January 20, 2015 Le Thai in Las Vegas

January 20, 2015 Le Thai in Las Vegas

We started by taking the shuttle from downtown to the Home Show at the World Trade Center.  I got a cup of Earl Grey tea with a lemon bar and a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast at Encore and then we went to each of the booths where Suzette wanted to buy stuff.  At a French company named Masionette where Suzette bought aprons made in France, I bought a set of six butter knives that will make good spreaders for $33.00.  Around noon, as Suzette was buying sarongs from an Indonesian company on the eleventh floor, I ordered a teriyaki bowl with chicken and beef that we split for $10.00 that was quite good.  After Suzette bought all the stuff she wanted, we walked to Building B and I bought an office chair at Eurøstyle Furniture for $300.00 in grey leather.

Then around 3:30 we transited to the Kitchen and Bath show and Builders’ Shows at the Convention Center and discovered that the Home Show at the World Trade Center was the prince and the Kitchen and Bath show was the pauper; no food, no free drinks, only acres of industrial goods relating to construction.  At 5:00 we had another rude surprise, there was no shuttle from the Convention Center to downtown, so we had to wait an hour to catch a taxi.  We took it to 6^th and Fremont to the Le Thai restaurant.  The restaurant was full when we arrived around 6:30 so we waited and drank a beer.  We both chose lagers.  I had a Singha and Suzette drank a Chang, which was hoppier and a little more flavorful.

the kitchen at Le Thai

the bar at Le Thai and Suzette

view into the back dining room

When we were finally seated we were really hungry, so we went a little crazy ordering.  I ordered papaya salad (Sum Tum, Shredded green papaya tossed with Thai chili, lime juice, peanuts garlic carrot, green beans and tomatoes) and Pad Kee Mow with pork (a bowl of flat noodles stir fried with ground pork, bell peppers, Thai basil and carrots and tossed in a brown slightly sweet sauce and chili, except I ordered my dish without any chili) that a gentleman who was waiting for his order beside us and who was a regular recommended.  As we finished our food our waitress told me that Pad Kee Mow was her favorite also. Probably because the slightly sweet sauce pungent with oyster sauce is balanced against the chili. Next time I would probably order Awesome flat noodles to get the bean sprouts, garlic and green onion instead.

Suzette ordered a daily special of Pad Thai rice noodles in red curry with bean sprouts and green beans and garlic with chicken which she ordered with zero chili, but which was well beyond the hotness of my dish, perhaps due to the inherent hotness of the red curry paste. The hotness scale goes up from 0, the hotness we ordered, to 5, which is Thai spiciness that I cannot even imagine how hot that is.

Suzette also ordered us an appetizer of Crispy Spring Rolls which were like Vietnamese fried spring rolls filled with rice vermicelli and vegetables inside and wrapped in a rice wrapper and deep fried and served with a small bowl of sweet chili sauce for dipping,.  Not much different than what we get at the Vietnamese restaurants in Albuquerque.

Here are the dishes and he menu:

the Fried Spring Rolls

the Papaya salad

 

the noodles in red curry

the Pad Kee Mow

the light show in the dome of Fremont Experience walkway

We loved our meal. The total check was $53.00 with one extra beer.  The first two beers cost $6.00 each.

Suzette loved the way the fresh papaya salad cooled off the hotness of her red curry noodle dish.

We walked the six blocks back to the hotel after dinner and watched the light show on the dome of the Fremont Experience walkway.  When we returned to our room we got into bad and watched MSNBC's commentary on the President’s  State of the Union speech and Larry Wilmore’s new show that is decidedly more black oriented than anything else on TV we watch regularly and went to bed.

Bon Appétit