Orchid Thai, Albuquerque, NM

Another business trip. By the time I got my luggage and then rented a car at the airport, it was nearly 9 p.m. Albuquerque time, 11 p.m. Washington time. Nevertheless, one of my Albuquerque friends and I went to dinner at Orchid Thai Cuisine on Central Avenue east of the university. My friend is vegetarian, so that kind of limited our options, but Thai places are good eateries for vegetarian foods, since they understand the concepts. In fact, one of the things he ordered, the waitress warned him that it had egg in it, and that's not something the typical American restaurant would have done.

We started with fried tofu for our appetizer. They used firm tofu, cut into long strips, that was then deep fried to a light exterior crunchiness and served with a spicy peanut dipping sauce that was actually quite good. For our main course, we shared gaeng jued woon sen tofu, which was a soup with silver noodles, tofu, mushrooms, baby corn, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and green onion, and gaeng keow wan goong, a green curry with tofu, bamboo shoots, bell pepper, and sweet basil in coconut milk, served over white steamed rice. I loved the curry. It was fiery hot, but the flavor was addictive, and I kept eating more and more!

All of our dishes were presented very artistically and garnished with edible orchids. For dessert, we split a mango ice cream on sticky rice. I liked this restaurant. The food was good, it had just enough Thai art to get the theme across without being kitschy, and the wait staff was pleasant, helpful, and very attentive. If I can find it again, it might be a fun place to go again on a future Albuquerque trip.