can't pronounce."
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Thai Cuisine
501 South Meadow St. (Rt 13), Across from Wegman's
Average Prices: Weeknight dinners $8-$15, Weekend $10-$20
Posted on: 10/3/99
Since there's only one criticism of Thai Cuisine, let's get it out in the open first: the location is less than ideal. As part of an awkward mini-strip-mall, on a busy street, looking across at a supermarket, this isn't the type of setting romanticized in tourist guides. And with so many fine settings available in the Ithaca area, this is perhaps doubly unfortunate.
Once inside the restaurant, these concerns fade, and once the food is inside your mouth, they disappear. Nearly any guide you read about "Places to Eat" here will mention Thai Cuisine, so this review is no insider tip. This place is well known, extremely popular, and entirely deserving.
The first time we ate here, the mind altering experience was our first hit of Tom Yum Goong, the Thai-style hot and sour soup, utterly different than traditional Chinese hot and sour soup. Not to bash on the Chinese, whose soups (and, ahem, military muscle) are admirable in their own right, Thai Cuisine's hot and sour is a paragon of pure simplicity -- a simple broth with a few bathing shrimp and a straw mushroom or two. But what looks to the eyes like a mere stock hits the tongue with fire and pepper. This soup is quickly addictive, especially if you can stand the heat. It's also cheaper on weeknights. For the coconuts among you, several other soups are coconut-based (the T.Y.G. is not), as are many Thai dishes, and also fabulous choices according to the nutty eaters among us.
Each of our visits to Thai Cuisine has ultimately fit a pattern: We would select an array of dishes (sometimes familiar, often unfamiliar, as the menu is vast), and in the end, all would be very good while one would be spectacular. That's not to sound flip, or negative, but an impressive achievement -- after all, it's partly our own fault that we haven't selected all of the spectacular dishes on the same night. But, then, isn't it better this way, visit after visit?
Everyone will recommend the Pad Thai, of course, but don't miss out on any of the clay pot dishes, a few of which appear in different sections of the menu. The jasmine rice in these pots absorbs a tremendous amount of flavor, and makes an excellent leftover meal. Dishes based on sweet-hot chili/garlic sauces have been remarkable ... drinkable, even. Seafood dishes, especially shrimp-based, fare particularly well -- pork, perhaps a bit less so. Vegetarians are also drawn to Thai Cuisine for its many meatless offerings, and with so much going on in these dishes, it's not hard to imagine that they can pull it off.
With appetizers and typical accoutrements, Thai Cuisine is not a restaurant for a frugal night out ... but, then, this is still Ithaca and we're not exactly looking at Le Cirque 2000 prices either. For what you have the privelege of eating, it's well worth the extra 30%.
Thai Cuisine is full
of discoveries, and while an ideal restaurant to show off to out-of-towners,
it's deeper appeal is the chance to return and return again, for a new
treat each time.
(By the way, it's easier to park around back, rather than the awkward front lot.)