Fremont Thai

Fremont, which has long billed itself as "the center of the universe," can now truly be said to be the center of the Thai restaurant universe.
I'm working my way through the lot of them, and want to report what I'm finding.
First, though, a question:

In recent years, there has been a very scary thai restaurant at 350 NE 85th St, called the Westside cafe. Scary because the "John," the proprietor, had NO sense for restaurant management or any of it's components. This lack of inforfmation was striking, here, because this guy grew up in a restaurant family, in Thailand, and boy, oh boy, could he cook. The restaurant closed a few months ago, and I have no idea what has become of this talented cook. Does anybody know?

OK, now Freemont:
I have enjoyed the offerings at the Big Orange House with Blue Trim, called something like KaoSaMai, although have not found them extraordinary.
Dao Thai, on the other hand has 2 things going for it: The greatest neon sign on the strip, and the most georgeous wait-staff ever seen. Too bad the food is such a disappointment. The phad thai was pedestrian and gummy, the fresh-rolls were, incomprehensibly, smothered in tastless goo, and the Tom Yum Gai was weak and shallow. It's too bad I won't be seeing that place again...

Am looking for suggestions on Thai in Seattle.

mr.nelso

Mr. Nelso & Fritz -- try Nan Fa Thai on Lake City Way at the intersection of NE 80th & Lake City. Very good and authentic (although a tad inconsistent of late) and really affordable to boot. No fancy exterior, or interior, for that matter. Family run.

[mrnelso]

Thank you Nick. I will report after I (eventually) get up there...
mn

Oh. Is there a chance? Wow.
Your "family run" comment built a fire in me. I have been hoping to reconnect with a delightful famly that once ran a great little asian restaurant in Wallingford, in a former A&W above the old Lincoln High School. At the time, it was inexplicably called something-or-nonsensical-other chinese cuisine, though the folks there appeared Vietnamese to this no-sense honky, but every time I was there I was in the presence of love and great and thoughtful food, and I knew it. I'm surprised the earthquake of my disappointment was not felt states away when I saw a note pimmed to the door that they had moved "to Lake City." I never found them, but you have given me hope. Thank you.
eric

[NickZ]

Unfortunately, Nan Fa has been closed for several years now. Chiang's Gourmet (Chinese) has replaced it. I've heard good things about Chiang's, but have not been there yet.

Keep searching!

Skip Fremont and try Phad Thai in Greenwood; best (not sticky, pink, or sweet) Phad Thai in the city. Lunches, served every day except Wednesday, I think? Anyway, they're cheap and great.

A few weeks ago the Weekly compared 4 Thai spots in Fremont, and concluded, "Dao for best food and tea; Tawon for prettiest space; Kao Samai for the spice hunters; Kwanjai for the best-ever phad see iew." See the link for the full story. I haven't tried any of these myself, and haven't had a favorite Thai place for a few years.

Link: http://seattleweekly.com/features/023...

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, in my opinion The Weekly article is as useless as a Pad Thai made with tomato paste. I stopped reading after this quote:

"The favorite was Rama Garden ($7.50), with thin slices of fried tofu lurking among a crunchy pile of cabbage, snow peas, baby corn, and carrots. The peanut sauce wasn't earth-shattering, just smoothly balanced between heat and sweet. "

Sounds like the author doesn't know much about Thai food, as the description above is not a Thai dish at all--just another "Seattle Thai invention". Oh well. The purist in me has been searching high and low for a real tom yum, fresh som tam and true fish cakes. Alas, it's not too hard to find a good Pad Thai in this city, but the abundance of "swimming something in peanut sauce" has me puzzled how they can call this stuff Thai. I plan to post some preliminary results of my own survey in another few weeks, as my wife and I have been making the rounds of late, like 3 Thai restaurants per week. It's been interesting, starting out as we have with the Thai restaurants of supposed good reputation. So far I can only tell you that the worst has been Siam on Broadway. The food there is so bad, such a violation of every critical element of Thai cuisine, that I have a theory about the reason there are so many Thai restaurants in Seattle. It all started years ago when members of the local Thai community went to Siam on Broadway. They realized right away that the restaurant has horrible Thai food, yet for some amazing reason the place is actually quite busy. One by one, these enterprising customers just knew they could do it better and opened up a place of their own. I do owe Siam on Broadway a thanks for that.

Now c'mon. The tom kha at Siam is really good.

As far as "Big Orange House with Blue Trim, called something like KaoSaMai," that place is truly awful. I was there for a Sunday lunch. There were hardly any customers, and the very grumpy hostess tried to give us this really badly situated table. It was a small table next to a pillar and just stuck in an awkward spot where there should be no table. We asked to be seated at a nicer table. Over the course of the next hour, she tried to seat about 10 parties of two at that crappy table, and every couple objected and asked to be seated elsewhere.

Anyway, they have a bad attitude and their food is terrible.

There's a place right across the street (south side of the street, also in a house) that was pretty good.

Sounds like someone has an axe to grind!

I have always had my choice of available tables, I find the owners and servers very friendly and accommodating, and I think their food is some of the best Thai food I've had outside of Thailand. They had a lunch special of Som Tam this past summer that was outstanding, and when I saw it had been taken off the specials menu and expressed my regret, they made it for me anyway.

I suspect you got what you gave.

Axe to grind? That's ridiculous. I don't know anyone even remotely connected with the place! I've only been there once in the hopes of having an enjoyable, tasty lunch, for goodness sake. The food was bad and the service was exactly as described. I don't see how it could possibly reflect on me personally that couple after couple coming in and asking not to be seated at a certain bad table. I merely observed it from across the room.

Thanks in advance to you and your wife for personally taking on a thorough review of Seattle's many Thai restaurants. I have always wanted to eat just once at every Thai restaurant from Sea-Tac to North Seattle, trying at each place a bowl of their Tom Kha Gai, and a curry dish. Do let us know what you discover!

On the topic of Siam on Broadway, like the other poster on this thread, I also really enjoy their Tom Kha Gai. I look forward to your finding a better handling of this dish....sometimes a bowl of Siam's soup is all that will sate my daughter and myself, so I genuinely look forward to an even more savory soup.

Hi OlyJane,

Thanks for your message. I hope some of the information we gather about Thai restaurants in the Seattle/Bellevue area will be useful. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I are big Tom Kha Gai fans :( My wife says that coconut milk is the one Thai ingredient that's very fattening, so she eats everything *but* tom kha. Based on my understanding, it's a fairly simple combo of canned coconut milk, stock, fish sauce, galanga, peppers, lime leaf, chicken. Maybe Siam Broadway specializes in that dish, I can't say because we didn't try it. From what I have heard (heresay) from my wife's friends is that there aren't any Thai restaurants in Seattle that have a good well-rounded menu of tasty dishes. Instead you can find a certain restaurant with a specialty like radna, and everything else is sub-par American-Thai swimming in peanut stuff. I must say that so far this seems to be true. Like we noted the Pad Thai at Thai Ginger was fantastic, but their tom yum was not good. At Typhoon (which bills itself as "The Art Of Thai Cuisine") we had the very best som tam ever found in this area, but their tom yum was so horrible, almost as bad as Siam Broadway, and their pad Thai was full of sticky broken gooey noodles and the flavor was off (and other problems). Still we persevere and continue the search. So I'll post some results after we've tried a larger number of restaurants. We've been pretty methodical in our breakdown of how each dish tastes, etc. My wife has a great nose and taste buds, and I'm fairly experienced with Thai food myself, so I think our findings will be accurate. If anyone can suggest some good Thai places in the area that would be appreciated.

"My wife has a great nose and taste buds, and I'm fairly experienced with Thai food myself, so I think our findings will be accurate."

I wonder if you know how this sounds, Fritz. Just by the act of reading and/or posting on Chowhound, most people here are a lot more inquisitive about food than the average bear, and many are quite knowledgeable in certain areas. I don't see anything from your postings that give you an edge. As for tom yum, you dismiss it as "a fairly simple combo." Compared to what? Try 20 tom yums side by side and each one will be different.

Hi. About the tastebuds, what I meant is that Thai cooks always cook by taste, not recipe and measuring cups. This is a common remark among Thai cooks. So I find that my wife will slowly draw three spoonfulls of tom yum and think and say "it's got too much lime, not enough of this or that" and there will be a diagnosis of how it's prepared. You are right that a Chowhound will know a lot of those things, but having grown up in Thailand I think my wife might be quite useful in identifying what places in Seattle make the real thing. She has infinitely more insight than I do, and I lived there for several years and go back often. Also I had mentioned tom kha, the soup that's heavy with coconut milk, as being fairly simple. Your response mentioned that I said tom yum is simple, but that is not what I said, and I think tom yum is more complicated than tom kha. But that's a silly thing to argue about anyway so let's have some fun instead.