Thai Place, Washington, D.C.

Before running off to the opera last Friday, my friend Richard and I started the evening with supper at Thai Place. That is kind of an odd place for us to pick for a pre-opera dinner, but there was some method to our madness. While a fine repast at Russia House would have been appropriate before a Tchaikovsky opera, it's way up on north Dupont Circle, and what with a 7:30 p.m. curtain, we would have had to rush rush rush to eat and then taxi down to the Kennedy Center. Thai Place is a block from the Foggy Bottom Metro station, so once we finished our meal, we just walked over to the station and got on the Kennedy Center's free shuttle bus. Thai food also has the advantage of being artistic and highly flavorful, yet not so heavy as to force us into somnolence during the course of a four hour long performance.

We started with cocktails (Richard an orange vodka tonic and me a Singha Thai beer) and appetizers. Richard got something called "blanket shrimp," which are large shrimp straightened out, rolled in a spring roll wrapper, and then deep fried.


I got the fried calimari, which turned out to be huge rings of squid reminiscent of onion rings.


For a main course, Richard got the salmon Thai-style. Chunks of salmon were breaded and then deep fried until crunchy, then plated with a thin, spicy sauce, and garnished with vegetables and a sprig of basil. Ironically, we'd just been talking about Southern fish cooking techniques, where everything is dredged in cornmeal and then fried.


I selected the talay curry, a mild, yellow curry with egg, onions, scallion, and mixed seafood.