Woody's Wings & (Asian) Things

Can't decide between Asian or American for dinner? The answer is Woody's Wings & Things—a smallish chain of Denver-area restaurants specializing in hot wings and other fried items, but with one exception. Walk into the Westminster location, and along with the standard wing menu you'll be greeted with a thick hardbound volume filled with pictures of Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese specialties.

ES and I had dinner there after returning from Black Hawk and Central City, and started with this dish of mussels and assorted vegetables in a green curry. I loved the tender mussels, and the thick, slightly spicy curry, rich with coconut milk and ground peanuts, was delicious over rice.

Delicious, too, was a creamy and soothing chicken-rice soup, as well as a Thai beef salad. We had originally intended to order the Cambodian beef salad, but the waiter insisted that the Cambodian version was bitter and that the Thai one was the best on the menu.

There was also a dish of pad see ew, with that wonderful slightly charred and smoky quality that I'm always looking for in this dish. It also struck the perfect balance between not-sweet-enough and too-sweet, and was less oily than usual; though I might have quibbled with the usage of what seemed like dried rice noodles instead of fresh ones, the flavor was so good that I didn't quibble for long.

From what I observed, neither menu at Woody's Wings & Things goes ignored; in the restaurant that night there were an equal number of tables ordering from the American menu and from the Asian menu. Some tables even boasted platters of hot wings alongside noodle soups and rice plates: those who couldn't decide which way their tastes were leaning, or those who decided that heck—they just want a little bit of both.

Philadelphia, Day 2: Ocean Harbor, Thai Chef & Noodle Fusion

Catch up! Day 1

The next day, I totally wanted to eat at this place for breakfast, but unfortunately it was too early and they were still closed. Magic kingdom of dough! Where else could I possibly want to be?

Nonetheless, I was happy to go to Ocean Harbor for dim sum instead. TL and I stepped into the large Hong Kong style restaurant just before they began serving, and waited along with everyone else for the carts to begin wheeling out of the kitchen. We had cups of hot tea to warm our hands and keep us company.

After only ten minutes or so, the dim sum started appearing. We quickly pointed to a bunch of items, knowing we were getting the freshest ones possible. Our table quickly filled up with the standards: crystal shrimp dumplings, shaomai, braised beef balls, fried rice-flour dumplings filled with ground pork, and fried taro dumplings filled with ground pork. I thought they were all pretty good, though the fried items were definitely a bit on the greasy side.

We couldn't pass up on the rice noodle rolls (can you tell I can't get enough of those things?), so we ordered a beef roll and a shrimp roll. I also asked for what the woman told me was soup dumplings, but I should have known better. They were terrible specimens, with thick skins, no soup inside, and a bland, heavy filling of pork. Of all the dim sum we ordered, that was the only real clunker.

After breakfast we decided to make the uber-touristy move of taking a Ride the Ducks tour, which turned out to be, well, not super fun, but not bad either. The best part was being in the water. If our guide hadn't hated the world so much, it probably would have been a better tour.

Once the tour ended we made our way to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia's Mütter Museum, which was full of really creepy medical specimens like preserved human brains and a collection of foreign objects that had been removed from people's bodies. Fascinating stuff, though I actually felt kind of sick to my stomach after seeing some of the items in that museum. But this is a food blog, not a gross-out blog, so I won't get into it.

We had just enough time before our bus departure to have a quick meal before leaving. After trying to find something in the food no-man's-land immediately around the museum, we walked all the way to Continental Midtown only to be informed that they were between lunch and dinner service, and so wouldn't be able to feed us. We ended up backtracking to a whimsically decorated restaurant called Thai Chef & Noodle Fusion. (Their business card invites you to "Please Visit our Under Sea Dining" with the suggestion that "Maybe you Want to Jump into the Sea." Maybe, indeed.)

My pad see ew came with a significant amount of vegetable, far more than I'm used to with this dish. The sliced carrots, red and green peppers, and shredded cabbage certainly made the noodles healthier and more colorful, but I think I prefer my beef, rice noodles, broccoli, and egg unadorned. It was pretty good otherwise though, and the dish came in a hefty portion for its price.

Noodles noshed, there was little else to do but walk to the Bolt Bus departure area. TL and I were both really beat, and though I managed to take advantage of the free WiFi for a little while, it was only a matter of time before I passed out. When I woke again we were in Manhattan, with Philadelphia far behind us.

Philadelphia:
Day 1: Reading Terminal Market, DiNic's, Miller's Twist, Capogiero, Vietnam Palace
Day 2: Ocean Harbor, Thai Chef & Noodle Fusion

Noodle necessities at Bann Thai

Until Bann Thai (warning: music plays on website), I hadn't had very good luck with the Thai restuarants in Fort Collins. First, there was the non-pad thai at Lulu's Asian Bistro, followed by laughably bad pad see-ew and pad thai at Toy's Thai. The pad-see ew at Thai Pepper was even worse, though the pad thai was decent. And things were a little better at Sri Thai, but not by much.

It wasn't until I ate at Ti Bar that things started really looking up. And now that I've gone to Bann Thai a few times, I can rest easy knowing that I have not one, but two places to get a good plate of Thai-style noodles.

On a rainy evening after catching a late-afternoon screening of Sunshine Cleaning (great movie by the way), four of us ducked into cozy little Bann Thai, all of us there for the first time. We each ordered green tea, which came bagged, and in individual, Western-style teapots. While I liked the fact that I could refresh my cup at will, the tea was noticeably lacking in flavor and body. If it hadn't been chilly outside, I would have definitely opted for a Thai iced coffee or tea instead.

To start, we got an order of the cream cheese wontons, which were as good as you might expect when you're deep-frying cream cheese. The wrapper was greaseless, the sweet chili dipping sauce appropriate, and it was altogether a pleasant little appetizer.

The menu said that guay teaw kua was "wide rice noodles stir-fried with egg, pickled radish, green onion flavored with soy sauce, topped with crispy egg noodles, served with lettuce." I wasn't sure what to expect from that description; it was the "topped with crispy egg noodles" part that got me—I assumed they would only be a garnish. So when my dish arrived, I was surprised by the heaping amount on top; clearly the noodles were meant to be a main ingredient.

And as an ingredient, they worked quite well, though I felt like a bit of a blob afterward for eating such an oil-saturated dish: the crisp strands lent the soft, elastic rice noodles a nice textural contrast. Plus, I'm not sure how they seasoned it, but the flavor of the dish overall (I asked for mine to be made with pork) was pretty addictive.

Several weeks later I was back again, this time with MC and a friend of hers. I'd already nabbed bites of the very serviceable pad thai last time, and I wanted to try out the pad see-ew. It was pretty good, though like the guay teaw kua it wasn't made with the very broad rice noodles I love the most (haven't seen that yet in Fort Collins at all, actually).

In short: for pad see-ew, Bann Thai. For pad thai, Thai Pepper/Ti Bar (they share a kitchen) or Bann Thai. Whew—I don't have to go without my two beloved noodle dishes after all!

Now, writing for The Coloradoan!

I know I'm woefully behind in my posts, but I'm breaking the chronology to invite you to check out my writeup of Ti Bar in this week's entertainment section of The Coloradoan. From now on I'll be contributing a profile of a local restaurant every month!

(And yes, I'm still posting. Just…slowly.
Schoolwork man, it can kill you.)

A visitor in town, part 3: Earl's, Sri Thai, Rio Grande

Catch up! Day 1 and Day 2

I was determined to take advantage of having a car around, so early the next morning TL and I drove to Denver, about an hour away. It felt really good to be in a city again, but with lots of people comes lots of cars, and the parking situation around the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall left something to be desired. Finally, after I managed to snag a roll of quarters so we could park at a meter, we were on our way to explore the city.

First things first. We needed food! TL had spotted an Earl's while we were looking for parking, and he'd explained that it was a chain with locations all over Western Canada. Since it was right nearby and I didn't have any other place in mind, we stepped in to have lunch.

The place has a dark, lounge-y feel, with dim lighting, leather-clad seating, and sleek-looking waitstaff. When I couldn't decide whether or not to also order a bowl of soup with my sandwich order, thinking it might be too much food, I was pleased to discover that soup could be swapped in for the sandwich's fries or salad at no extra cost.

Both of us asked for the clam chowder…which was unremarkable. There was barely any hint of clam or clam flavor, and the large pieces of cooked carrots and other vegetables seemed out of place. It came with an okay piece of bread, billed as "Rosemary-Oregano Pan Bread," but which seemed sort of flabby. In short, this course tasted like chain food.

Much better was the Cajun chicken sandwich I ordered, which featured chicken breast so moist that juices dripped onto the plate when I bit into it. The spicing didn't taste at all Cajun and the cheddar didn't taste aged, but it was still a decent and filling sandwich. I wouldn't go out of my way for an Earl's, but at least some of their food seems a cut above other chain offerings—just don't get the clam chowder.

That line down the middle of the sandwich is from where I pulled out the toothpick skewer, by the way.

In truth, what we saw of Denver was a bit of a disappointment. There just didn't seem to be that much personality to the city, and the much-touted pedestrian mall was like any other cluster of national chain clothing shops and restaurants. Its saving grace was one of the coolest bookstores around, the Tattered Cover, located a few blocks off the far end. With comfy armchairs and reading nooks scattered throughout its three levels, a sizable coffee counter, and as large a selection as any big retailer but the charm and coziness of a small independent, this place covered all my criteria for how a great bookstore should be. The Tattered Cover regularly holds interesting literary and community events, too.

Back in Fort Collins, after a nap at home, TL and I got some Thai food before meeting up with people for drinks. I wanted to go to Sri Thai, because I had heard good things about the place from friends, but my first impressions didn't bode well for the meal. Aside from it being sort of a cavernous space with worn, outdated decor and dingy lighting, the place didn't have chopsticks! Come on, I know this is Fort Collins, but maaaaan, you're really going to make me eat noodles with a fork?

I kid, it wasn't that big a deal, just surprising. The real problem was the food. Our appetizer of tod mun gai turned out to be eight nuggets of spongy material masquerading as chicken; the flavoring tasted like fish and the texture was downright weird. The dipping sauce was nice, but I feel no need to ever order that dish again.

The other dishes we got were better, but still not great. The basil fried rice lacked any of the title herb's flavor, a pretty big omission in my book. Like bad Chinese takeout, this dish was heavily sauced and very salty, and for me it quickly grew sickening.

The pad thai, on the other hand, wasn't bad. At worst, it was like much of the generic pad thai found all over Manhattan, and at best, it was better than any other pad thai I've had in Fort Collins so far. This isn't to say it was excellent—just decent and passable.

What saved the meal for me was our dessert, a dish of sweet rice with Thai custard and coconut milk. The textures and flavors of the dish were in perfect balance, and I enjoyed the sweet, eggy custard paired with the smooth coconut cream and slightly salty rice.

At the Rio Grande, where we met up with several friends for drinks, we made it a double-dessert night by ordering sopapillas, inspired by the sight of them being delivered to a neighboring table. The three large cinnamon-dusted discs came with our choice of honey or agave nectar for dipping, and I couldn't stop tearing off pieces to stick in my mouth. Fried dough: it's just never wrong.

A Visitor in Town
Day 1: Thanksgiving, away from home
Day 2: Silver Grill Cafe, Red Robin
Day 3: Earl's, Sri Thai, Rio Grande
Day 4: Cafe Bluebird, Celestial Seasonings tour, Sherpa's
Day 5: Nyala Ethiopian Cuisine, Austin's American Grill

Thai Pepper: Oh, dear.

Look closely. What's wrong with this picture of pad see-ew?

Well okay. Maybe there's a lot to talk about here. The broccoli instead of jie lan (Chinese broccoli), the dry-looking noodles, the scallions scattered on top and the ramekin of vinegar on the side for—dipping? Who knows. What startled me the most, however, was the healthy scattering of coarse black pepper strewn all over the top of the noodles.

Inauthenticity doesn't usually ruin my meal as long as the final dish tastes good. Unfortunately, I might have to place this one, from Thai Pepper, at the top of my bad pad see-ew experiences. The black pepper gave everything an unpleasant, gritty texture. The egg, which is usually in nice, fried chunks, was more like a thin, bumpy coating over the noodles, like a curdled carbonara. The beef pieces were chewy and tough. I ate it, but seriously, the dish was like no pad see-ew I'd ever encountered. Take that as you will.

A bite of MC's pad thai proved to be much better, which made me wonder how there could be such a disparity in noodle-dish execution. I may go back to Thai Pepper for pad thai, but I won't be ordering the pad see-ew again.

Toy's Thai, toying with my desires

After the pad thai at Lulu's Asian Bistro, I thought it was about time to try out an actual Thai restaurant. I hadn't heard anything in particular about Toy's Thai, even though it was right next to campus, but since from the outside it sort of looked down-home and similar to the joints I was used to in Jackson Heights or Astoria in NYC, I nurtured secret hopes that the food would be awesome.

I think you know where this is going.

Here's my order of Thai iced tea, pad thai, and pad see ew. Might as well try all the standards at once, no? The odd thing was, I had specified beef for the pad see ew and chicken for the pad thai, but it wasn't until they prepared my order and handed it to me that I was informed, "No beef. Chicken pad see ew." I didn't really mind, but it would have been nice to be told beforehand.

Anyway. You can probably tell from appearance alone that these were imposter noodles. In the pad see ew: broccoli and carrots instead of Chinese broccoli; too much veg; too much sugar; no complex smokiness. In the pad thai: pale, dry noodles without any depth, and where are the bean sprouts, maaan? Since I love noodles no matter what, after squeezing lime all over it I wasn't unhappy eating it, but really this was like ketchup-flavored street fair pad thai than anything else. I ate some from each container, washed it down with the too-sweet iced tea, and then stuck the rest in my refrigerator: I had gotten my fill of disappointment for the day.

A real lulu at Lulu's Asian Bistro

Vicky Cristina Barcelona was playing at the Lyric Cinema Cafe, and I biked over one afternoon to meet up with two friends to take it in. After our hour and a half of drooling over Javier Bardem, KS went home but MC and I walked over to Old Town to have dinner.

Spanish food would have been appropriate, but there were no tapas joints in sight. In the end, we decided on Lulu's Asian Bistro, a place I felt both curious about and leery of when I entered. It was friendly and clean—definitely no Chinatown hole-in-the-wall—but for me, the menu wasn't very promising. Like many of the Asian restaurants around here, it offered a mish-mash of greatest hits from the Asian food trifecta: Thai, Chinese, and Japanese. I guess I should have known better than to go for sushi and pad thai in a place like this, but hey, we were both having cravings.

Well—the sushi wasn't bad, exactly. It just wasn't great. And the pad thai tasted nothing like what I expected, veering away from authenticity even more than this (b)ad thai. If at Bennie's the dish was too gloppy and sugary, here the entire flavoring was wrong, as if ol' Lulu was cooking up another noodle dish altogether. It tasted okay, but as pad thai…no, no, and no.

I've mentioned before how I feel about places that try to cover a variety of different cuisines under one roof. Let's just say that Lulu's Asian Bistro didn't do anything to change my mind.

Benjamas (ho hum) Taste of Thai

Maybe you can tell—I like Thai food, and the noodle dishes in particular. And as it turns out, TL does too. Most of the time we end up ordering the same thing: Thai iced tea and iced coffee, pad see-ew and pad thai. Following tradition, when we stepped into Benjamas Taste of Thai in Astoria for lunch, it didn't take us long to decide what we wanted.

After the iced coffee I'd had at Zabb Thai, I remembered to I ask for my coffee to be less sweet, which was a good move. Here it was rich and strong, mellowed more by milk than with sugar.

My pad see-ew with shrimp was satisfying though nothing special. Chewy rice noodles, good-sized shrimp, bok choy instead of Chinese broccoli. It had decent flavor and was only a little bit over-sweet, but still, nothing elevated these noodles to extraordinary. It could have benefited from a longer char in the pan.

TL's pad thai was wet, too, but the flavor wasn't bad. Like the pad see-ew, it was good not great, decent enough for what it was, and comparable to the other places in the neighborhood. Probably an accurate summary for the place overall.

Where the noodles come in pink: Zabb Thai

While wandering around Astoria looking for a place to eat, TL and I passed by Zabb Thai, which had taken over the space that used to be Thai Angel. The weather was fine and a street fair was going on, but TL had eaten at Zabb once or twice before and I was always game for a good dish of noodles. So Thai for lunch it was.

Above: Iced tea for TL, iced coffee for me. Way too sweet but nice and strong.

As I'd never had Thai sour sausage before I tried for the Esan sausage appetizer, but the server came back after we'd ordered to apologetically inform us that they were out of it that day. I then tried to order a different appetizer, which they were also out of. We ended up with a string bean salad though, which was delicious: snappy blanched string beans, ground chicken, chopped peanuts, and a handful of medium-sized shrimp tossed in a sweet, thin coconut milk dressing. The chicken was warm and the salad was cool, a good showcase for all the different textures and flavors. While waiting for our entrees we happily ate every last bean.

I loved the crab fried rice, which was delicately paired with scallions, onions, and egg. I kept turning up big lumps of crabmeat with my fork, which was a surprise at only ten dollars for the dish. I was really into the light flavor and perfect, chewy consistency of each grain.

Photo by TL

At Thai restaurants noodles are always a must for me, but when we ordered the pad mee ka tee (described as "sautéed rice noodle (angel hair) w. creme coconut milk, bean sprout, bean curd, and chive"), neither of us expected the bright pink mass that was delivered to our table. I still haven't figured out what gave it that particular hue, but the noodles did have a flavor that I couldn't place no matter how many times I took another bite—plum? It was really tasty whatever it was; TL was such a fan he ended up finishing off the plate.

The prices at Zabb are a little higher than the neighborhood average given its portion sizes, but it's certainly still inexpensive and the quality of the food is worth it. There are items on the menu that I don't typically see, and the dishes are clearly fresh and prepared with care. I'm glad it's around!

Yajai: For noodles yes, for fried taro no

This fried monster is the "taro pancake" appetizer from Yajai in Astoria. I'm not sure I would recommend it though—this solid block of taro shreds was fried way too hard and tasted mostly of oil, and the whole peanuts studded throughout didn't add anything to it, either. Still, for the other items on its menu Yajai remains probably one of the best in the area; they offer pretty decent curries, salads, and of course, pad thai and pad see-ew. Among other Astorian friends, Yajai seems to be everyone's standby Thai takeout place, and for good reason.

Thai in the 'hood: Leng

In sweltering 100 degree heat, four of my friends got together in Astoria Park to see who could run the fastest mile, a demonstration of just how brilliant men can be sometimes. After the loser was named (JSK, who will have to wear a dress to a bar at some point in the near future) and the four collapsed on the ground for a while, they showered at my place and we ventured out again seeking a place to eat before our ten year high school reunion.

Leng is a handsomely decorated Thai joint that recently opened not far from my apartment, and JSK had heard from another friend that it was pretty good. So off we went, sweating again as soon as we hit the sidewalk, but luckily five blocks isn't enough to make repeat showers necessary.

When we sat down the server brought over a bamboo vessel filled with a heaping mound of thin, crispy noodle threads that had been coated with a sweet, tangy sauce with a hint of spiciness. As you can see, the boys were so hungry they just dove right in with their forks. The pleasantly crunchy, sticky clumps reminded me of a cross between Chinese sachima and Indian bhel puri.

My green tea came in a nice little pot of its own, which I liked.

Predictably, most of us ordered noodles. My pad see-ew was the usual: not terrible, not awesome; standard NYC Thai. This one was too sweet and edged on mushiness, though it was still palatable. A bite of BH's pad thai was better. Judging from this and other recent experiences, I just might have to go back to that most popular Thai dish as my go-to noodle order.

Tiny plates from a pan-Asian home: Kuma Inn

To meet with BH, WK, and CY one night, I found myself wandering around the Lower East Side hunting down Kuma Inn, a place whose name I'd heard floating around for a while now. Tucked between the entrance to a large bar and an abandoned-looking building, the narrow steps to the cozy upstairs restaurant would barely be noticeable if not for the placard sitting on the sidewalk in front. Good thing.

Here the food is "tapas-style," a concept I still haven't made my peace with yet (most of the time it just feels like tiny plates charged at just-below-entree prices). But it's also BYOB (with a corkage fee), which to us, who had arrived prepared with our own bottles of vino, meant that we had even more leeway in ordering lots of dishes. Which we definitely proceeded to do....

We started off with steamed edamame in Thai basil-lime oil; sautéed Chinese sausage with chili-lime sauce and Thai sticky rice; and a special, which was grilled beef tenderloin paired with a carrot/daikon slaw. Though I didn't taste much basil or lime in the edamame, these three were all tasty, especially the sausage and sticky rice, which was set off exceptionally well by the bright and pungent chili-lime sauce.


Then there was a small plate of lumpiang shanghai, the Filipino-flavored version of Chinese spring rolls; pancit bihon, thin, stir-fried rice noodles with bits of pork, Chinese sausage, bean sprouts, and carrots; and "sake braised beef," which tasted like regular soy-braised beef, paired with "Asian root vegetables"—daikon and carrots. The "mixed seaweed chuka salad with sesame and chili," was good but utterly typical, the same salad served in your average generic sushi joint. CY even pointed out that you could buy this stuff frozen in the supermarket.

Another special, which the server had described as being "Chinese roast pork buns but filled with pulled pork, and with peanut sauce on top" wasn't quite what we had expected. On the plate were two mantou, each split and filled with shredded pork that had been mixed with peanut sauce. There was hoisin sauce on the side for dipping, but the meat was plenty sweet without it.

Finally, we got "sautéed tofu, Thai basil, and wood ears in spicy soy mirin," and a grilled fish (I don't remember what kind), which was another special. I thought the flavor of the fish was just slightly stronger than it should have been, although CY and WK disagreed. The tofu dish, despite its long, fancy listing of ingredients, tasted like nothing more than tofu braised in brown sauce, albeit with the herbal punch of basil.

I'm not sure what the hold-up was on our desserts (were the frozen sweets being churned to order?) but at least our dish of rich, spicy chili-chocolate ice cream ended up being comped because of the lag. The lemongrass coconut panna cotta tasted exactly like Thai green curry in room-temp custard form. I suppose if it had been advertised as such it wouldn't have been so jarring, but with the blueberries on top, it was just more strange than anything else.

For the most part, I found the food at Kuma Inn good but not particularly outstanding. Most of the dishes felt very homestyle, which I know is sort of the point, but I think for someone who does a decent amount a home cooking, small portions of dishes that aren't much awesomer than what I can whip up on my own don't draw me.