thai quest

Dennis and I headed out to lunch with a friend to the shopping plaza off Mira Mesa Blvd and I-15. After deliberation between the two new restaurants, Nok Thai and Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ, our friend picked japanese bbq. We headed toward the door, only to find that it wasn't open for lunch on weekdays! We defaulted to the Thai restaurant, which also meant I could continue my thai quest!

pad see ew at Nok Thai in San Diego

As usual, I ordered the Pad See Ew with chicken and decided to go with the heat level of 2 out of 10. The dish was not spicy initially but I began to see a few red pepper flakes pop up as I continued eating. Thus, a little bit of heat was slowly building, but not anything I couldn't handle...

Once a month, I get to dine out and catch up with my fabulous book club girls, plus we throw in some book talk, as little or as much as we feel like. In May, we all met at Bangkok Bay located in Solana Beach. It was the first visit for all of us so we were excited to try out this place.

Bangkok Bay - tom yum tofu, fire pot size

Since we were doing family style, we decided to order the Tom Yum with tofu, in the "fire pot" size. This was about double the price of the "bowl" but could feed a lot more people!

Bangkok Bay - tom yum tofu, separated into bowls

Here's my portion. The five of us each ate a bowl of this size and there was enough left over for one extra bowl. I like the simplicity of a dish like this. The soup broth is rather typical and I like the texture and shape of the tofu in here, holds its shape but easy to eat. I especially like that there were mushrooms in the mix.

Chaba Thai - lunch soup

The lunch gang decided to eat at Chaba Thai one week so of course I was down for this new Thai place! I drove separately and was running late so I rushed into the restaurant and told the waitress by our table that I wanted Pad See Ew. But then, she brought out a notepad and began TAKING our table's orders. Oops, I guess they hadn't ordered yet! What threw me off was that they already had soups and salads in front of them and mine happened to be arriving at the same time we were ordering!

I was ready for another Thai restaurant so we decided to go locally to Spices Thai Cafe. Plus, it was the perfect opportunity to continue on my Thai quest! We've been here before but it was seriously a long time ago...

Spices Thai Cafe - Pad See Ew with chicken

I don't eat Thai often but I do get excited when I'm about to have some! In fact, I might go even more often if I just knew where to go... So this sort of marks the beginning of my personal food quest for this year. Or to be more accurate, my Pad See Ew quest, which is my favorite Thai dish. I also like curries but I gotta focus on one thing at a time!

As a starter, we went very local to Thai House Cusine in the Convoy area.

Thai House Cuisine - pad see ew chicken