Thai Place Restaurant: Sweet and Spicy Food at the Phoenixville Plaza

By late August, you know that the summer’s bounty of zucchini, peppers and beans are good for you, but you just want them to taste ... different. 

It’s time to hike over to “the Giant mall" (formal name: The Phoenixville Plaza) and try a meal Thai-style.

My friend, Petals Harris, and I pored over the Thai Place’s extensive menu (both meat eaters and vegetarians have generous choices) and decided to go all out from drinks to dessert. 

As we both love sweet, caffeinated drinks, Petals chose the Thai Iced Tea ($2.50) while I picked the Thai Iced Coffee ($2.50).  Both came in goblets filled with ice and a thick layer of sweetened condensed milk on top. The meal was off to an auspicious (and delicious!) start.

For appetizers, Petals chose the Thai Spring Rolls ($4.95), which were light, crunchy wrappers around ground chicken, bean thread noodles, cabbage and celery with a sweet pepper sauce.

I decided to try something truly different, so I ordered the Mee Grob ($6.95) which was a huge platter of thin, crispy noodles covering fried tofu chunks, topped with bean sprouts, sprinkled with homemade toffee sauce and served with a large lemon wedge. The fresh lemon juice made the dish: the interplay of sweet toffee and tart lemon fascinated my taste buds and kept me eating more.

Petals, however, thought the dish was too large and too sweet and it became too much for an appetizer.

We both specified mild curries for our entrees, but the restaurant would have added hot pepper heat if we asked. Petals picked the Chu Chee Curry with Chicken ($10.95) which was a red curry with lime and basil leaves, coconut milk, zucchini, red sweet peppers and green beans which were crunchy and fresh-cooked.

I chose the Massamum Curry with Duck ($11.95), a sweet, sour and salty red curry with peanuts, coconut milk, broccoli, carrots, green beans, zucchini and onions. We shared a heaping bowl of white rice, which nicely soaked up the complex curry sauces.

Even if we hadn’t planned on ordering dessert, our entrees were too large to finish and much too tasty to leave behind. As Thai Place does a booming take-out business—even in the midst of a major thunderstorm, the phone continued to ring and people came in and out, picking up orders—the staff is more than happy to give you containers to take your food home. We scraped our plates and asked for the dessert menu.

Overcaffeinated and coming off a sugar high, Petals, after hearing that the ice creams came in two scoops each, decided that we should order the Green Tea Ice Cream ($3.95) and the Coconut Ice Cream ($3.50), then rearrange them so that we had one scoop of each. It was an inspired pairing with the icy, sweet coconut bouncing off the complications of the gunpowder green tea.

Service was slightly distracted from all the take-out trade, but was attentive and helpful the moment they were alerted to your needs. There was a slightly longer than normal wait for our food, but having a good friend to pass the time with made this a minor point.

Summer’s bounty will continue with overflowing zucchini, peppers, green beans and other produce. If you’re tired of everyday flavors, a trip to the Thai Place Restaurant will perk up your palate and give you a new appreciation of the vegetables of the season.

If You Go:

Location:  700 Nutt Road, Phoenixville Plaza, Suite 730, Phoenixville

Cost:   Appetizers:  $4.95 - $6.95,   Entrees: $9.95 - $18.95, Desserts:  $2.50 - $3.95

Phone:  610-917-9943

Website:  http://www.eatatthaiplace.com/index.html

Hours:  Monday: Closed

             Lunch:   Tuesday – Sunday:  11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

             Dinner:  Tuesday – Thursday:  5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

                          Friday – Saturday:  5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

                          Sunday:  5 p.m. to 9 p.m.          

Payments accepted: Credit Cards, Cash

Parking:  Free lot