Sawasdee- Revisit

Recently I had dinner with retired local food blogger, braingirl.  She convinced me it was time to give Sawasdee another shot after my first visit was underwhelming (and looking back at it, what a crappily written post).  Anyway, I have been meaning to go back and jumped on the opportunity to go with someone who knew the highs and lows of the menu.

So we decided to get lots of stuff so we could try several flavors and figured we would just take the extra home.  She suggested the Thai toast (#3 for those of you following along) for a starter.  These were little slices of deep fried crunchy bread with some bits of pork.  They were served with a sort of cucumber salad—almost like a cucumber salsa.  I really enjoyed the Thai toast—they were nice and crispy on the outside edges but with just a little hint of chewiness from the bread.  The cucumber salad gave a fresh bright snap with the flavors and was also just a little sweet and sour.  I really liked them.

Each entrée comes with soup and a spring roll as well.  The soup was their Thom Yum (or hot and sour).  It had a nice kick to it—spicy without being so spicy it choked you on the way down.  A deep peppery flavor though.  The spring roll was fine. I don’t know, I think I am getting burned out on spring rolls. Everyone serves them and rarely are they anything super exciting.  This one was no exception.

We shared three different things—the Drunken Noodles with pork, the Massaman Curry with chicken and a special of the day—crispy tilapia with 3 layer sauce (I think I have that name right).  Overall, the Drunken Noodles were my favorite.  Their noodles are really wide—so wide at first you don’t even think it is a noodle and was mixed with the little pieces of stir fried pork, and various veggies—onions, peppers, and tomatoes (ok, that’s a fruit, but still).  There was a fair amount of basil as well giving the dish a nice aromatic basil flavor.  The sauce was slightly sweet but with soy and plenty of pepper as well.  A bit of spice, but really more a light tangy flavor.  The pork added a nice richness.  There is a lot going on in these noodles, but it all came together as a tasty dish.

The Massaman curry was not bad.  I have to admit a lot of curries aren’t my favorite because sometimes the coconut milk flavor turns the whole thing a little too sweet, but this one was pretty well balanced.  Pleasantly spicy –the curry paste usually includes things like peanuts, lemongrass, garlic, ginger, shallots, lots of spices (coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, etc) as well as the chilies.  The paste is mixed with the coconut milk, potato and more peanuts and you get a deep richly flavored almost stew like consistency.  We had it with chicken—the pieces of chicken were tender as were the potato chunks.  You could taste the sweetness of the coconut milk, but it did not overwhelm the other flavors too much and worked pretty well together.  While it was pretty good, I still preferred the bright flavors of the noodles.

Lastly, we had the tilapia with the 3 layer sauce.  Our very friendly and helpful server explained that this meant layers of sweet, sour and I think maybe the last one was spicy?  Anyway, this dish was a disappointment (and braingirl agreed).  Our server had told us that the dish was very popular (which probably should have been a tip off) and that it was deep fried tilapia with the sauce on top.  First, the fish was not deep fried, more like pan fried, and it was not very crispy—more like oily.  But the real problem for me was how fishy it tasted.  I only ate a couple of bites before giving up on this one.  The sauce on top was a little more one layer to me-- that being sweet.  So honestly, even if the fish had been really good, I don’t know how much I could’ve eaten.  That was the only dish of which we did not take home the leftovers.

The service was spot on (other than that recommendation for the fish) and extremely attentive.  The place wasn’t very busy but it was fairly early in the evening midweek.  They are quite efficient and the food arrived without delay. 

I would say my overall feelings have become more positive toward Sawasdee, but still not sure I would place it as my top choice for Thai in Indy.  What do you guys think about this place?  It used to always be the first place you heard about when people talked about Thai around here, but I don’t hear it as much anymore. 

Sawasdee

1222 West 86^th Street

Indy 46260

317/844-9451

www.sawasdeeindy.com

Sawasdee Restaurant

Again, I am behind. Why is summer so busy? Anyway, I went on a recent trip with girlfriends to Sawasdee Thai restaurant after being told by many folks how good it is (and reading the same in many places). For those who might be curious, "Sawasdee" is a word for a bowed Thai greeting.

The restaurant, I have been told, has recently expanded in its strip mall location, and must have been quite small before. It is nicely sized now and was quite full for a Tuesday night. (And I might add, quite warm! For someone who usually brings a sweater to restaurants in this City in the summer due to the crazy air conditioning, I was flushed by the time I left Sawasdee).

So I ordered something off the menu that seems to be as large as the phone book (the menu, not what I ordered). OK, I am not going to be able to remember what its official name is, but it boiled down to chicken (on a side note, I was interested to see how many different ways "chicken" was spelled on this menu--when people are writing menus, do they forget all about spell check?) with garlic and black pepper sauce and seemed to have some crushed peanuts on top. (Another side note, as a Mom of a child with peanut and tree nut allergies, I would NOT take such children here since it appears that out of the 4 meals on the table, 3 of them contained peanuts and/or cashews--ok, one of them was "cashew chicken," but still). Once you finally narrow down what you are going to order, you then need to choose your meat, which could be chicken, beef, pork, shrimp and even sometimes squid. It takes AWHILE to get through this menu. I think I now know the true reason people just always order their favorite here. It is so much easier! If it were my restaurant, I would try to get it onto a couple of larger pages and make certain dishes with the ingredients that might benefit the most from the accompaniments. But that's just me.

Anyway, as for the food, it was good (I also tried the drunken noodles). They brought you soup and an spring roll to start. The spring roll was really crispy which is how I really like my spring rolls. The soup was sort of nondescript. Since I generally don't like sweet sauces in which to dip my spring roll (or anything else) I used the soup to dip in. It was pretty good. The entrees came with steamed rice (except the drunken noodles) and my entree was also pretty good. It wasn't amazing and the chicken was a little overcooked I thought. The sauce sort of had that eggy consistency to it that a lot of Asian restaurant meals have. None of it was super flavorful, but I probably should have gotten it spicier (oh yeah, that was yet another choice. Once you picked your entree, you chose between mild, medium, spicy and Thai hot). By that time I was overwhelmed and just said "mild" which may have been a mistake.

The service was quite nice and at one point when we ordered a second glass of wine, the manager?/owner? came to our table, opened the bottle and let us taste it, even when we only ordered a glass. Also, one of the other big benefits of this place is the cost. Dinners were only around $10, and they included the spring roll and soup (or Thai salad). All in all, for an Asian-type meal, Shanghai Lil's is still my fave, but it is significantly more expensive, so there you go.

1222 West 86th Street
Indy 46260
317-844-9451