Luk Thai

Dear Em,
It's hard to believe the first time I had Thai food was less than a year ago. Since then, it's become a favorite for your daddy & I. It's filling but light, & we love a little spice.

We found a cute, little place in downtown Wakefield for our first Thai dinner. Your daddy & I went with one of my best friends for my birthday. Colleen was an experienced Thai food diner & was able to suggest some of her favorite dishes for our first Thai meal.

We've returned to Luk Thai many, many times over the past year. It has a new name (previously Thai Pepper), but it's still one of my favorites. When we talked about getting together with our friends H & M for dinner, Luk Thai was an obvious choice. It's a cute restaurant in the heart of downtown Wakefield. Although it's small, I've never felt overcrowded or cramped. It's BYOB, & I think half the fun is picking out a bottle of wine to bring for dinner (they uncork & pour it for you).

Their nime chow, which I think they call fresh rolls, are my favorite. I could eat just that for breakfast, lunch, & dinner. They're fresh, soft, rice skin rolls with noodle, shrimp,  vegetables served with peanut sauce. They're kind of like Egg Rolls without frying them. The best part of the nime chow at Luk Thai are the mint leaves included in the middle of the roll. It gives the nime chow a freshness that just perfectly completes the roll. My very amateur & very American advice to any Thai restaurant is to make sure to include mint leaves in your nime chow.

Now that your daddy & I have some experience under our belts, we were happily able to suggest some of our favorite dishes to H & M, who had never been to Luk Thai. H ordered one of my favorite dishes, Drunken Noodles.

The Drunken Noodles are pan fried thin rice noodles with broccoli, onion, fresh basil, fresh chili, & garlic. You can add your choice of vegetable or tofu, chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, squid, mussel, or scallops. H got the chicken, but my favorite is the squid. The dish is so flavorful but still quite mild (you can actually ask them to spice it up a notch). I love the combination of noodles & vegetables, & find myself ordering this dish again & again.

This time I wanted to try something different & a little spicey. So, I ordered the Green Curry. When I read the descriptions of the curries, I liked the mix of spice & vegetables listed for the Green Curry & decided to give it a try. The Green Curry included green curry spices, coconut milk with bamboo shoots, gren beans, bellpeppers, eggplant, basil & of course I got mine with squid (there was a choice of vegetable or tofu, chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, squid, mussel, duck, or scallop).

I was delighted when they brought out my rice in the shape of a heart. What a sweet extra touch. When you combine that with the vibrant colors of the curry, this dish was as fun to look at as it was to eat. I was a little wary of ordering a spicy dish, hoping it wouldn't be too spicy. It was perfect. Yes, my eyes watered a little, but it was still amazingly good. The spices, the fresh crispy vegetables, the squid, everything was so yummy until the last bite. The dish was a very large portion & I was happy to save half of my meal for lunch the next day. The Green Curry might be my new favorite dish.

Your daddy ordered the Red Curry. He's already had the Green Curry & the Massaman Curry (his favorite) & wanted to try something new. The Red Curry is filled with red curry spices, coconut milk with bamboo shoots, carrots, pineapple, bell pepper, basil, & he added chicken (although you can add any of the protein items I had listed for the Green Curry). The Red Curry is a little less spicy than the Green Curry, but I think he asked them to bump up the spice a notch.

He really liked it. He was a little wary of the pineapple when ordering. He doesn't really like to mix sweet with savory, but he said it was a perfect flavor pairing. His curry also came with the heart shaped rice & was a big portion.

M ordered the Massaman Curry which includes massaman curry spices, coconut milk, potato, carrot, onion, peanut, & chicken (or you can add any of protein items listed before). Um, potatoes? It's kind of like mixing Thai food with Irish food. I think I might have to try that one next time.

It was a great meal with great wine (& beer for the boys), great food, great conversation, &, most importantly, great friends.

So glad we got to share our fondness of Luk Thai with our good friends. For our next time out with them, we're planning to go to a place that has great beer selections & 10 different flavors of soft pretzels. Have you heard of Malted Barley in Westerly? I can't wait.

I love you so,

Mommy