When you live in NYC, you get spoiled for all the food options that this wonderful city provides. You really feel it when you go out of the town, to more suburban area. When we were traveling through Massachusetts a couple of months ago, we were looking for Thai food. After some searches, we found this restaurant that came with high rating. Now, it says “Malaysian, Thai and Japanese Cuisine” which usually is not a good sign to me. When they are not specialized in one type of cuisine, then that means they are not really authentic. But hey, why not give them a try, maybe I get a pleasant surprise.
The inside was a good space and bright with natural light coming in from large windows. We arrived shortly after they opened, so it was empty. It did get a bit crowded within 30 min or so, seems like it is a popular place among the locals. A good thing about a restaurant outside the NYC, in a rural area is that they don’t put tables on top of each other, so there is good amount of space between tables. I really appreciate that!
We started off with a pot of Jasmine Tea ($1.75). They do not offer free refill, but it was a good amount of tea to share between the two of us. The pot was cute, the back side had some writings on it, and the front had a drawing of kids playing together. I like the little Asian-touch…I thought the pot was pretty adorable.
For food, we ordered Drunken Noodle (Pad Kee Mao) ($7.95/lunch) and Thai Dirty Fried Brown Rice ($7.95/lunch).
Drunken Noodle (Pad Kee Mao) is made with wide flat rice noodle stir fried with chicken, sliced onion, white mushroom, carrot, string bean, and basil leave in thin soya sauce and homemade chili basil paste. It is a bit spicy, but not crazy spicy. It was a generous portion, and good amount of chicken in it too. After having a real authentic Thai food at awesome restaurant called Uncle Boons (you can read about it here: http://www.foodlovergirl.com/uncle-boons/), it is not easy to go back to those typical American-Thai food…just brown noodle or rice dish. They are good though, comforting and I liked the spiciness.
The same can be said about their Thai Dirty Fried Brown Rice. It is made with brown rice stir fried with choice of meat, together with egg, onion, scallion, red bell pepper, and lots of fresh basil in chef’s special Thai chili paste and soya. We went with pork as the choice, and it was ok. Again, the portion was very generous, and had nice kick to it. But then again, it is just another typical, brown-colored rice dish that very familiar brown sauce.
We added one dessert to share, Homemade Eggnog Bread Pudding ($5.25) with caramel rum sauce. The eggnog flavor was a seasonal special. It was a bit smaller than I expected, since bread pudding is usually a bigger sized dessert. It had mountain of whipped cream and caramel rum sauce and cinnamon on top.
It had nice rum flavor from the caramel, and the bread pudding was nice and warm. Filling and comforting. Since we were wanting something sweet after the spicy meal, it really hit the spot. It would’ve been nice if it came with a scoop of ice cream, but I guess we always want something more…
Since we visited during the Holiday season, they were in the Holiday spirit for sure. They had festive decoration everywhere, including inside the bathroom. The bathroom was roomy and clean, and I liked all the seasonal decorations, especially the mini Christmas tree.
The Holiday spirit didn’t end there. I actually don’t know if this is only during the Holiday season or they do this all-year-round, but the end of the pen had Poinsettia attached to it (taped onto the pen). It was very fun and festive for sure. Certainly makes you smile or laugh when you pick it up.
The staffs were really nice, even though they have thick accent and we had a very slight problem communicating, but they were polite and helpful. If you like those typical, more Americanized version of Thai food, they do offer generous amount of those at good, affordable price. For, me, after discovering what a real Thai food is and can be, I am no longer a huge fan of these type of dishes, but they were still really good and comforting.
Crystal’s Kitchen – 4 S Main St, West Bridgewater, MA 02379