Thai Orchid Has Lots of Neon Lights

So I've heard rave things about Thai Orchid, and so I've decided to try out the place and see if it would live up to the hype. When I first got there, the first impression was "wow, there's lots of neon lights and it's very dark on the inside." Although my boyfriend informed me that it's called "mood lighting", I still felt that the lighting should be bright enough so I could see the food that I put in to my mouth. Anyways, there were many items on the menu, and it even had an "authentic" section. The reason why I knew that the section was "authentic" was because there's a ginormous "authentic" on top of it. So of course I was going to try from the authentic section, how else to enjoy Thai food than getting the real deal?!

We ordered the married shrimp for an appetizer, which was shrimp stuffed with crabmeat, minced pork, and water chestnuts wrapped in crispy spring roll shell and fried. The appetizer also came with cucumber salad and spicy dipping sauce. The shrimp was deep fried, and was a little greasier than expected. Since the minced pork required longer cooking time, that made the shrimp a little on the overcooked side. The dipping sauce had kicks, and it had good flavor combined with the shrimp. The sauce was a little bit sweeter so you could actually taste the seasoning of the stuffing and the shrimp. The cucumber salad was also sweet and was not spicy, which was great to calm the spiciness.

I ordered a dish called Laap Nuea, which was minced beef cooked with lime juice, Thai spices, onions and scallions served on a bed of green. It was a very refreshing salad, especially for the summer time, because the lime juice cut down the greasiness of the sauteed beef, and the juice became the dressing for the green. But I think the salad would actually taste better if the beef was served cold. So that was a little boo-boo on an otherwise good dish. My boyfriend had the Tiger Tear, which was similar to the Laap Nuea, except the beef was grilled and the spices used was different. Since the beef was grilled, the dish had an extra smoky flavor, and the spices used was a type of fermented soy sauce. The reason I knew that was because I used to eat it with porridge as a kid. It's a type of flavor sort of like anchovies, you either loved it, or you didn't. Since I would like to give a fair critique, so I would like to enter my boyfriend's feeling on his dish, which was very good but had a little bit of poopie like smell. So, there it was.

The overall experience in Thai Orchid was pretty good, and I would rank the food a 3 out of 5 on my yummy scale. Even though the Thai Orchid was nice, it still wasn't as authentic as Bangkok somewhere on the east side of town. But I think Thai Orchid could satisfy the cravings for Thai food if you ever had one. If you like neon mood lighting with spicy Thai food, please go to 7654 Sawmill Rd. Dublin, OH 43016.