Drive by Chai's Thai (6/3/08)

I wouldn't be nearly as effective driving down Cedar Avenue if I hadn't grown up playing Paperboy. Pedestrians dart out from the sidewalk, random objects lay abandoned in the the middle of the street, and the side streets sport potholes the size of bathtubs. I can skillfully maneuver my Civic around these obstacles but have yet to master the art of driving in a straight line while craning my neck out the driver's side window and yelling for my passengers to look for "that place." Which is what one will probably do when venturing to Chai's Thai on the West Bank.

It's a tiny place, easy to miss despite the huge green awning that advertises "Chai's" (my passengers can vouch for this), and while it's not quite a hole in the wall the decor is anything but plush. Knowing that the restaurant only holds about eight tables of patrons, I made reservations for three at 7:30 on a Tuesday night. We would have been seated immediately even without the reservation, but I still recommend calling ahead if you're dead set on Chai's - the place is so small that eight full tables can leave you waiting for over an hour.

My friend, Susan, and I started the evening with a coconut full of fresh coconut juice. Needless to say, fresh coconuts are a novelty up here and the drinks sparked stories of exotic trips to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Ghana. But drinking from coconuts in Minneapolis must be like eating lutefisk in Mazatlan... the juice tasted a bit flat, the coconut flesh was rubbery, and neither of us drained those nuts. My boyfriend, Jack, ordered a pot of green tea and was similarly disappointed as the tea hadn't completely steeped by the time it was served.

Undaunted, we kicked the meal off with a round of crab and avocado rolls. We were each expecting something packed with fresh avocado and crab, but what came was quite different - a thick-shelled eggroll with light crab and a small trace of avocado, topped generously with a heavy, spicy, cilantro sauce. My fellow diners gave the appetizer a tepid review but I really liked it (although I have given it a lighter, crispier shell, more avocado, and sauce on the side.)

Chai's is a tiny place with a huge menu, so it I agonized over me entree for quite a while. I ultimately opted for a noodle dish packed with squid, shrimp, scallops, then topped with a brown sauce reminiscent of pad see yew. You would think this dish would spawn paragraphs of critique around the seafood, noodle texture, or sauce complexity, but there really wasn't much to say. It was fine. I liked it. But I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

Susan ordered pad thai with shrimp tempura. The dish was stunning - a white, square plate, covered with half of a banana leaf, pad thai piled in the middle, six inches of shrimp tempura propped against the pad thai as if forming the frame of a tepee, and a small white bowl of sauce on the side. The shrimp was perfectly battered and fried, crispy but not too cakey, yet the pad thai base tasted a bit like canned tomato paste, was too heavy on the peanut and too light on the fish sauce.

Jack opted for a stir fried mix of chicken, white onion, and green pepper drenched in an unusual yet delicious chili mint sauce. I found the sauce too salty, but since western mint dishes are often sweetened it was a treat to chase that mint flavor with the warm, spicy taste of chili.

Once we paid and scavenged the enormous doorside candy bowl, we lumbered down Cedar, past african markets, seedy bars, and apartment towers affectionately known as the "crack stacks." We reached my Civic and as I sank into the driver's seat I realized that aside from the first-rate company, my impression of Chai's was much like my entree. It was fine. I liked it. But I wouldn't go out of my way for it, and unless I happened to be in the neighborhood looking for a meal, I'd probably just drive by.