Really? I usually eat the pad thai, spicy chicken noodles, yellow curry chicken or green curry chicken and all are the best I've had in Houston. What did you order?
MY REVIEW OF THAI GOURMET I had to go down to Hallettsville and Cuero today, and on my way back to H-town, my wife suggested that she and our one year old come meet me on the West side for dinner at some Asian place. I remembered all of the talk about Thai Gourmet and suggested that instead; she agreed, and one of our nephews joined us as well. Having never been, we ordered up a mess of food, so that we could taste most of our favorites. After a rocky start, the meal turned into something stellar. Here's what we had, and my thoughts: My wife likes egg/spring rolls, so any Asian place we go to that has them, we have to order them. I generally prefer Vietnamese egg rolls and sometimes Chinese, but who am I kidding, your wrap something up with a flat noodle and fry it, and I'll probably enjoy it. These were okay....no better or worse than to be expected at a Thai restaurant. I'd give them a 6.......maybe an 8 if only comparing them to Thai spring rolls. Along with that one appetizer, we ordered two salads: the papaya salad and the beef salad. These are two of my favorites in Thai cuisine, and I rarely get to have them. Kanomwan doesn't make either of them, and the beef salad (Yum Nuah) is one I don't think I've seen anywhere in Houston. The best rendition of this one I've had stateside is at Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas. As for the green papaya salad, the best ones I've had have all been in Thailand. The ones I've had in Houston have been marginal at best with a consistency that suggests they were made in the morning and allowed to sit. The papaya becomes more limp and the salad watery........not very appetizing. The papaya salad at Thai Gourmet seemed very fresh.......but it went downhill from there. The typical recipe calls for the green papaya, cane sugar, tomato, dried shrimp or shrimp paste, lime juice, fish sauce, thai peppers, green beans, peanuts, sometimes some carrot, and often times in Thailand, some fresh, raw crab still in the shell. Of course, Thai gourmet did not have the raw crab, but it also had no peanuts, green beans, or dried shrimp or shrimp paste. In fact, I'm not sure it even had fish sauce, and it had very little cane sugar. What it had was peppers and LOTs of them. Instead of crushing the pepper with the sugar and lime juice and fish sauce with a mortar and pestle in the traditional method, it looked like heaping scoops of peppers that had been run through a food processor were in the salad. I enjoy spicy food, and I usually order Thai Spicy, but my wife wanted to tone it down a bit, so we ordered it "hot" (they have "not spicy," "medium," "hot," "Thai hot," and "Extra Thai hot"--or so they told me), so really............we were ordering the middle of the road in terms of spicyness, and it was ridiculous. Worse than that, it was horribly out of balance. I've eaten Thai food all over the world--including Thailand--and although there is a certain part of me that wonders if they don't tone it down for the Westerners---even when they ask for Thai spicy---I firmly believe that the average Thai person does not eat their food as spicy as this salad was prepared, and they sure as hell don't eat anything this out of balance (Thais generally balance spicy with sweet (in this case, cane sugar) and sour (in this case, lime juice). I would give this salad a 2 on a scale of 1-10, and the two points are awarded only for freshness. I didn't complain about the heat, but I asked the waiter about it (and the missing ingredients), and he responded that the peppers they use are inconsistent and that the day's batch was especially hot. Perhaps that is true, but it seems they could have been tested beforehand. Again.........I wonder if he was just being nice by saying that, but I've only been to one other Thai restaurant (Lemongrass in Portland) where the heat level was so out of proportion as to make the dish unenjoyable, and I've literally been to well over a hundred Thai restaurants (we eat it everywhere). I always ask for Thai hot, and I just can't believe that only two restaurants are making it "authentic" for me........I have to believe these two are just going overboard on the heat. As for the beef salad, it was good, but not nearly as good as the one at Lotus of Siam. Granted, Lotus gets a 27 for food at zagat (Joël Robuchon with an average price of $250 per person, gets a 28), so this probably isn't a fair comparison. Again though, the salad was ordered "hot' (which is really medium), and although not nearly as spicy as the papaya salad, it bordered on being too much, and it was also a bit out of balance. It Lotus has 10, I'd give this an 8. I also ordered the "hot and milky chicken soup" (tom Kha gai), and it was really good. Also very spicy, but very well done. Not as good as Kanomwan's, but that is also an unfair comparison. With Kanomwan's being my 10, I'd give this an 8. After these beginning courses, we ordered the panang beef (which my wife had us tone down from hot to medium after tasting the salads), the garlic okra (hot), and glass noodles (ordered not spicy so as to share with the one year old). Here's where things really took off. The panang (one of my faves) was easily top three I've ever had. I will crave it, and I must return for more. Kanomwan's panang is good, but not great. The glass noodle dish (something Kanomwan makes) was also stellar. Thais usually have some non-spicy dishes with their meals, and I just assumed this was one of those dishes (Kanomwan's is not spicy); however, the waiter asked us how spicy we wanted this----even without the heat, the dish was mouth-watering. We love this dish at Kanomwan, but I think Thai Gourmet's is better. The okra was also incredible. I think it was slightly out of balance due to too much of that same food-processed red pepper, but beyond the heat, the underlying taste was just incredible. I'd give these three dishes a 10, 10, and 9 respectivley, and I think the okra could be a ten if made with a bit less of the food processed peppers. We had already pigged out (and had boxed leftovers), but we decided we should test the desserts as well; we ordered a sticky rice and fresh mango along with a fried banana with homemade coconut ice cream. best sticky rice I've ever had, and although I'm sure there are better mangos out there (my favorite fruit of all), this was the best one I've ever tasted in the states. The fried bananas were excellent (Lotus beats them on this one though), and the coconut ice cream was good (had much better........but I'm a bit of an aficianado on coconut ice cream). I'd give a 10 and an 8 for the two desserts. Anyway, that is a HUGE Kanomwan fan's review of Thai Gourmet. There are some dishes at Kanomwan that I will still need to go there for, but I REALLY enjoyed Thai Gourmet. Whereas getting Kanomwan to make their food spicy enough can sometimes be like pulling teeth, I think Thai Gourmet is on the other end of the spectrum, and will have to be managed to the extent that they tone it down enough to keep things in balance (or maybe the guy wasn't BS'ing me about the super hot batch of peppers they had today). Either way, I feel really lucky to have these two places in the city I call home.
I'm usually pretty good with spicy food, and anything more than medium spicy at Thai Gourmet to me is uncomfortably hot. Unless you have a stomach of steel, I would not recommend Thai Hot there.
Oh yeah. I forgot to add, Yum Nuah aka Beef Salad can be found in a couple places in Houston under the name "Tiger Cry". Thai Spice (not so good) has it ad Tony Thai on Bellaire has it.
Truth man. I'm a whitey who likes it spicy, but the "hot" at Thai Gourmet was making my brow boil like crazy. I wish I could get back into Thai but coconut milk makes me feel sick since the last time I got drunk and purged I had eaten delicious Thai only hours before. Sad times.
One of the attorneys in my office found a place on Sawyer near Washington called "Beaver's." A very excellent chopped beef sandwich with sauce that has a little kick to it. Really good spicy potato chips too.
thanks for the review pole. i went again for lunch earlier in the wk and took my co-workers. the mild last time was too hot for me (and i do like some spice), like i was sweating. so this time, i asked for mild again but a little less, one guy got medium, one got hot and another (nigerian) got thai hot. everybody really liked their dishes, good flavor and just enough spice for everyone's level. it may be the hot pepper batch b/c my second time there was very enjoyable, as my first trip was a bit too hot. anyways, i'm glad you liked it. i'm going to have to try this other kanomwan place out next and see.
I can see a sexual harrassment suit in the making. Woman co-worker: "You feeling hungry?" Male co-worker: "Sure." Woman co-worker: "Where do you want to eat?" Male co-worker: "Beavers, I love a hot sandwhich with sauce..."
So i ordered the red curry chicken, medium, another friend ordered the same in beef, 2 others ordered noodles....my medium was super spicy, and i'm pakistani, so thats saying a lot! and my friends mild was too mild, he had to put hot sause over his....Also, the red curry was not very tasty and the chicken tasted awkward....and to top it all off, it took us bout 30 mins to get and pay our bill I know lots here like this place, and maybe we just went on a bad day, or a bad location (richmond ), but I'd not go back unfortunately. I'd rather do thai spice, thai cottage, thai restaurant (westheimer) any day over this one now....
Richmond is the only location. And the thought that anyone could like Thai Cottage or Thai Spice, which I consider the worst Thai restaurants in Houston, is really shocking. I guess we've all got different tastebuds though.
yeah, my only complaint about Thai Gourmet is that they are consistently inconsistent when it comes to the spice levels. Sometimes medium is really hot, other times it's fairly mild. Sometimes mild is too mild, sometimes mild is too spicy. However, totally worth it in my opinion
catalan... went there sunday night and it was superb. chris shepherd is doing a damn good job over there.
Been there several times, but once my wife and I went and did the tasting menu. I had told the the waiter some of the things we like which must have really stuck a chord with Chris. I don't have the time right now to go over every detail of the meal, but it was the most over the top delicious meal I've had in Houston. He took it upon himself to bring out most of the dishes, and it was all incredible. I've read before about how some restaurants will take one table a night (secretly) and go out of their way to make things incredibly perfect.......or perhaps more to the point---they do everything to overly exceed expectations. I think we must have been one of those tables.
Tried Thai Gourmet based on this thread and loved it. Their medium is half a notch below a typical Thai places hottest level. And I like my food hot!
