. The dressing was heavy and hard to define. I'm still not quite sure what it was, but I know I'd never get it again (which is odd for me to say... rarely do I meet a dressing that peculiar). Everyone else thought the soup was very good, a miso-mushroom mix.

They went for the sweet potato roll, Jonathan and I had a salmon roll. The sweet potato roll has tempura inside, which was new. Jonathan tried it, I passed. Rave reviews. The salmon roll was very fresh and quite delicious.

Jonathan had Thai Green Curry, which was a variety that I had never seen before. They use different peppers to make it green, apparently. He thought it was bland, and didn't seem to enjoy it as much as he might if it was red curry. Bryan went with a bento box-type meal, and seemed to enjoy it all very much. I really liked the shape of the dish, it was large with three domes dug out for the items, neat!

Emily had a sushi platter, and I went with Chirashi (fish on top of a pile of rice, as opposed to each piece of fish on a little pad of rice). It was my first time having octopus, but the rest were all fish I knew. Octopus tastes exactly like you might expect... chewy like calamari, and there are some sucker-like pieces on it. The white tuna was divine. I'm talking like top 3 white tunas I've ever had. The whitefish was also delectable, and that's coming from a person who generally giver her whitefish to her husband, LoL. I thought that the salmon was average (three pieces of regular and three pieces with WAY too much roe), and so was the tuna. Emily had many of the same fish (no octopus tho, she had clam instead, which she was was very chewy), and also a California roll (with crab, FL folks).

If/when we go back, I'd probably get a more specialized dish (chirashi is very generic, in my opinion), and certainly the soup instead of the salad. Actually, they have a lot of noodle dishes, so I kinda wanna go back to get a feel for their non-raw stuff, LoL.

Amy's Birthday: Thai for Dinner

We found a great little Thai place for my *real* birthday dinner. I discovered it by searching Yelp for pad thai in our area. Two good reviews came back from Concerto Fusion in Morrisville (which is pretty much the same place as Yardley... the boundary is impossible to locate), and the menu looked good on their website, so we went for it.

We ended up not arriving until almost eight o'clock, and despite the fact that it was open until 10pm, we had the restaurant to ourselves after the first ten minutes or so. The ambiance is absolutely beautiful, and I'd definitely recommend wandering in just to see the lighting, waterfalls, glass, fish, and everything. The tables were very nice, but the height is a bit awkward -- there was probably only an inch of space between our legs and the bottom of the table, making the smallest gesture like putting a napkin in your lap rather difficult.

We started with a red dragon roll, which is eel, cucumber, and avocado, topped with tuna and tobiko. It was pretty good, but the eel was actually too fresh for me (aka it was still warm from having just been cooked). There are a lot of sushi specials, and we're planning to go back some Thursday when they run sushi specials during happy hour.

I went with the pad thai, of course. Prawns with no peanuts and extra lime (but I still could have had more lime than the extra I was given). I was slightly concerned initially since it had the spiciest indication on the entire menu, but it was the same as usual pad thai, so nothing to worry about. It was delicious, definitely in the top 3 pad thai dishes I've ever had. A great mix of sweet and spice, and even the tofu had good flavor. Jonathan ordered the General Tso's Chicken with brown rice.  It was a perfect flavor, plentiful in portion, and came with really green broccoli. Jonathan finished his meal, but I had a great lunch the next day with the leftovers. I really can't emphasize enough how wonderful the meals were... I can't wait to go back and try other dishes there... and the whole thing was just so pretty!

Osaka Restaurant

...and the quest for good Asian food in Pennsylvania continues! We were out running errands on a Saturday, and were over in Mount Laurel, NJ with a craving for Thai. The internet seemed to suggest Osaka Restaurant in that area, so we drove over there.

Nope. bad place. don't go there. in fact, make sure you know NOT to go there, it was horrible.

It started out fine... we were one of two tables, but it was 1:30, so late for lunch. The decor was nice, and there was a sushi bar. We ordered a simple tuna roll for an appetizer, and the tuna was a bit old. I had strange wonton soup, Jonathan had average egg drop soup. The crunchies (I don't know what they're really called... you know... the cracker-like snacks they give you) were homemade, but a bit greasy. But even at this point, they could have turned around our impression... too bad they didn't...

I ordered Chicken Chow Mein, Jonathan ordered Penang Chicken. Mine was very Moo Goo Gai Pan; we're not sure what his was. Mine had NO NOODLES, and a strange sauce. His was not curry at all, but rather a lightly-spicy chicken with peppers. Neither of us were impressed. It was also not even ten minutes after we left the place that I had to find a restroom, if you get my drift. Boo to this place... spread the word that it's bad.

Bad Night for Thai

Jonathan and I were in Florida for a few days. Six of us went to Thai Thai II on Beachside, only to be treated like dirt (in the past we've had top-notch service at all three of the local Thai Thai restaurants). We waited for more than half an hour as other patrons came after us and were seated before us. We were finally offered a plastic picnic table that they would drag inside for us to sit in the foyer of the restaurant, and when questioned about their choices, they gave us the run-around. We left, and headed over to Siam Orchid. It was okay, not the best... but we didn't have our favorite server, and the place was getting ready to close. We also had to switch tables, but I won't get into that.

Bangkok Spoon

On a Sunday afternoon, we went downtown and tried Bangkok Spoon. It was an interesting place. The decor was really neat. The server was the most American Asian guy we've had in California. He spoke like a New York Pizzeria owner, and was pretty friendly.


Jonathan had the Panang Curry, with chicken and rice. He enjoyed it quite a bit. I had the Bangkok Spoon Clay Pot, a house specialty. I didn't care for it, though Jonathan liked it quite a bit when he tried it. The glass noodles were really sticky and sweet, and the bits of bacon were strange. Prawns and cilantro rounded out the dish, which I just couldn't get into. I took home leftovers, but they didn't get eaten and had to be thrown out in the end.


Overall, I enjoyed the place for its decor and staff, but didn't care too much for my dish. I don't really think I'd go back, mainly since the pad thai (the safety Thai dish, let's not lie) has tofu in it, and that's just not gonna fly with me. It was also a bit pricey for lunch, but not disturbingly expensive.

Valentine's Day: Thai Food

We really had no specific hankerings for dinner, so we just walked downtown and let our noses be the guide. We were between a Thai place and an Italian place, and Thai won. King of Krung Siam was the name of the place, and it was decently crowded. We were sat immediately (it was a little after 8pm), and water was served. I had only read through the appetizers and salads when the waiter came to take our order, so we had to ask for a few more minutes. The entrees spanned several pages, so I flipped through to see the categories. I read through noodles and rice dishes and hadn't even gotten to three pages of options when the waiter came around again. Now, those who know me well know that I read the entire menu every time I go out to eat, unless I go there often and know what I want (like the tuna melt pita and Greek fries at Pitaria. that's all I ever get there). So while I was a bit frustrated, I realized that it was Valentine's Day so the guy could be doing his best if it's been packed all day. So, we went ahead and ordered - Chicken & Pork Satay as an appetizer, I ordered Chicken Pad Thai (no peanuts), and Jonathan ordered the Red Curry with Chicken and a side of steamed rice.

There were chicken, pork, and beef options for the satay, and while we ordered a chicken/pork combo, the plate we were served was all chicken. They were delicious though... marinated overnight in a slightly sweet and slightly sticky sauce. There was peanut sauce on the side, and chopped vegetables (cucumber, peppers, onions) in a light sauce as another side. The vegetables were great with the satay (aka chicken on a stick), and Jonathan said it was a good peanut sauce. The only downfall was that they were brought out WITH the meal, instead of first (and the table behind us got their spring roll appetizer quite a bit sooner than their meals). Jonathan enjoyed his curry, noting that it was hotter than the pa-nang he had the last time we got Thai. The taste was too coconutty for me. I was very unimpressed with my pad thai, and will note it as the worst I have ever had (and I've gotten it fast-food style before!). First, the bean sprouts were very long and not mixed in. Second, besides the noodles, there were only a few green onions, a bunch of carrots, and a minuscule amount of (cubed and unflavored) chicken. I tried to make the most of it, but there were two other (big) problems. One, there were no chopsticks. Not one table in the restaurant had chopsticks! So, I had to eat with a fork, which I really hate to do for certain foods, pad thai included. Second, the wedge of lime was very small. Now, I usually ask for extra limes (I probably use the equivalent of a whole small lime if given the chance), so this isn't a big deal. BUT, when I asked the server for extra limes, he repeated "limes?" as if he didn't know what it was. So I pointed to the lime on my plate and reiterated my request. He seemed to understand.... but brought my back two LEMON SLICES instead of LIME WEDGES. Now, the funny part is that in many countries (like Bangladesh), the word for lemon and lime is the same, even though they have both fruits. But I pointed to a very GREEN lime, so I have no idea what happened. Anyway, I didn't eat very much of the meal, for the reasons all mentioned already.

While our water was refilled regularly for the first half of dinner, we were ignored for a good twenty-five minutes when we were ready for the check. Eventually Jonathan had to get up and go request that our check be brought so we could pay and leave. Needless to say, we only gave a 10% tip.

Amarin Thai

For my birthday, Jonathan arranged for a few work friends to join us for lunch at Amarin Thai Cuisine in downtown Mountain View. I was excited, as it was our first Thai in California, and that's one of my favorites. We arrived about ten minutes early, and while I was hoping for one of their tables that's on the floor with cushions, it seems those are only available during dinner. We did get a large table though, and it was nice that Andrew & Kit and Vanessa & Emmanuel were able to join us. Jonathan had some chicken pa-nang curry (a reddish-brown kind), with basil and I had the grilled scallop with garlic, cilantro, onion, two kinds of peppers, and corn. It was in a tasty marinade sauce, and we both enjoyed the white rice that it came with. Everyone else at the table also got various kinds of curry, except Emmanuel, who had the mango chicken special. My scallops were delicious, but the vegetables were a little odd (too heavy on the corn). Jonathan enjoyed his curry, and is looking forward to trying other varieties while we were there. Overall, though, I don't think we'll be heading back to this Thai place, when you consider the many other possibilities there are here! Vanessa and Emmanuel had been there before and weren't impressed with their pad thai. And if you don't have good pad thai, you can't be a good Thai place, in my opinion.