Sunday, June 29, 2008

ThaiPhoon, Washington, D.C.

Last night, Ian wanted Thai food for dinner. I like Thai, but I wanted to go someplace different where we'd not been before. So, Ian decided we should go to ThaiPhoon in Dupont Circle.

Now, if this restaurant name is familiar to you readers, that's because there's a ThaiPhoon in Pentagon Row where we've dined multiple times over the years. This is actually a small chain, with the two ThaiPhoons plus two more Thai places called Mai Thai, one downtown and the other in Alexandria. I had never made it to the Dupont location, though, and I'm glad to finally make it there, since I think their food and execution is better at Dupont than at Pentagon Row.

tomkagaiI started with the tom ka gai, the traditional Thai soup of chicken in coconut milk with lemongrass and mushrooms. Their version was very tasty. Ian wanted the curry puffs, but they were not able to make them for him without the ground meat, so he passed on them.

We weren't very adventurous in picking our main courses. Ian got one of his usual dishes, the pad pik khing. It's an interesting stir-fry of long green beans and chicken in a red curry paste. It came with steamed white rice. He said it was good.

padpikkhing

I got the drunken noodles. I've never quite figured out why this dish is called "drunken" noodles, since there is no alcohol in it. I remember a waitress at another restaurant once told me it was because the cook was drunk once and threw everything into the pot. So much for apocryphal stories. Anyway, the dish is made with wide rice noodles in a red curry with chicken, garlic, onions, basil, and tomatoes, plus some red and green bell peppers and a whole lot of deceptively sliced jalapeño peppers. When the menu indicated this was a "three fire" dish, they weren't kidding!

drunkennoodles

We opted not to get dessert, since Ian said he didn't want any.

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