Sawadee Thai - Salt Lake City

Delicious Thai Sweet Tea

First Things First

Let me halfway apologize for my lack of posts over the last week.  As you may have guessed, it was finals time!  (That’s why it’s only a halfway apology – I have a damn good excuse).  The hot foods class has taught me a lot about classical cooking, and I’m looking forward to compiling an ebook with all of the goodies that I learned.

Sawadee

Today I had the chance to go up to Salt Lake City, where I tried out a Thai place called Sawadee.  It won first place for Thai food in the City Weekly’s Best of Utah awards, so I had to try it out.

Let me tell you, they didn’t let me down.  For starters, the value was amazing.  Sawadee offers a lunch special for $7.50 that includes a salad, rice, a spring roll, and your choice of two entree items from a list of about 20.  My wife and I ordered two kinds of curry, a barbecued pork dish, and a peppered chicken/vegetable dish for our specials. I ordered a Thai Sweet Tea to drink, which soundly blew my mind.  Picture a southern sweet tea, if you’ve ever had one.  (If you haven’t, it’s simply a sweetened, strong black tea.)  Now add a spicy, exotic bite from the Thai tea.  Now add a shot of half-and-half to make it oh-so-deliciously creamy.  It was transcendent, my friends.

Food and Service

The service was extremely quick – our food was out mere minutes after we put in the order.  (The salad was brought out literally right when we sat down, so that probably helped the time seem to fly by.  I guess the salad is their comp dish for everyone, like breadsticks at an Italian place.)

A great spread at a great price to boot

The sweet and spicy peanut salad dressing was excellent.  The little spring roll with sweet/sour chili sauce was delicious.  The barbecued pork was smoky and savory, very well seasoned.  The curries (we got Masaman and Red Curry) were distinctly different and both very tasty.  The peppered chicken was warm and refreshing. And for dessert, we just had to have their sticky rice with mango and coconut cream.  Get this stuff at any Thai place – it’s so simple, yet so incredibly delicious.  As long as you get a reasonably ripe mango, you’ll be in heaven.  I don’t care how full you are, just get it. You’ll find your appetite.  Today we got a lightly firm-yet-sweet mango, and it was delicious.

Points for improvement?

The only possible complaint I can think of is about the chicken that was in our two curry dishes.  It felt too tough, like it had been overcooked.  This is a tricky one for many chefs, because obviously you don’t want to take chances on underdone chicken.  (Hello salmonella, goodbye career!)

The curry’s chicken is very thinly sliced, so it can go from done to overdone in the blink of an eye.  There is also the chance that they let the chicken sit in the simmering curry broth for a long time, which will toughen it up pretty quick.  What would I do about it?  One idea is to cook the chicken breasts whole and slice them up after.  And they should leave it a little pink on the inside.  Are you raising your eyebrows?  Think about it: the chicken is cut into very thin slices,meaning they will cook quickly.  Then they are placed into a pot of boiling-hot curry.  It will cook them.

So that would be my ideal serving scenario – sear the chicken breast, cut it thin, and drop the slices into boiling curry just before service, letting it cook for barely a minute.  Imagine what a difference it would make to have perfectly done, melt-in-your-mouth chicken slices inside your delicious savory-sweet curry soup.  Wow, I’m getting hungry again.

Sawadee Thai: 754 East South Temple, Salt Lake City