 |
| Lek Sriweawnetr ladles steaming hot meat and vegetables into a serving dish. He learned to cook by watching the chefs where he worked as a busboy in Bangkok. |
I have always looked forward to get-togethers at certain of my parents’ friends’ homes with more eagerness than others. A meal at the Shupp’s house in Novelty, for instance, had us wondering for days ahead of time what Saeng would make. Saeng, the Shupp’s daughter-in-law, is a native of Thailand. Her contributions for the festivities were always Thai dishes made of rice and noodles, incredibly tender chicken or beef satay (marinated meat on skewers) and spring rolls – the best I’ve ever tasted.
I always knew Saeng worked at a Thai food restaurant somewhere, but that was all. It wasn’t until my parents (who aren’t known for traveling too far from home for dinner) told me they’d been to the new Thai Orchid in Mentor that I finally learned where Saeng works and knew I had to go. Thai Orchid opened in Mentor early in December at 7329 Mentor Ave. in Points East Plaza at Ohio 306 and U.S. 20 after 13 years in Lyndhurst.
The restaurant is decked out in the traditional, if somewhat tacky, Asian restaurant-type décor – backlit sea-themed photos, Buddhas, lotus blossom-painted windows, gold tassels hanging here and there. A bar is being built in the back of the restaurant in anticipation of a liquor license. One pink wall is taken up by reviews from every area publication you can name. (All food writers must think alike – a Thai restaurant? Where?!) The remaining décor is nice – bare wooden tables, lots of live-looking orchids, bamboo and other plants.
Owners Lek and Payao Sriweawnetr came from Thailand to the Boston area in 1983. Lek was a chef at the Boston Sheraton Hotel after having worked as a chef at the Hyatt Regency in Bangkok. The couple decided to open their own restaurant and chose the Cleveland area. Lek said he learned to cook by watching the chefs when he was a busboy.
“I started out cooking hamburgers for American GIs,” he said. There are no burgers on the menu at Thai Orchid. My dining companion and I, neither of us with much Thai food under our belts, pored over the menu. Everything sounded so different and foreign to us that it took a while to narrow it down to a few items.
I’d heard of pad Thai, but was determined not to get what everyone else eats when they go to a Thai food restaurant. At Thai Orchid, you can have the rice noodle dish fried with your choice of shrimp or chicken, along with eggs, ground peanuts, bean sprouts and scallions. We tried the stuffed wings for an appetizer, something we’d never seen before. These aren’t your usual buffalo wings. Whole chicken wings are stuffed with chicken, shrimp, water chestnuts, bean thread and onion then deep fried. If not all that exciting, they were different, and that’s something I like in an appetizer.
We couldn’t decide between the two soups, so we tried both. The lemon grass shrimp soup, a hot and sour soup with lime juice, fish sauce, chili paste, mushrooms and whole shrimp (be careful of the tails), garnished with fresh cilantro, was good. But the chicken coconut soup was delicious – a milky pink broth redolent of coconut milk, lime juice and fish sauce floating with chicken, red cabbage, baby corn, mushroom, scallions and fresh cilantro.
There were some of the same dishes you’d find in other Asian restaurants such as fried rice and oriental vegetables such as bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and snow peas, but even those had unusual ingredients like pineapple. “I almost expected the Chinese food taste where the entire dish tastes alike,” said my guest, who was already planning her next trip to the restaurant with her husband. “There is no comparison – you can taste all the individual flavors in this.”
Thai cooking uses a lot of curry, coconut, peppers, tofu and mushrooms as well as peanuts and cashews. And beware since many of the dishes are quite spicy. We didn’t really have room for dessert, but when our server mentioned homemade coconut ice cream and sticky rice with mango, we had to try both. And we weren’t disappointed. The ice cream was liquid ambrosia and each piece of sticky rice was like a chewy piece of candy. The menu listed lychee and rambutan, tropical fruits not available the day we visited.
Nothing on the lunch menu is over $7. We had two cups of hot tea, an appetizer, two bowls of soup, two entrees and two desserts and spent less than $40, tip included. The dinner menu is filled with more vegetarian and seafood items with the highest-priced entrée at just $15. Thai Orchid is open for lunch from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and for dinner from 5- 10 p.m. For reservations for large parties, call 440-942-6752.
Laura Freeman writes regularly about restaurants for the Lake County Business Journal. Lfreeman@lakebusinessjournal.com. |
|
