THE ORCHID RESTAURANT IS A GREAT NEW ADDITION TO THE BAKERSFIELD DINING SCENE
Written: Oct 24 '09 (Updated Oct 24 '09)
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Pros: Excellent Thai food served in a very nice dining room
Cons: none comes to mind
The Bottom Line: This is a very user-friendly place for those not highly familiar with Thai Cuisine. The food is excellent and nicely priced.
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| tennis_player's Full Review: The Orchid Restaurant |
BACKGROUND:
While passing through Bakersfield to Southern California or Las Vegas, we stop and stay the night in Bakersfield, CA and have dinner with friends that retired to this area. In past trips, we would dine at PF Chang's China Bistro, Famous Dave's BBQ or Tahoe Joe's, all chain operations. This time, however, they wanted to be a bit more adventurous and go to a relatively new Thai place. They have had very little experience with Thai cuisine as they are a mostly 'meat & potatoes,' conservative, older couple. But, the wife had attended a luncheon several weeks earlier with her book group and she liked it. So, this was a bit of a breakthrough. We were thrilled to death to have the opportunity to help them a long in this endeavor to expand into this unique Asian cuisine. We were a little concerned, however, as Bakersfield was/is not known for really good food except Basque food. But, we hoped for the best.
THE PLACE:
The Orchid is located in a large, new, busy shopping center in a newer section of town. There is plenty of competition as evidenced by a pasta place, a steakhouse, a pizza parlor and a sport bar – all within a stone’s throw of The Orchid.
The exterior is contemporary in styling and a nice outdoor patio area just off the main entrance. Upon entry, we were impressed by the modern but Asian accented décor. We were warmly greeted by a hostess and we were seated in the large, rectangular dinning room.
The lighting was subdued with a row of booths along the exterior wall and an array of tables and chairs that can be moved to accommodate almost any size of group. The color scheme was made up of rich, dark woods along with black or onyx table tops and vinyl seat coverings. Of particular interest was a floor-to-ceiling, silent waterfall along the interior wall that was illuminated with lights of changing colors. It’s a very nice, intimate and handsome dining room.
We had a reservation for a party of four at 6:30 PM on a Saturday night. The place was about three-quarters full but the noise level was very low and we were able to chat easily at normal speaking levels – a big plus in our opinion!
THE MENU:
The menu is mounted in a heavy, multi-paged vinyl portfolio binder made to imitate classic, dark, tooled leather. It is very impressive in appearance.
The menu offering is fairly typical for Thai cuisine. However, they did not confuse people by listing the phonetic Thai name of the dish except for the more popular and well-known items such as Pad Thai (noodles), Tom Yum (Thai hot sour soup), Larb (salad w/ meat), Massaman curry (Indian-style curry w/beef, chicken or pork), Khao Pad (Thai fried rice), etc. The other items were descriptive names like Roast Duck in Green Curry Sauce; Beef/Chicken/Pork/Shrimp sauteed in ginger, onions, green peppers and sweet basil; Minced Chicken with garlic, chillies, and basil; Chicken Stir-fried with sliced ginger; etc.
Items are divided into Starters/Appetizers, Soups, Salads, House Specialties, Noodles, Meats and Fowl, Seafood, Vegetarian and Dessert sections.
OUR EXPERIENCE:
We started of by ordering a Pad Thai for an appetizer for all to share even though it is listed in the entrée section. We followed this with a Green Papaya Salad, also to be shared. The other couple both had Mango Chicken. My wife had the Beef Salad and I had the Duck in Yellow Curry Sauce.
The Pad Thai was excellent! It was moist with good flavor with just a hint of the hot/sour flavor that this dish is noted for. There was plenty of minced chicken so it was not a cheap rendition of this famed dish.
The Green Papaya Salad was equally good with more hot/sour flavoring in the clear dressing. It’s supposed to be fairly hot so it was a bit too hot for the other couple.
Their Mango Chicken looked and tasted a lot like Chinese-style Sweet & Sour Chicken made with Mango instead of pineapple or onion & bell pepper. They liked it a lot, however.
My wife reported that her Beef Salad was also very good. It was pretty spicy-hot. But, that’s the way it is supposed to be. There was plenty of medium-rare, marinated, sauteed beef strips. My Duck Curry was excellent. The Duck had the nice 5-spice aroma and taste and was very tender and fairly lean. The curry sauce was just right – spicy and flavorful but not so intense that it would overwhelm the duck. It was served with my choice of white or brown rice. I chose the brown rice.
We had a glass each of Cabernet, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and a Hefeweizen Beer with our dinner. We finished our meal with two shared desserts, a Red Velvet Cake and an Italian Lemon Cake and coffee for everyone. No, the desserts were not Thai. The Red Velvet Cake was very good – moist, multi-layered, sweet rich and lots of frosting. The Italian Lemon Cake sounded better than it was. It, too, was moist but not as much lemon flavor as we would have liked. It should have been quite nice as it was supposed to have been made with the famed Italian Liqueur, Limoncello.
The service was very good. Our server was a nice young lady who was friendly, efficient and very knowledgeable about the menu and the food preparation. We never had to wait very long for any our dishes to come out and all were served nice and hot.
This dinner of appetizer, salad, entrée, wine, dessert and coffee came out to just under $35person (includes tax but before tip). I thought that it was an excellent meal at moderate cost making for an excellent value.
BOTTOM LINE:
We will be coming back with the other couple the next time we come through Bakersfield. We have no hesitation in recommending this to others.
NOTE:
Thank you, Lyagushka, for adding this restaurant to the Epinions database to make it possible for this review
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Excellent Thai food, moderately priced and nicely served in an attractive and intimate place.
Best Suited For: Trendy Crowd
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Epinions.com ID:
tennis_player
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 in Electronics |
 - Top 500 |
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Member: James Quon
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 347
Trusted by: 251 members
About Me:
A retired Professional from 40 years in technical Sales & Marketing.
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