Cheap Eats: Taste of Thai
GO TRIAD - The inside of Taste of Thai has a certain overwhelming calm to it — the kind of tranquility you see in movie restaurants with maitre d's and violin players circulating the restaurant. It's this calm that permeates every part of a meal at Taste of Thai.
Seated at glass-covered and candle-bearing tables, customers speak in hushed tones, creating a sort of reverent silence that's only occasionally broken by laughter or the tink of glass.
This is the perfect place for a first date or a breakup, one for peaceful conversation and the other for simply keeping someone quiet.
The utilitarian wait staff adds to this aura. Our waiter didn't make idle conversation or run through the day's specials; he simply asked if we were ready and smiled politely when one of the more indecisive members of our group told him that she still needed more time. Sips were barely taken from our water glass before they were refilled, which is handy with Thai food. Some of it has a kick.
Full column
Next time is Indian food. Something with some real spice.
As an aside, I have to admit I was a little intimidated walking into Taste of Thai. It wasn't that it was much, much nicer than any place I'd done for Cheap Eats. It was that the opening hallway was completely covered in columns and articles written about the place. The placemats at the bar are laminated copies of some other Go Triad article. They take their press seriously.
People sometimes tell me that some restaurant has stuck one of my columns up on the wall. Beef Burger has one up, I think. The waiter at Jan's House made me sign my column after he recognized me at the cash register.
Knowing that my column is going to be read by however many people get a News & Record on Thursday and whoever picks up a free copy doesn't bother me at all. I'm a writer, that's what I do. But knowing that people will be reading the column for years in some burger joint on Lee, for some odd reason that weirds me out. It's cool too, don't get me wrong. Odd though.
Seated at glass-covered and candle-bearing tables, customers speak in hushed tones, creating a sort of reverent silence that's only occasionally broken by laughter or the tink of glass.
This is the perfect place for a first date or a breakup, one for peaceful conversation and the other for simply keeping someone quiet.
The utilitarian wait staff adds to this aura. Our waiter didn't make idle conversation or run through the day's specials; he simply asked if we were ready and smiled politely when one of the more indecisive members of our group told him that she still needed more time. Sips were barely taken from our water glass before they were refilled, which is handy with Thai food. Some of it has a kick.
Full column
Next time is Indian food. Something with some real spice.
As an aside, I have to admit I was a little intimidated walking into Taste of Thai. It wasn't that it was much, much nicer than any place I'd done for Cheap Eats. It was that the opening hallway was completely covered in columns and articles written about the place. The placemats at the bar are laminated copies of some other Go Triad article. They take their press seriously.
People sometimes tell me that some restaurant has stuck one of my columns up on the wall. Beef Burger has one up, I think. The waiter at Jan's House made me sign my column after he recognized me at the cash register.
Knowing that my column is going to be read by however many people get a News & Record on Thursday and whoever picks up a free copy doesn't bother me at all. I'm a writer, that's what I do. But knowing that people will be reading the column for years in some burger joint on Lee, for some odd reason that weirds me out. It's cool too, don't get me wrong. Odd though.
posted by Luke McIntyre at 9/22/2006 12:52:00 AM
1 Comments:
It's very cool.
I'm really glad you ended up doing that column.
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