Friday Sept. 24, 1982

Restaurant Review

Decor and Food: The Bangkok Bangkok Double Threat By Linda Cicero (Herald food writer)

Bangkok Bangkok Thai Restaurant Rating: ***

Four years ago, you couldn't find a Thai restaurant in South Florida. Now, the exotic is becoming nearly commonplace, as Thai restaurants proliferate around us.
One of the newest is Bangkok Bangkok, opened by a brother and sister who formerly owned the Bangkok on Bird Road. The brother who came here from Thailand to study architecture at Florida International University, designed the interior - and somehow managed to turn what was once a Chinese restaurant with standard storefront Chinese decor into an airy, welcomeing garden.
Deep purple walls provide an elegant backdrop; huge white paper lanterns, mirrors, sprays of silk flowers and white tablecloths strewn with forest green fern fronds relieve the darkness. A gold-glazed purple facade, which looks like a jutting rooftop from a Siamese temple, pulls all the elements together.
Too often, Thai foods are reduced to the hot and the curried. But Thai cooking should achieve a balance between sweet and sour, hot and bitter or salty. At Bangkok Bangkok, nearly all the foods we sampled were intriguing without being overwhelming. And the evident emphasis on fresh ingredients added to the complexity of the flavors.
Consider the tom yum goong, a hot and sour soup that is the typical Thai soup. Here it is tangy with lemon grass and lime juice, with a hint of coriander and just enough heat from chili pepper to give it character, without overpowering shrimps that float in the broth. A $5.25 hot pot easily will serve four.
With such an auspicious start, we were ready for more. We passed up pad thai ($3.95), a stir-fry of rice pork, chicken, bean sprouts, eggs and peanuts. A Thai friend had recommended the restaurant's version highly, but we were afraid of ruining our appetites with such a heavy starter (in Thailand, pad thai would be a lunch entree itself; appetizers as such are not served). Instead, we ordered the spring rolls ($2.50), which sadly turned out to be ordinary. A standard egg roll wrapper, instead of the dried bean curd sheets used in Thailand, enclosed a pedestrian mixture of shrimp, pork and vegetables.
But we were rewarded for our lack of gluttony by our entrees, the most spectacular being a whole, red snapper we selected from an iced display, then sent to the kitchen for deep frying. You can order the snapper ($11.95) with chili sauce and brandy, with vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce, or garnished with ginger, minced pork and scallions. Our choice, the second, was a perfect textural balance of the crisp fish and the silky sauce - a light tomato stock with just a scent of ginger, chuncked with an intriguing blend of pineapple, cucumber, carrots, and onions.
A first bite of sauteed chicken with garlic and ground black pepper in sherry ($5.95) was nearly bitter with garlic. Then we tried wrapping the chicken in the heatwilted lettuce leaves that lined the plate and liked the play of that bitter garlic flavor against the sweetness of the sherry and blandness of the lettuce.
Sliced beef with ginger and onion ($5.95) was wonderfully tender and fragrant with the ginger, and the nip of spring onions was bright against the cooked sweet onion. In all, Bangkok Bangkok's menu lists 28 entrees - beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, crab and fish in various sauces - all in the $5.95 to $12.95 range.
We would have preferred the white rice, which is served from a silver tureen, to have been served hotter, but the offer of second helpings is a nice touch. Service is gracious and efficient. Our water glasses were never empty, and our waitress was eager to provide insight into Thai cuisine, without being intrusive.
Bangkok Bangkok is still awaiting a wine and beer license, but we were encouraged to bring our own wine with us on a subsequent visit. If you live in the area the restaurant also packages all of its foods for take-out.

Thursday, October 10, 1985

Eatery Thais you over

Dining on a Budget By Linda Cicero

Bangkok Bangkok Rating: ***

Who says you cant' go home again? Three years have passed since I last reviewed Bangkok Bangkok - a time in which the number of Thai restaurants in South Florida has blossomed from a handfull to 58 (at last count, and still counting). But the food, service and ambiance at this little restaurant are as good now as they were before. And that's saying something.
Memorable dishes included the signature soup of Thailand, tom yum goong, which is translated here into a dance of subtle flavors. There is lots of tangy lemon grass, fresh rather than dried (which tells you something about the attention to quality here), which plays brightly against the woodsy mushrooms and lilting sea flavor of perfectly poached shrimps. The $5.95 hot pot will easily serve four, and the beautiful silver service adds much to the presentation.
You also should indulge in an appetizer of pad thai ($4.95, and also meant to be shared), a hauntingly sweet (but not cloyingly so, as is the case in many local restaurants ) stir fry of rice noodles interspersed with pieces of shrimp, pork and chicken, brightened by crunchy peanuts and grassy sprouts. We're also found of the jumping shrimp ($5.25), a fiery juxtaposition of lime juice, chili and onions served on a bed of greens; the wonder here is that the sauce somehow manages to not overshelm the shrimp.
Other options include the house special pork sate, which you grill yourself at the table, and dip into peanut or cucumber sauce ($5.95); crispy mee krob ($4.95); noodles with shrimp and minced pork), and a curiously titled Smokey and the Bandit II, grilled pork, sausage and fresh squid cooked with lime juice and hot pepper ($4.95). The one disappointment we cncountered was in the spring rolls ($2.50), which were bland and far too oily.
The best entree, to our way of thinking, is the deep-fried whole red snapper ($11.95), a taunt of chili, ginger and brandy that plays against the sweet, moist and crisp fish (a plus is that the waiter will debone the fish for you, after flaming it at the table). Unless you've got a big appetite, you'll have trouble finishing it all, and light eaters might want to consider sharing the dish.
But we're also fond of less pricey main courses (most entrees here are in the $6.95 to $7.95 range). Highlights include charbroiled steak, sliced and marinated in a chili sauce lightened by fresh mint ($6.95), sauteed chicken with ginger, onion and scallions ($6.95), crisp-roasted, de-fatted duck in a subtle sweet-and sour sauce, tossed with cucumber, carrots, green peppers and pineapple ($9.95), shrimp baked in salt ($8.95; moist but remarkably unsalty) and squid sauteed with black pepper and garlic ($7.95).
For those of timid palates, the chef is perfectly willing to hold the fire in the chili-heated dishes, but we found the guide to the spiciness of the food- 1 to 4 stars - reliable.
Service is pleasant, knowledgeable and prompt. I always measure service in a restaurant specializing in spicy food by how promptly water glasses are filled - there's nothing worse than an empty glass when you've overdone the chili - and happily at Bangkok Bangkok this was never a problem. The atmosphere is lovely, a cool oasis of deep purples relieved by beautiful silk flowers and tablecloths in a jaunty palm frond print.
In the crowded local marketplace, where good Thai restaurants abound, Bangkok Bangkok remians a favorite.