I love spicy food, but not at the expense of well developed flavors. Anyone can assemble a dish that blows your head off; that’s not skill shining through, that’s merely throwing in more chilies or hot sauce. Heat and nothing else is not interesting. What’s interesting is skillfully marrying the heat with other layers of flavor until the heat becomes “a” component, not “the” component.
That’s why I liked my lunch at Little Thai Kitchen in Greenwich.
The restaurant occupies a street corner in a residential neighborhood of Greenwich, just beyond the Port Chester border. It is indeed little — maybe 20 seats or so.
My lunch companion at Little Thai Kitchen was Amy Kundrat of CT Bites. (Amy just posted a nicely written review of Lolita Cocina in Byram that you should read.)
Here’s our appetizer of Mee Grob.
The crispy vermicelli noodles with shrimp and fried tofu were tossed in a sweet and sour sauce. I think we were both in agreement: we liked it, but it was awfully sweet. Might have been a little much for one person, so I’m glad we shared it.
Amy ordered the spicy basil chicken.
And this is my Pla Rid Prik: crispy fish in a spicy curry sauce.
The piping hot fish, buried beneath a mound of vegetables and sauce, stayed surprisingly crispy. The sauce was really tasty — fragrant of basil and coconut, and sneaky hot. The heat was one of those slow burns, building up gradually until I was flushed and sweating like a menopausal woman experiencing hot flashes (not that I would know, but I’ve heard).
That’s my kind of heat.
Little Thai Kitchen
21 St. Roch Ave.
Greenwich, CT
203-622-2972
2 Comments
Good food, substantial portions. The basil chicken gave my usual local Thai takout’s Pad Kra Prow a run for its money.
I’ve been there once and was not impressed, neither were my two friends we all considered it only OK. One person asked the food to be Thai level spicy and still got what they considered mild food. Heck, I could eat their dish.