Thursday, December 24, 2009
Hot food, cool atmosphere at Bangkok
Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend,
e-mail him. Tom Angleberger
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Cafe de Bangkok is one of the most attractive restaurants in Blacksburg.
The simple, but colorful, decor suggests that this restaurant has put some thought into what it's doing.
That suggestion was confirmed when we received our food.
But let's start with the menu. When ordering, you have two important decisions to make beyond simply selecting an entree.
First, how hot do you want your dish? Mild, medium, hot or "Thai hot"?
Second, what flavor of bubble tea will you get?
These are not unrelated questions. Because the hotter the dish, the more you are going to appreciate a sip of that sweet, sweet bubble tea to cool yourself.
I'd be curious to see how the sugar content of bubble tea stacks up to our Southern sweet tea. Could it actually be sweeter than sweet tea? The green apple tea I ordered certainly could have passed as dessert.
I was surprised by how good it was -- fruity and flavorful, with little bits of ice and, of course, "bubbles." These bubbles are little blobs of goo that you can't quite avoid sucking up through the extra-wide straw.
As for the entree, I had already decided to be daring and get it hot. But I took a while to settle on a dish.
I finally picked one called Simple Noodle with tofu. The dish was a mix of egg, broccoli, wide noodles and tasty, fried tofu. It was good, but not too exciting -- perhaps I should have been a little more daring with my choice. I also could have tried "Thai hot," because I handled the regular hot without incident.
My wife ordered Jade Curry Wok with beef, but the dish she received had chicken and may or may not have been jade curry. She declared it tasted so good that she didn't mind. She wasn't kidding. It was delicious.
After the good food, sweet treat and casually hip vibe, we left happy with plans to return for more bubble tea.
Bottom line: Cafe de Bangkok provides a great dining experience: hot Thai food, cold bubble tea and a cool atmosphere.
