Foodie : Thai AYCE is so much more filling than Japanese
Here is a possible food challenge - to order one each of the 22 items offered at Urban Thai Bistro’s All-You-Can-Eat (AYCE) Lunch menu.*
Following Matt’s post last week about AYCE at Urban Thai Bistro I made plans posthaste to have the very same in order to regale Metbloggers, passers-by, and my own photo collection with food pictures. It was a Thai food bonanza. Seriously.
We started with Vegetarian Spring Rolls (filled with julienned vegetables and glass vermicelli, it was peppery and good), Tom Yum Gai (”Spicy & sour soup with chicken, mushrooms, lemon grass & Thai spices.” It was creamy, a touch spicy, and very fragrant), Fried Calamari rings (lovely tempura batter; we kept forgetting to order more), Yum Neua (Thai-style salad with sliced beef - it was sweet and hot and loaded with cilantro leaves - eww), and Marinated Fried Chicken Wings (a little spicy, the way my mum would make it).
For our first round, we ordered Garlic Pork on a Bed of Spinach (this was a hugely flavourful dish that required rice accompaniment), Chicken Sauteed with Chili and Cashew Nuts (this wasn’t altogether special except for cashew nuts!), Coconut Steamed Rice (this was made so well, so fragrant, so fluffy), Mixed Vegetables in Oyster Sauce (vegetables are a necessary part of the meal - Urban Thai seems to favour the use of celery… we don’t like celery), and Pad Thai (it is more moist than others I’ve had, more tomato/ketchup flavour; the shrimp, unfortunately, was detracting with a slightly funky smell - from frozen, obviously).
It was after the first round that I noticed they did not collect our plates unless every last small morsel of vegetable was gone.
For our second round, we ordered Mixed Vegetables in Yellow Curry (carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, and celery in a thicker coconut yellow curry - yum), Chili Pepper Fried Rice with Chicken (my taste buds were quite excited at this point but even this great rice dish was good), Neua Pad Prig Khing (this was beef with green beans, lime leaves in a chili sauce), and Neua Pad Phed Bai Grapau (beef with chili, onions, peppers, and basil leaves; not much of an impression of this by this point….). Though it might have been the feeling of full setting it, it also seemed as if these last beef dishes were loaded with meat.
The second round was curtailed a little in order to save room for dessert, Black Sticky Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk. Loved this dessert - in a dainty bowl, it was the perfect amount, too.
We also ordered a Royal Thai drink with fresh coconut juice blended with lychee juice ($3.95). That was very refreshing.
It’s a little odd how at a Thai restaurant we didn’t get around to ordering either a red or green curry. And there was an ostensible lack of duck on the AYCE menu. It’s hard to think of returning except for the AYCE lunch, which I would if to impress someone with something not run-of-the-mill (Chinese or Japanese).
(There are adverts in Urban Bistro for the AYCE at Samba Brazilian House….)
* From the appetizers menu, you order one item at a time (e.g., one chicken wing, one calamari ring), so for a challenge you would have to agree on, for example, 10 wings, 2 spring rolls, half a dozen calamari rings, and at least a double helping of the dessert. And there is a two-hour time limit.
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Urban Thai Bistro
1119 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, B.C.
Homepage : http://thaihouse.com/urban/index.html
(All-You-Can-Eat Lunch is served on Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 until 2:00, $11.95/person)
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