Great Thai Food

First, get this straight., Thai food is not Japanese. it's not Korean, Malaysian, and certainly not Chinese. It is a unique type of food emanating from the ancient kingdom of Thailand. Attempts to label Thai as simply "Asian" will all fail. Thai is one thing. It is Thai.

A good Thai restaurant must be authentic in its decor, ingredients, cooking style, preparation, and presentation. I recently dined at the Thai place downtown. To be absolutely honest, I've had better. But let's go through the matrix and talk about what they do right and where they go wrong.

In terms of decor, Thailand is about muted exoticness. In other words, yes, Thailand is special. Yes, it is an ancient jungle kingdom that now is starting to dominate in high tech. But it is not now and never was "over the top." There has always been an aura of mystery surrounding Thailand. The decor in the restaurant must reflect that. The colors must be different, exotic, appealing, but not garish. I think Thai Kingdom does a good job with this.

Thai Kingdom's ingredients are all fresh (as they should be), and they seem to have the right blends of lemon and coriander, the two most important ingredients in Thai cooking.

Where I have a problem is with the cooking style. Thailand was never known for deep frying everything around. Steam has always been the way the Thai women cook. (Sorry to sound sexist, but in traditional Thai society, women were always the cooks). Thai Kingdom knows that many people just love the taste of anything deep fried, so they compromise on originality (and health) in favor of short term taste.

Their preparation and presentation is fine. Authentic and heart warming. I do recommend you go and draw your own conclusions. but for God's sake, don't just order the deep fried entrees. If you look hard, you will find the ones cooked by steam. Your body will thank you.