Thailand
Staying with the warm climate but moving halfway around the globe this week, Thailand was the country and Sunrise Thai Cuisine, #sunrisethai, was the place to eat. Interestingly (to me at least) an early iteration of this restaurant called Tropical Sunrise was the first place I visited for breakfast when I started posting weekend food pictures.
The name has changed but I believe it still has the same owners as the interior didn’t change and my waitress was the same one who waited on me before so there is definite continuity.
The menu is certainly different and has a number of authentic Thai foods including the ever popular Pad Thai. I decided to go for the chicken larb with a #3 on the 5 point spicy scale. My confidence in choosing the dish was reinforced when the waitress smiled, nodded enthusiastically and said “Good choice”. It was too.
I’ll admit when I first read it on the menu I thought it said LARP and for the non-geeky that is Live Action Role Playing and I was trying to figure out how that wound up being a salad. After the double take and reading the description this was a salad I could get on board with. The salad base was iceberg lettuce and cucumbers and the ground chicken part consisted of; chicken (duh), basil leaves, green onions, lime juice, chiles, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves and cilantro. Very tasty combo, throw in the rice and there was no room for dessert. Which was a shame because I really wanted to try either the mango and sweet sticky rice or the fried bananas and ice cream but it was not to be.
That #3 on the spicy scale turned out to be just about perfect for me as 4 or 5 would probably have made me cry and the two likely would have made me focus on how I could have handled hotter. As it was I felt the burn on lips and tongue as well as a tingling in the scalp. Before I finished the meal a bead of sweat ran down my cheek. It was hot enough to make my mouth sensitive to the other flavors but not so hot as to be painful.
If you are sensitive to spicy go you an do what I heard another staff member recommend at the table beside me. Go for the one and they’ll bring you spices to tweak it to your level.
My lucky streak continues and overall I’d have to give this place high marks on the food and the staff. Below is a link to the website and don’t forget to check out Tell Me More.
There was a Thai restaurant near where we lived in Michigan. The first time we went there Greg ordered his usual curry, but at the “Thai hot” level. The waitress questioned him but he insisted. It was, without a doubt, the hottest food either of us had ever had. I would have chalked it up to experience, laughed it off and ordered something else. But he was determined to show that waitress he knew what he was doing. We were there forever as he tried to finish his meal. I’m not particularly fond of Thia food for some reason, but I enjoy most other Asian cuisines. I usually just end up ordering a green papaya salad or the tom yum soup.
That sounds kind of painful just to prove a point. Last time I had Thai it was with a friend in Georgia and she got their tom yum soup and raved about it. One day I’ll have to try it.