Thai Thai again

1254 East 14th Street, Des Moines, IA 50316

Mrs. Red: "First Greek, now Thai! To be honest before Mr. Red and I had visited Thai Flavors neither one of us had ever tried this genre of food before. I'm not sure where the stigma came from but I had always attributed Thai foods to being incredibly spicy."

                                                                     Mr. Red: "And spicy food - I can't handle. It would kill me. Thanks to that medical condition known as Acid Reflux."

Mrs. Red: "But after some strong suggestions from our friends, Tony and Sarah, we gave this place a try. After starting this tasty blog adventure, we added it to our 'must return,' list and brought our friends with us to share in the experience.

Mr. Red: "Cause the first time was fantastic: the service was fast, the food was great." 

Mrs. Red: "Naturally, we were expecting the same this time around. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case."

What We Ordered:

Mrs. Red: Cashew Chicken
                                       



                                                         

Mr. Red: Pad Thai*

Sarah: Panang Curry**

Tony: Tom Kha Kai*










Our Take:

                                                   Mr Red: "The food was good. I got spice level 1 out of 6 which is indicated above by that little star by the title of our meals, in case you were wondering. And finally, I wasn't the one that had the least amount of spice there. Mrs. Red out-wussed me."

Mrs. Red: "Very funny. At least I won't be spitting acid later like something out of the Alien movies."

Mr. Red: "They don't spit acid! They bleed acid! "

Mrs. Red: "Not the facehuggers. Maybe you should refresh yourself on your Aliens lore while I give this food some mad wonderful reviews! Everything that was brought out to our table looked as delicious as it tasted. Unfortunately, Tony had most of his soup eaten before I was able to take a nice picture of it, which by the way didn't even begin to share how unique the Tom Kha Kai really was. It was delivered to the table with the base full of fire and the broth bubbling to perfection. Not to mention it was full of vegetables."

Mr. Red: "It also had a lot of mushrooms in it which eliminated Mrs. Red's ability to taste it. It was actually quite good. It was extremely coconutty - probably because the broth was made with coconut milk. That was the primary thing you could taste, but all the other flavors did bleed together very well. I liked it, it wasn't my dish so I'm not going to review it much more than that, but given that Tony finished it all and almost licked it clean should be review enough.

Mrs. Red: "I didn't try Sarah's curry given the two star rating she ordered it at, but I did try it when we were there previously. According to her, this is one of Thai Flavors most popular dishes and she had to fight Tony off for the leftovers. I think that the next time we go out for Thai that I'll give that dish a shot - no stars please."

Mr. Red: "Unfortunately two stars is a bit much for even me..."

Mrs. Red: "You sweat when I pepper things too much. That should give you an idea how Thai Flavors spice ratings really rank. If even you could handle the 1 star, maybe I'll have to give it a try next time."

Mr. Red: "Hey now. 1 star did have me sweating just as bad, but it did add quite a bit more flavor that I don't think I would have gotten at 0 stars. Which leads me into my meal: Pad Thai. The presentation was wonderful. I really enjoyed the carrot flower in the middle. I found that to be very appealing and just invites you to dig in. The flavor was good and I loved the peanut sprinkle they give you for the top, and our waitress even brought us more than I think anyone would ever really use. Portion was well sized and if you leave there hungry it's your own fault." 

Mrs. Red: "What I really love about this place is how clean the food is. When I say clean, I mean its trimmed and simple. The chicken in my Cashew Chicken was all white meat and didn't have a sliver of fat anywhere on it which I was grateful for. The vegetables were all freshly and ornately cut and what I really loved is that they were cooked but still really crispy. Normally my dish came with hot peppers which I had omitted, but it still had beautiful green, red, and yellow peppers nice and thinly sliced. I also enjoyed was that the food wasn't greasy in the least. The little bit of sauce in my meal went great over the steamed rice that came with and even left me wanting more. The overall flavors were mellow and the toasted cashews only married everything together in my mind. Superb!"

Our Waiter/Waitress:

Mrs. Red: "This is where things started to crash and burn..."

Mr. Red: "That's the understatement of the year. Our waitress didn't really speak English. I'm not trying to bash people that aren't from America but she's in a public service job and could barely understand us and we could barely understand her. I would say that's a huge hindrance for her to be able to perform her job. First, the three people that ordered soda - two regulars and one diet. We all got diet. WTF."

Mrs. Red: "You would complain about that. A little less sugary pop in your daily diet wouldn't kill you, you big baby."

Mr. Red: "I'm just pointing out a shortcoming in our service. Isn't that what this section is about? The next thing that really got to me was the fact that we came in and sat down right around 6:30PM. The waitress stopped by around 6:40PM and asked us if we were ready to order. We still hadn't even put in our drink orders. Tony asked her to come back in about ten minutes as we were still waiting for our fourth member, Sarah, to arrive. Sarah showed up around 6:50PM, but we didn't even see our waitress in the same room with us again until around 7:20PM and that was after we had called out to someone who was working behind the register."

Mrs. Red: "There was a rather large party of people in the next room and given the number of staff members in this small restaurant it was very obvious they were feeling the pressure. Given how impeccable and prompt the service was the last time the four of us came to Thai Flavors, I really think this was a fluke night for them. I'm not sure how busy they normally are on Sunday nights, but when we came walking in people were waiting for take out and nearly all of the tables were currently serving customers. That should be a testament to how delicious their food is - everyone wants it!"

Mr. Red: "Alright, I'll give you that. The first time we were there they were great on the service. This time though, they were absolutely horrible. So, using those numbers, 50/50 chance that you're going to get good service. If you can't tell, I cannot stand poor service at restaurants. It is inexcusable. The people that were staffing the place should always have enough people to withstand their customers or they are going to lose them. But, I will say this: once we got our orders in we got our food quick. It was 17 minutes and everyone had food on the table and ready to eat."

Mrs. Red: "And eat we did!"

Observations:

Mrs. Red: "The one word I have for this place: crowded. I realize they are trying to pack as many people in as possible but unfortunately it made me feel just that way - packed in. I don't just mean that the tables are close together, but the tables themselves are very small - at least in relation to how many plates they give you. I wasn't terribly bothered by it so I don't mean to say that as a deterrent from giving this place a try but if you are claustrophobic - order take out."

Mr. Red: "I for one, actually appreciated the fact that they had people here. Considering our last review was at a place that was deserted, this place actually made you feel like you were part of the world. You walked in and you saw: people. People enjoying their food, people laughing and having a good time. Except for those around us still waiting for service. We weren't the only ones."

Mrs. Red: "They did score high points in what I would consider the most important area when visiting a restaurant: cleanliness. That place was spotless, even despite how busy they were. It didn't stop them from clearing dishes away and wiping tables down. It's nice to see a restaurant that doesn't skimp on keeping things clean."

Mr. Red: "I definitely agree. For what they lacked in service they made up for in all the other aspects that I like in a restaurant. Like Mrs. Red said, it was clean! It was organized and the people doing their jobs did seem to know what they were doing. I think that due to the sudden rush, the person who normally cleans the tables was bumped up to a server. She was really good at keeping our drinks full but that was is and I hate to keep going back to it but its my biggest complaint about this place."

Overall: 

Mrs. Red: "If I could score on food alone, 10 out of 10 - no lie. However, since I have to take into account the entire dining experience I'm thinking more along the lines of a 7. I really hope that the lack of attentive service is not something we will run into when we come again."

                                                  Mr. Red: "Ditto on all accounts - 10 out of 10 on the food, but I'm going to have to drop it down to a 5 on account of the service."

Review:

On a scale of 1-10

Food: 10

Service: 2

Cleanliness: 10

Atmosphere: 6.5

Until next time! Happy Eating!

- Pocket Red Heads