Restaurant Week

Today was the last day of restaurant week at the promenade. There were some great lunch specials at a variety of places.

 We decided to go to White Orchid today-- a great Thai restaurant. For only $15 on the restaurant week lunch special menu, you could get one appetizer (4 choices) and one entrée (8 choices). I went for the vegetable spring rolls and chicken pad thai, one of my favorite Thai dishes. The spring rolls were a little oily since they had just been fried, but I liked the filling of root vegetables and carrots. The pad thai was really good; lots of flavor and different textures from the peanuts, bean sprouts and glass noodles.

The dish that I tried that surprised me the most was the pad kee mao. These broad stir fried noodles with a basil flavoring were really delicious. The dish had a lot of flavor.

So, how does this compare to Land, my favorite Thai restaurant in New York? Well, Land's pad see ew with beef is one of my favorite dishes out there, so Land gets some points there. The broad noodles get stuck together which I love, but the beef is often too chewy. The spring rolls at Land are way less greasy and a lot more crunchy. With the White Orchid spring rolls I could taste the dough a little more. The pad thai at Land has more egg in it which I enjoy and more lime flavoring than the pad thai at White Orchid. White Orchid definitely gets some atmosphere points since Land is a very tight squeeze. The restaurants are pretty comparable, but I have to say Land is a little better because of their fine dishes that are flavorful and less greasy.