Lao Thai • Soul Food Kitchen

.

2. Sa-Tay 6.50

Grilled skewers of marinated chicken served

with cucumber salad and peanut sauce.

The chicken itself was so-so, a bit dry and not super flavorful. But the peanut sauce....oh man, that was fantastic. The peanut sauce made this dish. The cucumber salad (cucumber chunks with super thin slices of red onion in dressing) was very tasty. Again, it was the dressing that made this so very tasty. It was clear and on the sweet side. Yum. Wish there had been more.

17. Larb* 6.95 (with duck 7.95)

A Laotian staple made with your choice of chopped

chicken, beef or pork and seasoned with lime juice,

powder, cilantro and mint leaves.

With a name as unappetizing as Larb we thought this would be the adventurous dish to try. I was skeptical when I saw it, it is not a very pretty looking pile of food. We got the pork. The most striking thing about it was one particular flavor which we think was lime leaves, even though lime leaves are not mentioned in the description, I suppose they could have been mint but the flavor was not exactly 'minty'. This dish was spicy but not overpoweringly so. There was also a slight chemically taste to this dish which we think was the lime leaves. With each bite I was thinking, "Hmmm, I like this, wait no I don't, ....wait, now I do..." By the end of our meal I had decided that I did in fact like Larb, despite the fact that it contains an ingredient referred to only as 'powder'.

42. Pineapple Fried Rice 8.95

Steamed rice-fried with eggs, onions, pineapple,

cashew nuts, tomatoes, prawns and raisins.

I love pineapple so when I saw Pineapple Fried rice I knew I had to try it. Sadly, this dish was disappointing. The overall color was yellow, which made me think it might have a slight curry flavor, but no. Rather there was no flavor. All the additions to the rice, the nuts, raisins, onions, etc all tasted as they should and thank goodness for that because otherwise this dish would have been colored rice, that didn't even taste all that much like rice. So, I think this rice is meant to have something very flavorful served on top of it, fortunately we had Larb and some of that peanut sauce. The rice, with either of these, was then a very delicious meal. I wonder what made the rice yellow? Was it supposed to add flavor? Because I suspect that it was actually a flavor remover.

When Theric picked up our order, the place was free of customers, but the kitchen was busy with takeout orders which were slowly piling up.

You can see more of their menu here.