Simply Thai

Chicken Satay, Cho Muag, and Tod Mun

For Taste of Yaletown, my friends and I went to Simply Thai Restaurant.  It was highly recommended by Jayna, my hair and makeup stylist for my wedding. She used to work at Simply Thai.  Although she strongly disliked the management, she couldn't help but to continue to go back for its food even after she quit.

Bird Nests

Good Thai food is hard to come by in Vancouver.  Strangely, the good Thai foods I ever had were all in Ontario.  I was eager to try this place out; maybe Vancouver had finally broken its curse of bad Thai food. Craig lived in Thailand for an extended period of time, and he was the Thai food specialist at our table.  We all agreed that this is probably one of the best Thai restaurants in Vancouver, but it still pales in comparison to ones in Ontario and, not surprisingly, disappointing comparing to food in Thailand.

Pad Thai

Food: 3/5
Between the $25 and $35 set menu, pretty much everything on the regular menu were on the list.  Everything was tasty, but nothing special, except for Cho Muag, the pink flower looking thing.  It is pink sweet dumpling dough with exotic flavours I couldn't identify.   For $25, the food is standard; well, substandard for Criag who added more spicy sauce onto every bite.

For $35, the food was above average, but we weren't as impressed as we were with Brix the day before.  Thai risotto was a pleasant surprise though.  By using coconut cream, this vegan dish was packed with delicious flavour and health benefit. It was not actual arborio rice used in traditional risotto, I believe it was regular Thai rice soaked in delicious sauce.  I gotta try making this at home too!

Thai Risotto

The dessert was another disappointment.  The mango berry cheese cake was good, but nothing special and I had better fried banana at Banana Leaf.

Service: (2.5/5)
I believe the lady manager/boss served us.  The restaurant was slightly understaffed (maybe this was where the poor management came in). Food was quite slow, and there were some mix-ups.  Water glass were often empty. Wine was slow, and Criag had to ask for his spicy sauce 3 times.  It didn't really ruin our time there, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Massaman Curry

Ambience: (3.25/5)
The place was causal, bright, clean, and well spaced.  It exuded warmth and comfort in its simple decor.  I felt comfortable in the restaurant; in fact, we stayed quite long after the meal to relax and chat. No music though.

Overall (2.25/5)
Whoever designed the wine list really loves red wine.  The wine list was expansive and expensive; it was a book!  Lot of 3 or 4 digit priced red wines that didn't necessarily go with their food, but the collection was definitely impressive.  The boss lady didn't know much about her wine.  She was trying to describe a Sauvignon Blanc as sweet and dry...  I didn't appreciate the BSing.  Instead, I ordered a glass of chardonnay, which was still off-dry. Slightly sweet wine helps with the spicy food, but it wasn't very pleasant on its own.  In short, the by-the-glass list may need some adjustment.

Total: 11/20
I don't think we were too hard to please.  Would I go back? Probably... to give it a second chance. Yaletown is pretty far though (and expensive).