Phuket Thai adds spice to Belmont Shore

By Chris Ledermuller
Daily Forty-Niner

When pedestrians and motorists pass by the small Thai restaurant on the corner of Second Street and La Verne Avenue, they do a double take. The name of the eatery, Phuket Thai, is a definite head-turner with an unintentional Freudian slip.

All joking aside, Phuket Thai offers attentive service and an extensive menu that is best explored on an empty stomach.

For starters, nine appetizers are available ? most are fried and contain either meat or fish. However, the oil used in cooking kills the appetizers' flavor, excepting the barbecued satay and the koong yang, a grilled shrimp dish.

Five soups and nine salads are also available. The soups, which include wonton, hot and sour chicken and spicy seafood, are available in a large bowl or the visually appealing "hot pot," a cotta tureen atop a flaming base.

The salads are meals in themselves, and are basically cold versions of Phuket Thai's main entrees, with meat or seafood mixed with glass noodles or lemon grass.

The appetizers, soups and salads at Phuket Thai are meant for only the largest of stomachs. All entrees offer very generous portions, large enough for two people to share comfortably.

Prices are generally $6.95 to $8.95, except for seafood entrees, which are as high as $12.95. Rice is not included in dinner entrees, but it is really not necessary.

Really great dishes include the kai phad nam prik phao, a very spicy chicken dish with cashews and vegetables, and the phad piew wan kai koong, also called the "lover honeymoon," where chicken, shrimp, pineapples and vegetables are saturated with swee and sour sauce.

Phuket Thai also has a large offering of curries, seafood plates, fried rice dishes and even a few dishes for vegetarians. Half of the entrees are denoted as spicy, which means they are extremely hot, but the spices mask the flavor of many dishes, particularly those containing sweet ingredients like pineapples or papaya.

If names like phad kai khao phod on, phad thao nam man hoi, som tum malako, nuea nam man hoi and phad woon sen are too difficult to pronounce, the menus also list dishes by number and list the English names.

Phuket Thai offers a weekday lunch special. The dishes are substantially smaller than the dinner entrees, but come with steamed rice and soup or salad. Only beef, pork or chicken dishes are available. Prices range from $4.95 to $7.25.

The dessert menu is very limited and soft drinks are not refilled. Beer and wine are available.

The restaurant can get very busy during dinnertime, and parking along Second Street is virtually non-existent.

Even during Phuket Thai's peak dinnertime hours, there is never a shortage of waiters and waitresses, who regularly and responsively check on customers. Service at the restaurant is definitely a strong point.

Finally, to answer the burning question, the name is pronounced "poo-ket." The name refers to an island off the Isthmus of Kra in southern Thailand. To clear up any humorous language gaps, the owners wisely put the correct pronunciation on T-shirts and menus.