Category

4-369 Kuhio Highway, Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii 96746. (808) 823-0899

Shrimp Spring Rolls ($7.95 for 4 pieces) - Rice paper stuffed with long rice, onions, mushrooms, and water chestnuts. Served with fresh lettuce, mint leaves, and cucumber. These rolls are fried and you can order Vegetable Spring Rolls instead for $7.25. I don’t like mushrooms, which this is full of, but I had to have another. It’s delicious.

Mema’s Curry with Chicken ($10.95) - Kaffir lime leaves, ground lemongrass, garlic, coconut milk, potatoes, and seasoning. You can specify mild, medium, or hot. Instead of chicken, you can order the curry with tofu, vegetable, pork, beef, shrimp, fish, or the seafood combo. Prices range from $9.95 to $18.95. We ordered it medium and it was just right for us… Spicy enough. It’s full of hearty chicken and large potato pieces. Good curry!

Pineapple Fried Rice with Shrimp ($12.95) - Stir fried rice with eggs, green peas, carrots, and pineapple. Order it with chicken, pork, or beef for $10.95. It was a little disappointing when the dish was delivered and the rice was not in a pineapple… But it was still pretty tasty, not a lot of pineapple though.

I think they’re a little short handed with waitresses. I only saw two, but they’re very nice. I wasn’t sure what kind of noodle pad thai was, so she brought out an example. It was a great meal (not really what I’d consider fancy or gourmet, but great filling food). Be sure to try this place if you’re ever on Kauai.

Taste: 9/10
Presentation: 3/5
Service/Atmosphere: 3/5
Total: 15/20

3671 5th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101. (619) 297-THAI

http://www.celadonrestaurant.com/home.htm

Celadon has moved to a new location! It is now in Hillcrest near Hash House a go go. It has a very different feel. Less Thai. Much more modern. Very LA or NYC metro with its black and white color scheme. (But, it also reminds me of See’s Candies. I kept waiting for the samples, but they never came… They never came!)

We started off with their stuffed chicken wings. I liked the difference between the crispy fried chicken on the outside and the soft minced chicken on the inside.

Dave says: “A good appetizer. A fair-sized portion. Tasty sweet and sour sauce. The noodles inside gave it a different texture compared to your typical chicken wings.”

The entrees are served family style. The Pineapple Fried Rice lacked some good pineapple. The pineapple wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t even recognizable as pineapple, but I still like the dish. One of my all time faves at Celadon. The chicken is moist and tender.

Dave says: “I was a little disappointed by the pineapple fried rice. I’ve had this dish once before at another restaurant and this one didn’t measure up. I’m not sure if it was the dish itself or if it was the fact that the pineapple they used was very bland (out of season maybe). I might give it a second chance when I go back, but it’s not something I’d go out of my way to order.”

The Drunken Noodles are also very good. Not too spicy, but just enough… I like the big flat noodles and the shrimp were gigantic!

Dave says: “The drunken noodles were delicious. Definitely my favorite of the three. Excellent sauce, tasty noodles, and a good portion of shrimp. This is one of those dishes where my mouth kept saying, “More!” but my stomach kept saying, “Are you serious?! There’s no more room down here!”

Dave says: “I enjoyed the decor. Like Cathy says, it’s a little too See’s Candy-ish, but still an elegant place. Service was great. The food presentation was good as well. Probably the only thing I didn’t like about the experience was the weak spot in the floor behind my chair. Every time someone went by, it felt like a mini-earthquake just for me. But hey, I’ve grown up in California and I’m used to it.”

Taste: 8/10
Presentation: 5/5
Service/Atmosphere: 5/5
Total: 18/20

6161 El Cajon Blvd # A. San Diego, CA 92115. (619) 229-9050

I met a friend recently at her favorite Thai restaurant, Sala Thai, near SDSU. Their lunch specials are very affordable, around $5.95 and the place was packed with students and professionals. I was going to try something new but ended up getting one of my favorite Thai dishes, Pad See Ew. It was a cold day and Pad See Ew is a warm and comforting noodle dish. The mild, slightly sweet sauce made from soy sauce, sugar and perhaps oyster sauce(?) is mixed with flat rice noodles, broccoli and your choice of meat. Sala Thai’s version was fair but I prefer the Pad See Ew at Saffron on India. Probably because they sprinkle cripsy fried shallots on top, which are irresistable!

My friend ordered her favorite, the Ka Prao, ground meat stir fried with chilies, garlic, onion and basil. I though her dish was nicely flavored and especially delicious when served with white rice. The service at Sala Thai was attentive and friendly. It seems like a family-run place as I saw two older relatives laughing and talking while stemming a huge table full of basil. Sala Thai is definitely a great place for a quick and tasty lunch.

Taste: 7/10
Service: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5
Total: 14/20

540 University Ave. San Diego, CA 92103. (619) 297 - 8424.

Celadon is a Thai restaurant “voted best in San Diego” and can be found in Hillcrest on University Avenue. The ambience is awesome but a little bit crowded, actually a whole lot crowded! I could barely move my chair back without getting clobbered by some lady sitting behind me or a waiter delivering food. The service was okay but nothing spectacular. There was nice mood lighting, perfect date place. Each table had a flickering candle and there were nice tapestries and decorations (i.e. it was a Thai restaurant). There are street-facing windows that offer a romantic view of University Avenue (I’m not sure why it’s romantic, it just is!).

We had a party of six — Me, Dennis, Lynn, Diane, Michael, Nguyen. We ordered five dishes and dabbled family style (which is the best way to do it). The waiters were for the most part friendly and there were enough so that you weren’t kept waiting very long. Except the water service! I finished my drink before the meals came and it was not refilled until almost the end! Water refill is a direct indication of how attentive waiters are, in my opinon. Okay, I can’t remember anymore…on to the food!

The Pineapple Fried Rice did not disappoint. Unfortunately, it was the only one (in my opinion) that didn’t. It was served in a real shelled out pineapple and had chunks of delicious pineapple, shrimp, chicken (or so Dennis thinks) and all the other good stuff you find in fried rice. There was also a little side bowl for the overflow that didn’t fit in the pineapple shell. The pineapple in it blended well with the other ingredients and didn’t stick out too much the way it does on those Hawaiin pizzas.

The Drunken Noodle (other restaurants call it Pad Kee Mow) with beef was not very good at all. I am used to a more basil flavoring. I thought the meat tasted bad but I don’t usually eat beef so I just may not have been accustomed to the flavor. Lynn didn’t like this dish either. It looked very red but didn’t taste spicy at all! I did not like it. (But I think Nguyen really did — he ordered it).

The Lad Nar had very thick gravy with shrimp. My first bite was delicious, then it went all downhill. In the bad way. The gravy had a very strong white pepper taste. It seemed doused with it. The shrimp was fresh though, and yummy (tail and all). The noodles were too fat! They didn’t even taste like noodles, more like sheets of noodle flour.

The Pad Thai was okay. But that’s just about it. Very boring. Dennis says the flavor was flat and I wholeheartedly agree. He thinks that it was lacking spice to it. I feel that it could have been less sweet and, again, I couldn’t taste any basil or mint or any other herb.

The Red Curry tasted the most authentic, but I don’t like red curry (so this may be biased). It had the right amount of everything and tasted like it would taste if it were home-cooked but there was nothing spectacular at all about it.

The complimentary dessert was horrible! Dennis says that it is normally not so. It was horrendously salty, and is definitely not meant to be that way.

All in all, the food was mediocre to bad, except for the pineapple fried rice which was a little bit better than mediocre. I’m sure other people in the dining party had other opinions but Dennis made me write this

Taste: 5/10
Presentation: 2/5
Service: 2/5 (more water refills!)

TOTAL: 9/20

1109 South Pacific Coast HWY. Redondo Beach, CA 90277. (310) 316 - 1580.

Appetizer: Fried Calimari

The fried Calimari was an okay start. It isn’t a local exclusive that’s worth dying for. It was about the most unique thing on their menu of appetizers so I choose to get it. I was expecting it to have a more distinct taste. Unfortunately, with, or without the sauce, it’s nothing special. Just go to your local supermarket.

Main Course: Teriyaki Salmon Dinner

Most places seem to have an exclusive salmon dish, so I choose to order this to try out. I figured hey the Salmon you get at your local supermarket is boneless, taste great, and isn’t that expensive. Disappointment sucks. First off, it was $10.50 for a small thin slab of salmon, a small bowl of shrimp rice, some nasty broccoli, and lots of teriyaki sauce. White rice tasted better than the fried rice. The broccoli would’ve tasted better raw. The salmon was full of small and tremendously irritating bones that kept stabbing me. It spent more time trying to get the bones out of my mouth than I did eat. The only thing that kept me eating was the fact that I was hungry.

Dennis’s Main Course: Dearest Crab

This item was about 10$ and was listed under the house specials. It sounded pretty good compared to the other items on the menu and I’ve been dying for some good crab lately. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed. The way the crab was prepared was not how I expected. They served the crab mixed with pork and shrimp but into weird fried balls. The taste of this meatball was that of crabcake or the insides of an eggroll but not as good. I got so tired of eating this that I refused to finish my meal. I only ate one out of the two crab meatballs because I was afraid that I was going to get sick.

I’ve asked the other guests among our group and not one person had a good thing to say, except for Bao, who said the fried duck was good. On another note, Jimmy says that our experience was not well because of the manner in which we ate. Like other Thai and asian restaurants, everybody can order a different entree but everybody usually shares from each other so that there is a large variety. Nobody would get bored of the flavor, because they do serve in large portions, and the environment and mood would change. The only reason we did not eat family-style was because this was somewhat of a formal dinner. On a good note, the Thai Tea was good.

Dessert:
Ugh, god spare me.

Taste: 3/10
Presentation: 2/5
Service: 3/5
Total: 8/20

here are some additional photos of the appetizers and entrees from the other guests.