Thursday, April 23, 2009

Thursday, April 23rd - Thai Food and Night School

I took a team mate out for lunch today. She's a mom of two and was answering email until midnight. And you know what? It drives her. It's just in her nature. She's wonderful but at the same time, it makes me feel bad that I let her work that late. But who am I to say what a balanced life is? It's subjective.

So we went down the road to Khai. I've been meaning to try this place for a while but I'm hesitent to suggest it because I only want to go if the daily special is something I would eat :-D. Otherwise, I think it's on the expensive side for lunch. ~10-15 bucks.

I had my favourite and you've come to know as my barometer for Thai restaurants... the Pad Kee Mow. Okay so it was pretty good. Decent amount of tofu. The veg were chopped a bit small though and actually not alot of it. My friend at the Phad Ladna and it had loads of cauliflour, broccoli and snow peas. I only had carrots and red peppers in a fine dice. Thankfully there was an okay amount of thai basil unlike Simply Thai...BUT they did use the Phad thai noodle and not the broadnoodle like the hofun. Actually, Phad Ladna had the wide noodle I was hoping for. Plus the noodle came in a big clump. Still tasty though.

Therefore, in the lead is still URBAN Thai Bistro on Hamilton. Best amount of veg, wide noodle, not dry and clumpy. Loads of basil. Yes it's just one dish but it's a good indicator. That said, the mother ship, the Thai House's phad thai is terrible. They use ketchup instead of tamarin. Alot of places do this. Blech... why bother. You can get the mix just as easy and not as foul tasting and bright orange!!!!

Thai House, Urban Thai Bistro (Top of the Phad Kee Meow heap)
1119 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 5P6‎
(604) 408-7788‎


Now beware. On Hamilton there are THREE Thai places.... Going from Nelson to Drake (South Westish) Urban Thai - Simply Thai - Charm Thai. Charm Thai and Simply thai are the same owner. Charm Thai is a bit higher end and only started serving lunch recently. Simply Thai is simply missable.

Now Khai Thai Cuisine
1119 Hamilton Street
Vancouver BC
V6B 5P6
‎(604) 408-7788‎
Lunch specials for 8.95, decent quality.



This poor place has been completly enveloped in a construction site. You can't miss it.

We have night school tonight. First night from 6h30-9h30 every Thursday for 6 weeks. Language course. We haven't sorted out the logisitics of timing and food. We're going to wing it tonight and see how it plays out. I don't even know if there is a cafeteria in there. I'll buy a muffin just in case on the way and I think D is picking up sushi. Of course, we'll have to sort something out that is a bit healthier ;-D
Okay there is a restaurant thought I didn't check the hours. There is a cafe but I'm not eating greasy university cafe muffins for 9 weeks. Luckily we realised that the TNT Supermarket is 3 blocks away. Yay. They have a great take out area with prepared food. Most of it is meant for lunch so by the time we're heading for night school, the food is normally marked down. Bonus. I used to go to the one at Metrotown in Burnaby all the time for lunch and the food is very well priced for food and the hot and cold selection is awesome. I particularly like the Vegetarian Cold Vietnamese rolls. Yum. Course by the end of the day they were all gone. The only cold rolls left where the onese with shredded porkskin, shudder.
I was going to get one of their stuffed sticky rice rolls which at lunch you can get to order with your own filling in black or white rice. By the end of the day they pre make them. Now it's been a few months since I took a look in the area but they have easily shrunk in size by 30%. Not cool. I walked on.
We had a medium sized sushi tray with about 15 pieces of nigiri and rolls. Quite good for takeaway. At least you know it was made that day on site. Other places like work cafeteria or Safeway, get them made from further away so they're refridgerated a bit too cool so the rice goes all hard. Not the case here. We had seaweed and sesame salad and a spicy squid salad. The squid was alright but the seaweed salad was way way way to nautical smelling.
We've sorted our Thursday night school dinner. Yay!

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