Go Thai

Living on the border of Burnaby/Coquitlam/New Westminster, we often embark on long walks in random directions. On one of these occasions, we started walking down North Road and found ourselves in the Sapperton neighbourhood in New Westminster. We passed by a Thai restaurant and decided to visit.

Go Thai is located on Columbia Street, right before you get into the core Sapperton strip. It's a little curious looking, because the location and the building is where you expect a fast food chain should be. However, we were curious about this place because apparently the owner is a woman from North East Thailand.

The restaurant is minimal and has very little ambiance, with unremarkable furniture and decor. However, I am always in some strange way charmed by places that are unapologetic about how it looks. It's kinda ballsy.

To our delight, the restaurant had a pretty decent Thai Iced tea ($2.50), being appropriately very sweet, orange and a distinctive tea taste. My only complaint is that it could have used a wee bit more evaporated milk. However, this was refreshing and a brilliant counter to the spicy food that was to follow.

I was very excited to see sticky rice on the menu, because up in Northern Thailand, this is a staple food, and you rarely see this in Thai restaurants for some reason. The portion is small ($3.00), but it's presented in a traditional rice basket. We ordered dishes that would normally be eaten with sticky rice in Thailand.

We ordered a variety of Thai staples, one of which is Som Tam ($8.95), or green papaya salad. This is a very standard dish in Thai restaurants, but few dishes do it well. This version was very good, with a nice balance of sweet, sour and salty. However, the salad was extremely spicy, even though we asked for 'medium' levels. It was so good that we couldn't help but finish the whole thing!

We also ordered the Larb Gai ($8.95), which is minced chicken served like a salad with onions, spices, cilantro, chili, and lime. This was really good and fresh tasting, though the dish had a touch too much sugar. However, the only thing I didn't like about both salad dishes is that they were served on a bed of iceberg lettuce, which made the dishes look a lot bigger than they were.

Next, we had the Gai Yang ($9.95), which is grilled chicken. In Thailand, people would grill a whole chicken over charcoal on the streets, and you can buy it in every street corner, cut up, and served with a sweet and sour chili sauce. This dish had echoes of that, but it was a pale comparison. The meat itself was chicken breast which was nicely seasoned, but slightly dry. There was a distinct grilled flavour, but not as intense as it should have been.

Finally, for dessert we had the deep fried bananas and ice cream ($4.95). The portions were very generous, and this dish was good, though not spectacular. The bananas were soggy rather than crispy, and the ice cream was just regular, plain vanilla ice cream.

All in all, we were happy to have discovered this hidden gem of a place, considering how reasonable the prices are. It's not just like in Thailand, but I'm not sure I'll ever find that place. However, we'd definitely be curious to try a lot more of their dishes.

Tamarind Hill

On Friday night we visited Tamarind Hill, a Malaysian restaurant in New Westminster, at 6th Ave and 7th Street. I'd been there before, and was very impressed by the flavours. The restuarant itself is small and colourful, and there are pretty touches in the decor, like the antique door that decorates the waiting area, and the amber 'tear-drop' light fixtures. We arrived at a quarter to 6pm, and we were the only ones in the restuarant, but as we dined, the restuarant quickly filled every seat.

The first dish we ordered was the lamb satays. They were okay, though I'm not a fan of lamb in general. The meat was flavorful (but it could be MORE flavorful), but the portion was small and the meat was also a bit on the dry side. This is served with a chunky peanut sauce that could have been spicier.

Next came the Mee Goreng, a spicy noodle dish with tofu, shrimp and vegetables. We love this. The noodles were delicious and spicy, with a hint of smokiness and sweetness.

We also ordered the okra, green beens and eggplant in a sambal sauce. The veggies were perfectly cooked, with the beans and okra still crispy, and the eggplant soft and yeiding. The sambal was a bit sweet, but there was balance and a salty complexity to the dish. This is great with rice. However, I had a couple of pieces of old (ie. stringy and tough) okra.

Probably our favorite dish of the night (aside from the noodles) was the Beef Rendang, which is essentially a beef curry with lemongrass and spices and looked a long time. The beef was tender, and the sauce had a underlying spiciness that was very pleasant. This and a bowl of rice is a kind of heaven.

The biggest surprise of the night was the dessert Ais Kacheng (sp?), which is shaved ice with grass jelly, corn, red beans, green chewy things, and sweet coconut milk. The last time I was here they served it in a tiny bowl, but this time it came in a huge soup bowl (there were 4 servings in this). What a deal! There is a version of this in Thailand as well, so the taste was familiar to me. It's so delicious and refreshing. It might look bad when stirred up, but don't be fooled by appearances! So yummy!

We had no idea the other dessert was going to be so big, so we'd ordered the deep fried bananas with ice cream. This is a pretty standard dessert, I don't have much to say about it.

We sure were stuffed after the meal!