Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thai House, Roswell

Thai House (Roswell, GA) is a place I have visited multiple times before. I enjoy the food there. They have a separate menu section for vegetarians, the decor is nice, and they have some interesting menu items.

This time's visit was a little different, though. The servers were terribly rushed. I think there were just two of them serving a bunch of tables. The food was fairly okay this time but I thought I'd write about the place anyway since I have visited so many times and liked the food every time.

So what did we order? We began with a soup, the Vegan Coconut Tofu Soup, to be precise.

It was wonderful! A great combination of light coconut milk, lime juice and lemon grass, it came with tofu, baby corn, water chestnuts and carrots. I love the hot pot presentation too. A great refreshing start to the meal, as cliched as it sounds!

For the entree, we ordered Basil Sue-Yi and Vegetable Fried Rice. I didn't explain about the Sue-Yi, did I? Ok, Thai House offers a couple of variations of Tofu namely Sue-Yi and Sue-Gai. As per the menu online, Sue-Yi is essentially made from seaweed, ginger, salt, soy bean, soybean fiber & vegetable oil. Similarly, Sue-Gai is made from soy bean, vegetable fiber, flour, soy sauce & vegetable oil. I have ordered both of them in multiple dishes and enjoyed the tastes thoroughly.

Very tasty indeed! The flavors were bright without being very strong, the vegetables retained the crunch and thankfully, there was none of that overwhelming scent-taste of garlic that drowns all other flavors.

The Vegetable Fried Rice was a disappointment. Ok, let me rephrase. What they got for us afterward was disappointing. When they first brought it, we noticed flecks of fried egg scattered all over. So we sent it back. The version they sent us the second time tasted dull. Hardly any flavors in there; some crisp broccoli florets and some tofu, possibly? I wouldn't recommend ordering this one.
 








Did we have dessert? If you know me, you'd know that I always give dessert a chance. So we went ahead and got Bananas in Coconut Milk. Maybe that isn't the exact name of the dish.
 
Our server explained that these banana fritters were deep fried in a rice batter containing coconut milk, then drizzled with sugar and honey. I LOVED them. I must mention, this is a HUGE dessert. As much as I would have loved polishing the plate clean, I had to regretfully admit that I couldn't. This dessert can be shared by 3-4 people. Can I say it again how much I liked this one? There was something almost Indian-tasting about this one. Probably the taste of rice and coconut milk.

Not a very satisfying visit but I'll go another time, for sure.

Thai House
1227 Alpharetta Street
Roswell, GA 30075
770-993-1688
www.thaihouseroswell.com

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A cool recipe + picture

Until I find the next cool vegetarian place to write about, I thought I would share a picture from my kitchen yesterday. Well, day before, to be precise.

To the left is a dish that I have never cooked before: Dum Aloo. Roasted baby potatoes in a cashew-tomato-onion based gravy, spiced with cumin, nigella seeds, dried fenugreek leaves (also called Kasuri Methi) and garam masala. And garnished with fresh cilantro leaves too.

This recipe is a keeper. I always err on the lesser side when it comes to salt. Really tasty, nonetheless.

I picked the recipe from One Hot Stove, one of my favorite blogs. Nupur's approach to cooking is very similar to mine and I always love cooking out of her blog. Here is the original recipe.