Thai House Thai Cuisine

泰豪泰式料理

No. 199, Zhonghua 3rd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區中華三路199號
(07)261-4907

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-2:30pm
5:00pm-10:00pm

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 200-300NTD

I'd like to say a little something about this restaurant here, but all I can think of is, "It's the Thai place right by my house." 

And if I keep saying that restaurants are right by my house, eventually someone is going to figure out where I live... Let's look at the menu!

It's English friendly, and even has some pictures, but loses points for being overwhelmingly massive. Each dish is about 100NTD or so, which makes this place seem like a pretty cheap lunch option, until you realize that the dishes are so small you have to get at least two per person.

They serve you rice in fancy beaten silver pots though. The whole atmosphere is pretty classy, actually, though when we were there (lunch on a Saturday) it was filled with people (some of them screaming children) and sort of lost that feel.

We got tamarind juice to drink, and it was really interesting! Nicely sweet with a unique, nutty aftertaste. I liked it!

Here we have some sort of garlicky chicken over cabbage. The skin was well-cooked, the meat was tender, and all of it was fairly bursting with flavor. Plus it came with a flower!

This here is 山蘇, a plant used often in some Taiwanese aboriginal cuisines. It was good, certainly, but just because it was so oily and garlicky; as to whether the plant itself is actually good or not, I'm guessing not, or else they wouldn't have had to go to so much trouble to dress it up.

Here we have green papaya salad, with peanuts and a weird purple green bean thing you can't see in this picture (and flower). After I ordered this I was informed by my lunch partner that green papaya is widely known to have breast enlarging effects, and that is one of the reasons Vietnamese and Thai women have such (comparatively) large breasts, because they eat lots of green papaya when they're growing up. ...I am skeptical about all of these statements.

The salad was great though! Crisp and tangy, very refreshing. And of course I love anything with peanuts sprinkled on top of it.

And finally we have a tofu vegetable soup. It was basically exactly as pictured here, with no strong flavor besides vegetables and soft tofu. Good, but not a knockout.

I think I sort of messed up the ordering this time (I mean, we didn't even get any greasy noodles or anything...), so I'm basing my judgement on the last time I ate here too. Ahem. In conclusion, this place has pretty delicious Thai food and is not too expensive, depending on what you order. It is a solid choice for lunch or even dinner, if you're not looking to really impress someone.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

Thai Town Cuisine

瓦城泰國料理

12th floor, No. 21, Sanduo 4th Rd, Lingya Dist
高雄市苓雅區三多四路21號12樓
(07)963-0262

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-10:30pm

website: http://www.thaitown.com.tw/index.php

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: doable
average cost: 400-500NTD

I forgot to get a picture of the outside of this restaurant, but you've probably seen it before anyway! It's a common fixture in Taiwanese malls. This particular incarnation can be found in the FE21 mall, in the Sanduo shopping monstromegaopolis. Kaohsiung has a lot of malls, have you noticed?

Their menu is not TOO ridiculously huge but it has lots of words and lots of white space so it's sort of hard to capture in one picture... Instead, lets look at other pictures!

BTW, each meal comes with unlimited rice, either of the typical Japanese rice variety or the EXOTIC Thai rice variety. The latter is the same sort of rice you'd get in Indian restaurants: slighly longer, and sort of "shaggier" than the rice you're (assumedly) used to. It's nice to have something different once in a while, but I am personally of the opinion that Japanese rice is yummier.

I accidentally went on a two-week bicycle trip around Taiwan between eating at this restaurant and writing this review, so many of the details have faded from my mind. Ummm. Here we have a vegetable dish, with some hot peppers in it! It wasn't hot unless you ate a pepper.

This guy was great! Pad thai with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. Can't go wrong with that.

Their classic (Taiwanese) Thai shrimp pancake comes in original, spicy, lemon grass, and whole wheat varieties. We got the whole wheat one, and it was incredible! I couldn't really taste the whole wheat--it was mostly just crispy shrimpy goodness--but one member of our party opined that this version is better than their original.

This, a beef curry thing. No complaints here. Not very spicy, but the curry was quite good.

I *think* this is pork, meant to be wrapped up in a lettuce leaf and eaten. The flavor was really odd: slightly oily, and quite sour. It was supposed to be spicy, I believe, but instead it was lemony and oily. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I think I was the only one at our table that did.

This, some sort of chicken thing! It was good, but left me with no lasting impression.

I didn't have a chance to try this chicken rice wrapped in leaves thing, but for the record here is what it looked like. It got very high reviews!

I don't normally go for dessert but I'm glad I did. This here is warm coconut milk with all sorts of tapioca and sugary fruit things in it. Yummy yummy yummy!

So yeah. This is definitely a GOOD restaurant, and a nice choice for an evening out on the town. (Errr, does anyone have evenings out on the town in this city?) But for such high prices, I think their food should leave a more lasting impression. Typical high class mall chain restaurant, I guess.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

Thai Delicious Thailand Burma Restaurant

泰好吃泰緬小館

No. 283, Zhonghua 4th Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市苓雅區林泉街92號
(07)715-1175

Monday-Sunday(?)
10:00am-9:00pm

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: doable
average cost: 150-250NTD

Here we have another restaurant with a cute punny name: "Thai" in Chinese can is pronounced the same way as "too", as in, "This restaurant is too good for me to not give it all my stars." If anyone knows of other pun-named restaurants in Kaohsiung, please let me know; I would like to collect the complete set.

The first time we went here for lunch on a Saturday, it was mysteriously closed! Our luck was better on the second try (Monday). You should know that this joint is insanely popular, especially for dinner; I was told that sometimes people line up all the way down the street. Apparently their business is so good that their lunch options are all sold out by 1:30pm, because that's when they started closing up shop... It's an unpredicable place. If you want to eat here, you're going to have to work for it. Make sure to have a back-up plan just in case. 

Their menu has not only entertaining English translations ("Sea Food in Cabbate Root") but also PICTURES, making ordering a breeze. But how on earth will you chooooooose?

I learned an incredibly important thing from my lunch experience here, and that is that Thai 河粉 ("river powder" or rice noodles) are the thick, wide, super greasy 河粉 that I looove so much. Vietnamese 河粉 tend to be thinner and rounder and correspondingly less wonderful. Noodle connoisseurs take note. These noodles were delicious. 

Shrimp cakes! Served with about a teaspoon of clear sweet sauce not visible in the picture. Crispy and flaky on the outside, richly shrimpy on the inside! A hit.

And here we have fried squid in a spicy sour sauce. It was actually spicy (actually spicy), spicy like a warm hug. And the squid! Now I'm no squid expert, but this may have been some of the best squid I've ever had. It was so... hefty. And chewy! And paired with the vegetables and sauce, absolutely delicious.

Last but not least, we ordered this somewhat ominous looking coconut milk chicken and squid dish. It may have the misfortune of resembling curdled milk, but it tasted magical. The sauce was smooth and rich, and had an interesting flavor: not too salty, nor too sweet, but not bland either. (Curious parties are encouraged to order it yourself and find out more.) Best of all, all mixed up in it was more super awesome squid! This one of the first times I've really felt the gustatory benefits of living by a major fishing port.

Each plate costs around 100NTD, but the servings are a bit small so you'll want to order more than normal to balance things out. We ordered four dishes total, and I really can't find anything to complain about with any of them. The owner is an actual Thai and/or Burmese person (also very nice), so their food might even be Authentic Tasting too. 

In conclusion... 

It was... 

Thai Delicious!!!

OVERALL RATING: 5/5