Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Last night Leo had had such a busy day at the office he was too tired to go to the gym and I was hungry after a full day of sitting at a desk with no lunch break, so we decided to head out to an early dinner at Thai Place, our West End/Foggy Bottom neighborhood place. It was a good choice, since I'm being vegetarian for Lent and Leo is doing a no-carbohydrate Atkins diet right now.

A lot of people say that Thai Phoon and Thai Tannic are the best Thai restaurants in town, but we've always been happy with Thai Place. Not only do they have food which seems to be just as good as the more popular places, they have the extra advantage of being very inexpensive. So, off we went, and, even though it was a Friday night, we were there earlier enough we didn't have a problem getting a table. Thai Place has been getting very popular these days, especially since they've added an upstairs dining room where I understand they have a sushi bar—I've yet to be up there.

After our personable waitress brought Leo his Diet Coke and me my hot jasmine tea (I gave up alcohol, too!), she discussed the menu and took our orders. Leo started with a shrimp tom yum soup, which had lots of tail-on shrimp and small mushrooms in a clear lemongrass soup broth with herbs and a hint of pepper spice. For his main course, he took advantage of the new sushi bar and ordered an assortment of sashimi. I chose from the vegetarian menu and selected the panang tofu with a bowl of steamed white rice. My panang tofu was a huge serving of fried cubes of firm tofu and steamed brocoli florets in a panang curry sweetened with coconut milk; a big sprig of basil garnished the top of the food. I thought it quite tasty, though it was almost more than I could eat by myself. The only problem with coconut milk-sweetened foods is that I'm not a great fan of sweet entrees, so it would have been nice to have had a second entree to be able to split with someone else; perhaps another trip.

The nice thing about last night's dinner was the price—where else in D.C. could you get a nice, sit-down, Friday night dinner for just $10 (well, $11....I thought the waitress was sweet, so I over tipped).