Thai Diner

My husband, the Eiffel Tartan, and I went to dinner at the Thai Diner last night. I’m talking about the original Thai Diner in the Westland Shopping Center on Broad St. I had not eaten there since they had remodeled. The place now has bright colors with a nice looking bar with a cityscape on one wall and a spacescape on another. Just beware of sitting under the air vent in the middle of the restaurant. The air conditioning condensation dripped onto the table and we had to move to a dripless space. The menu was extensive with appetizers, soups, salads, and entrees. It also contained a separate multi page vegetarian menu. To begin our meal ET ordered a stick of Seafood Satay – scallops and shrimp with a thick peanut sauce and cucumber salad. My husband and I shared an order of Money Purses – ground chicken with corn and other minced veggies wrapped in a flour wrapper and deep fried. I really liked the corn in the dish as well as the sweet and sour sauce. For dinner proper both ET and my spouse ordered Shrimp Pad Thai – thin Thai-style rice noodles stir fried in a Thai sauce with bean sprouts and ground peanuts. It’s funny, whenever my husband thinks of thin rice noodles, he thinks of Vietnamese noodles that are angel hair thin. The Thai thin noodles were more like linguini thickness, and thus, he had different expectations for the dish. Once he shifted back into a Thai mode, he enjoyed his meal. I ordered Bangkok Chicken – crispy fried chicken, stir fried with green beans, basil, carrots, and hot chili sauce and served with steamed rice. Yes, this dish sounded (and also looked) a lot like General Tso’s Chicken, but with a different taste. The chicken was all white meat. The carrots and green beans I crunched with satisfaction. The sauce had a sweetness to it, yet also portrayed an underlying heat (I ordered mine medium in the hotness range. You can also order it American hot or Thai hot.). We all had enough food to take home for leftovers.