cousin brian* and i went paint color shopping for our new apartment and we decided that we needed sustenance after exhausting all our energy on trying to choose between wheatgrass, kiwi splash, and little sprout. but we did not know where we wanted to eat.
cousin brian: what about that new place in hyde park?
liz: what new place?
cousin brian: elephant.
liz: what?
cousin brian: i have no idea. i think it's thai and italian.
liz: what???
pad khee mao
i was skeptical but i am always up for trying a new place so we went. it turns out it is actually called blue elephant and it is located in a new building next to r.p. mcmurphy's on wasson. i have no idea when the place opened but it couldn't have been that long ago and it was jam packed.
the ambience is pretty nice, lots of reds and wheatgrasses which gave us inspiration for decorating our new place. service was average. we had to wait forever to get our order taken, but the food came quickly once we did. our waitress kind of harassed us about how little we ordered (we both got $10.95 noodle dishes so she might have been trying to boost her tip) but when we kept saying no she was friendly about it.
pad thai
the food was good but nothing outstanding. i had the pad khee mao with beef and brian got the pad thai with chicken. we both ordered a 3 (the spiciest you could get) and it was hot but not too hot. i could have done a little hotter but i was satisfied.
i did think the portions were a little small, but the vegetables were fresh, the meats were tender and juicy, and the noodles were chewy and properly cooked. mine had lots of yummy thai basil and cousin brian's was sweet and smoky. the food was flavorful and i had no complaints, it just wasn't memorable at all.
the color scheme
we did not try the italian food. when i was in thailand i ate at italian restaurants a couple of times and it was the worst italian food of my life. to be fair, i will add that the thai restaurant i ate at in italy was the worst thai food of my life.
blue elephant is a solid if unremarkable addition to the ever expanding selection of hyde park/oakley thai restaurants. i'm not complaining but it would be nice to mix it up with maybe some vietnamese or malaysian or something like that. or else, you know... some thaitalian.
*note: cousin brian is not actually my cousin
3 comments:
can you request pad kee mao with fusili? cause that would crack my shit up.
I'm kind of a fan of asian fusion cuisine (the rest of my family HATES asian fusion cuisine, generally) I think thaitalian isn't the worst idea (a pancetta pad thai seems like it would work OK... lhangisa sausage on a pizza? the lhangisa pizza?). but if it's just lasagna or pad thai you get to choose from, well, then how are you different than a noodles & co?
Maybe i'm a masochist, but I have fun seeing a culture try another culture's food and utterly failing. I went to an "American Restaurant" in Nanjing once that had "beer floats", which I assumed were root beer floats, but was in reality rainbow sherbert dropped into carlsburg beer. U S A! U S A!
You had Thai in Italy...
Since I live in the neighborhood and eat at either Wild Ginger or Green Papaya about once a week, I was eager to check out the new kid on the block. Bad call. The service was HORRENDOUS. They were so understaffed...really really poor service. After 15 minutes at our table we flagged someone down for water and to place a drink order...it got worse from there. Mixed up orders, forgotten orders, very average/poor food, and such sloooooow service really made for a pathetic situation. Once we had our sushi we realized we didn't have chopsticks. Eventually we ate it with our hands since our waitress was coming by about every 25 minutes at that point. To their credit, our waitress was very sweet and apologized profusely throughout the (very long) evening. Especially when she twice knocked my purse off of my chair into a puddle of soy sauce on the floor. (Dining room was cramped and we were in a high traffic area.) I will definitely NOT be back.
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