Thai Tanic, Washington, D.C.

Hit a happy hour after work, where I got to drink nasty Miller beer in big plastic cups and eat cold chicken nuggets, and ran in to my friend William (the DOE lawyer). He, of course, was drinking high dollar beer out of a glass beer glass, instead of the happy hour common swill. You know how those rich government lawyers are. The bar was also passing out free samples of mango rum. Interesting. Very sweet, very little rum taste.

Eventually, he, two of his friends, and I wandered across the street to Thai Tanic for dinner. Even though the Logan Circle theater district is full of a variety of restaurants, some of which I've not yet tried, we ended up there since William is vegetarian these days. As you can imagine, Thai Tanic features Thai food, and I've had their food a couple of times before via delivery, though this was my first time actually to dine inside the restaurant. It was crowded, since it's a popular and economical place, but somehow, once again, we got seated at the table in the front window. I think I must resemble some celebrity or famous politician or something.

I can't remember all the foods that got ordered, so I'll try to hit the highlights. One guy got a blue lemonade cocktail of some type, which seemed to be a rather weak lemonade with blue curacao and he also reported a bit of a Midori (melon liqueur) taste. William had some little fried spring rolls which looked a bit greasy and resembled Mexican flautas. I had a big plate of green papaya salad, with lots of shreds of papaya, some scallion, something a touch starchy (potato?), red chiles, and lime juice. The salad was spicy, but not really hot-hot (on a scale of mild, medium, hot, and firey, I'd asked for hot), and it was not as good as the papaya and apple version I've had at Malaysia Kopitiam.

When we were ordering, we all had this prolonged discussion with one of William's friends to shame him into ordering something different for a change, instead of the dish he always orders every time he goes to Thai Tanic. He acquiesced to our peer pressure and got something different. But I can't remember what it was. The other friend had what looked to be a plateful of pork-stuffed steamed dumplings. William had a bed of white rice with chunks of fried tofu and some kind of brownish, curry-smelling sauce.

My main course was exquisite. I had grilled catfish served on a mound of green tea-infused rice, all resting in a pool of green curry sauce, and with steamed asparagus and steamed baby carrots drifting in the curry sauce. Aside from a bit of bone which had been missed in the filleting process, the catfish was nicely grilled and had no "muddy" or fishy taste to it. I really loved the green tea rice! It added quite a new dimension to the dish, with the strong flavor of the tea and also a touch of sweetness, and it made the rice a nice, deep green tea color. The carrots had been hand-trimmed, and they didn't use the commercially made "baby" carrots which have become so prevalent in grocery stores and salad bars. The green curry was also nice, and I continue to think Thai green curry is my favorite kind of curry. It's always milky or creamy, and I think that takes some of the harsh edge off the spicings.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll eat again at Thai Tanic. They also have the big advantage of being one of the restaurants where I get triple miles from American Airlines for each dollar I spend there.