New Pad Thai owners keep favorites

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Even if, like us, you're a regular customer, you probably didn't notice that Pad Thai has new owners.

That's because the restaurant continues to prepare its tasty Thai favorites with a steady hand.

That hand belongs to May Lor Yang. When the first owners moved to Georgia, May Lor and her husband, Houa Yang, were ready.

May Lor has cooked at Pad Thai since it opened in April 2005. And Houa, a bilingual teaching assistant in the Eau Claire school district, has discovered a real talent for cooking, serving and managing.

Plan A: If you're new to Thai cuisine or just craving simple food, we suggest the following.

For appetizers, try egg rolls, shrimp rolls or satay.

The egg rolls mix a crunchy Chinese cabbage filling with soft glass noodles and ground chicken. The rice-paper wrappers stay commendably crisp and flaky, two for $2.

The shrimp rolls are large shrimp shelled to the tail, seasoned with salt and black pepper, wrapped in cute, tight rice-paper cones and deep-fried until shattery, six for $5.95.

The popular satay marinates strips of chicken breast in coconut milk and a little Madras curry powder, then grills them. Eat with the chunky, medium-spicy peanut sauce, then freshen your palate with the cool, sweet cucumber relish. This dish, six for $5.95, easily achieves the balance of flavors loved by Thais.

The entrées here go by numbers. For Plan A, we recommend C-5, C-7, C-17 or C-18.

C-5 is Ginger Chicken, a colorful stir-fry of bright vegetables and meat, $6.95. C-7, Garlic Pepper Chicken, $6.25, and C-18, Garlic Shrimp, $7.95, offer chicken pieces or whole shrimp infused with fresh garlic and black pepper. Stir-fried, then moistened with broth, these are among the most flavorful and ancient Thai dishes.

Rhad Na Gai, C-17, mingles baby corn, carrots, broccoli, chicken or shrimp and velvety rice noodles in a tasty soybean gravy, $7.95 to $8.95. But the fermented soybeans make the dish memorable; they explode with salty tang — like great Greek olives in a good salad.

We're not fans of C-6, the Pad Thai here; it's sweeter and more oily than we like, $6.95. Also oily was the fried rice, though beautifully seared in a blazing-hot wok — C-11, Thai Fried Rice, and C-12, Traditional Thai Fried Rice, each $6.95 with chicken.

Plan B. If you're seeking a more unusual meal, make chicken or beef lahb your first course, with extra lettuce, $4.95 to $5.95, C-3/C-4.

Lahb is a refreshing salad made of minced-to-order meat lightly cooked in broth and dressed with lime juice, Thai fish sauce and as much hot red pepper mince as you'd like. Use the lettuce to convey the meat to your appreciative mouth.

With your entrée, order a small papaya salad, the coleslaw of Southeast Asia, A-5, $3. Made of shredded unripe papaya, it comes tossed with lime chunks, crushed tamarind pods and tomatoes, sugar, fish sauce, garlic, roasted peanuts, hot peppers to taste and sometimes fresh green mango: a carnival of flavors and textures.

And Plan B entrées?

The Thai kitchen is famous for main-dish soups. Our favorite here is S-1, Tom Yum with chicken and shrimp, $6.50 — a taut harmony of Kaffir lime leaf, lemon grass and lime juice with aromatic galangal, cilantro and green onion. Tom Kha, S-2, the same soup with coconut milk, is somewhat rich for a large entrée portion, $6.75.

Pad See-Yew Gai, C-8, $6.95, unites soft rice noodles, garlic, fresh vegetables and sweet soy sauce into a meal that is simultaneously kicky — with black and hot red pepper — and comforting.

Thai restaurants must excel with curries; Pad Thai does not disappoint. Alongside the standard Green and Red Curries, C-1/C-2, $6.95 — both spicy-hot and coconut-milk soupy — we suggest Pad Prik Khing Green Bean, C-9, an extraordinary dry curry made of red curry paste, julienned fresh ginger cooked as a vegetable, bright green beans and the understated sour of lime leaf, $8.95.

If you crave sweet, wet richness enlivened by spice, try S-4, C-16 or C-22.

S-4, Gangarhee Chicken, only nominally a soup, is a good, smooth coconut-milk curry based on Indian spices. The delicious Gang Khua Suppa-Ros, C-16, fills a broth of coconut milk and hot red pepper bits with hunks of startlingly ripe fresh pineapple, sweet carrots and shrimp or chicken, $7.95 to $8.95. Add rice as you go.

C-22, Malaysian-style Panang Chicken, with beautiful bell peppers in a silken sauce, is Pad Thai's creamiest curry, $8.95. As a friend remarked: "It's so soothing!"

When ordering, do specify the level of spiciness that makes you happy, from 0 to 4. If you thrive on heat, bid your server bring the chopped red chili peppers; they will teach you the meaning of hot.

Finish any meal here — simple or not — with Thai or ginger tea, $1. The former, served cold, is flavored with star anise, vanilla and cinnamon and topped with a float of sweet, super-concentrated milk. The latter, served hot, uses sugar to mellow ginger's peppery bite, giving a cleansing and invigorating taste.