Pam Real Thai

After a long day outlet shopping, FS, DLS and I were starrrrrrrrving. We made the joint decision to finally try Thai in Hell’s Kitchen – I forget if FS had been to a Thai place in the area previously, but DLS and I had talked about trying one in the area, just hadn’t gotten around to it. (Okay, in all fairness, he really wanted to go to Room Service one night, but I was so grumpy and cranky from eating too much Asian food – yes, there is such a thing! – that I insisted we go elsewhere, and wound up at 44 SW, with a mediocre meal.)

Our first order of business: three Thai iced teas, please!  Creamy, cold, and delicious, not a complaint about these.

Our first dish, green papaya salad, came quickly, which was good because I think we were just about to attack each other and eat the loser. Plenty of peanuts, and not overwhelmingly spicy as I’ve had some green papaya salads in the past, I found this refreshing and really good.

Our next appetizer was fried tofu. I find myself quite adept at making really good fried tofu, and found this really good but something I wouldn’t order again for the sole reason that it wasn’t that interesting.

We also ordered a duck salad with pineapple and cilantro. I felt that this dish should have been served with rice, as at times it bordered on way too salty – and I love my salt! – but mostly, it was very tasty, especially with pineapple.  Yum.

We also ordered a special – the crab fried rice, which I was delighted to find had whole chunks of real, fresh, delicious crab in it – and not skimpy, either – while the rice was dry enough to have that fluffy, perfectly fried feel to it.  I very much enjoyed each bite of this fried rice.

Last of our savory dishes, but certainly not least, was our seafood pad thai – which, as you can see, had squid, shrimp, and other assorted bits of seafood throughout. While this tended on the slightly gloppy, sweet side, it was perfectly serviceable and I had no qualms eating it – nor would I object to ordering this again.

For dessert, FS was pretty excited when they had mango ice cream over sticky rice. She asked the server several times to make sure there was no coconut (because of my allergy), but I think there was a miscommunication as, when it arrived, it was very clearly coconut sticky rice on the bottom. Unfortunate, because I really wanted to try it after hearing FS and DLS both rave about this type of dessert… but the server felt awful when she discovered that I couldn’t eat the rice and insisted that she bring me a mango ice cream on its own. I thought this was really thoughtful of them – and unnecessary, as I was stuffed to the gills by this point anyway – but I appreciated the gesture never the less. I could tell she felt sincerely sorry about it, but eh, the sticky rice is made with coconut milk, so they couldn’t just give me the dessert without coconut in it.  Ah well. It didn’t affect my meal negatively!

Yvo says: Overall, we were all very pleased with our meal. Not a dish was disliked, and I know we all agreed that we’d definitely return.  I know FS and DLS were both happy to discover that Pam Real Thai delivers to them via Seamless… lucky butts. I guess I shouldn’t hate, I have an OK local Thai place…
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