Thai culinary harmony – that balance of spicy, sour, sweet, salty and bitter – can be found among the choices on the extensive menu here.
By: Kate and Tom O’Neill
Mie Thai, a branch of the original Mie Thai in Woodbridge, opened just over a year ago in a small strip mall on Route 27 in North Brunswick. Diners searching for good Asian food have learned to suppress their strip-mall prejudice good food can be found in any setting. But despite its wide-ranging menu, with some choices that sparkle, friendly service and pleasant décor, Mie Thai does not rise far above strip mall standard, partly because of a few easily correctable problems in management.
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Mie Thai |
Although the restaurant was not busy on the night we dined, we waited inside the entrance for several minutes before being acknowledged and shown to a table. Several times during our meal, the staff cleaned nearby tables, using a strong-smelling spray cleanser that overpowered the delicious scents of ginger, curry, lemon grass and lime that perfume Thai cuisine.
Once seated, we found service to be attentive, informed and, eventually, well paced. We had brought wine and beer to accompany the meal, and the wait staff handled them professionally, providing an attractive ice bucket with roses and the name Mie Thai hand-painted on the side.
We were asked three times if we were ready to order, but our server apologized, saying she just wanted to be sure we weren’t kept waiting. She reiterated the warning found on the restaurant’s Web site: the spiciness in Mie Thai’s dishes is consistently one notch hotter than what the diner might expect. A serving of "mild" curry here packs the punch of "medium spicy" in other Thai restaurants, she told us.
The extensive menu (which includes a wide variety of vegetarian options) offers 16 appetizers and four soups, which can be served by the cup or in a tureen for three or four. A variety of noodle and fried rice preparations are listed, as are 25 entrées, which include curries, barbecue and 14 seafood dishes. Those choices are supplemented by a regular listing of chef’s specials.
Three of us shared a tureen of delicious Tom Kha ($11.95) that was the high point of the meal. The coconut milk-laced soup had plenty of shrimp along with lemon grass, galangal (an earthy root, similar to ginger), fresh chilies, mushrooms, lime leaves and lime juice. The morel-shaped mushrooms were outstanding for both their dense texture and woodsy taste. The level of heat was enough to sharpen the palate, but not so powerful as to overwhelm the clean, bright tastes of the other ingredients.
Yum Gai Yang ($11.95), the salad that followed, was a disappointment. From the description we expected a highly flavorful dish: a combination of shredded and minced, barbecued chicken mixed with ginger, peanut, onion, chili and lime juice. Neither the chicken’s taste nor its appearance gave any hint of barbecue the small chunks of white meat might as well have been steamed. The dish gained a whisper of spiciness from chilies, but its only memorable flavor came from minced ginger. The dressing was watery and bland.
The harmony principle of Thai cuisine emphasizes not only a balance among the various dishes served during a meal, but also among the flavors within each dish spicy, sour, sweet, salty and bitter. Following this principle, we decided against ordering a curry after the spicy soup. In Pad Mie Thai ($12.95), the mie (thin rice noodles) were stir-fried with onions, tofu, ground peanuts, eggs, shrimp and chicken and blended with a flavorful bean sauce. We ordered it mild, and mild it was, but also zesty and well prepared, with both the shrimp and the chicken moist and flavorful.
Pla Pae Sa ($20.95), a whole, steamed red snapper, was served thickly covered with sweet peppers, onions and mushrooms in a fresh lime-and-ginger-root-flavored black bean sauce. Filleting the snapper was a challenge, but in the end the fish pulled off neatly into chunks that were moist and delicate, with hints of lime and ginger in each bite.
Moo Tod Rad Prig ($14.95) was labeled a "Thai favorite" and proved popular with us, as well. Chunks of pork, tender inside and crisp outside, were served in a golden brown chili and garlic sauce. To sample Mie Thai’s version of average spiciness, we ordered the dish medium instead of mild. It offered the evening’s best example of Thai culinary harmony. The chilies lent a warming, though hardly dangerous, amount of heat and were deliciously complemented by the cool, citrus flavor of lime and tangy basil leaves. Both the snapper and the pork were accompanied by a bowl of rice (we asked for brown).
The menu lists 11 Thai desserts, designed to cool and comfort after the rigors of the spicy dishes that precede them. The ones we chose served that function. The most ambitious and successful involved slices of banana wrapped in wonton pastry, fried, served with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzled with honey. Sticky rice with coconut cream was served warm and very sweet. Homemade Thai coconut custard was more like a rice pudding with a hint of coconut flavor.

