Tara Thai is Heaven...With Peanut Sauce on the Side
Written: Jul 16 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great Thai food, graet atmosphere, reasonable prices.
Cons: None
|
|
|
| caconti's Full Review: Tara Thai |
Thai food is the nectar of the goods, served with peanut sauce on the side of course. It was all I could think of this past weekend while I was in the states, in Bethesda, Maryland to be exact. A good friend of mine in the city, Rachel, decided to indulge me and took me out for a night on the town, my first as a D.C. Metro resident. Our choice? Tara Thai, the hippest Thai restaurant in Maryland, and one of the best food-wise. Just a 4-5 minute walk from the Bethesda Metro stop, it's convenient from anywhere in the city.
Because it was late June but surprisingly pleasant, we decided to eat outside since the restaurant offers about 12 tables for exterior dining. Unlike many restaurants, the service outside was just as attentive as inside, and Rachel and I had great fun people watching as we enjoyed our meal.
The Food
Tara Thai's food is light and refreshing, with a heavy accent on seafood and peanuts. From whole fish to generous bowls of fish soup, all of the food is freshly prepared and artistically served, and delicious to boot!
My Favorites:
1.Stuffed Chicken Appetizer- These are 3 drumsticks, stuffed with sautéed crabmeat and scallions, then deep-fried. Served on a bed of shredded vegetables and served with a tangy sauce(very similar to Chinese duck sauce), this is a great starter. The crispy outside and moist inside play off of each other at the same time that the sweet crab and savory sauce are using the same "opposites complement" principle. My overall favorite!
2.Pad Thai- One of the most popular of Tara Thai's main dishes, or any Thai restaurant, is Pad Thai. The dish is simply Thai noodles tossed with shrimp and a potpourri of ingredients which include peanuts, dried garlic, egg, scallions and bean sprouts, everything but the kitchen sink in fact. The flavor is rich and silky, with the spices and the peanut being the dominant flavors. What a pleasure!
3.Garden Rolls- There are a faction of eaters, myself included, who cannot eat at an Asian restaurant without some type of roll to start the meal. Tara Thai''s garden rolls are perfect for whetting your appetite, thin and lightly packed, then fried golden brown and served with another savory sauce. Just a little taste of what's to come, I recommend starting with this dish to get yourself really in the mood for the spectacle that's to come.
Service
Tara Thai's service passes my two simple criteria for "good attention". During the course of our meal the waiters came to check on us every 10 minutes or so, not too much attention but enough to give us ample opportunities to order more, and my water glass never emptied.
Decor
This restaurant is gorgeous! All centered on a marine theme, it's all aquamarine and cobalt blue here, with fishes swimming on the walls and a fluid art-deco curve to every piece of furniture. The glass on the tables even further reflect the blue ambient light onto the mirrors that adorn the walls, Eating inside is like being in an ocean/fishbowl, and I found the charming décor to be a perfect complement to the seafood concentration of Tara Thai's menu.
A Digression on Booze
I hate to sound prejudiced, but personally experience has taught me that a good mixed drink can be tough to find at Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. Tara Thai defies this stereotype, serving some of the best stiff vodka drinks that I've had in awhile. From Martinis to Cosmopolitans, they combine skill and high quality ingredients(Stolichnaya vodka) to provide a refreshing and enjoyable pre/post-dinner drink.
Price
For the quality of the food and the dining experience, Tara Thai strikes me as being a great deal. Rachel and I knocked down three appetizers, two main courses and four Cosmopolitans, and the bill with tip only ran us about $65. For a nice night out on the town in Bethesda, that's a steal!
The following has been an entry in this weekend's Thai Dine-Off, organized by forkids. The following members are participating, and I urge you to read all of their entries through their respective profile pages:
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
caconti
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Christian Conti
Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 636
Trusted by: 481 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.