While waiting in the interminable car crawl that stretches out of sight down both directions along the harbor, all I can think through the fiery red of my road rage is how much I hate Channelside. It doesn't get any better when I'm finally allowed to enter the garage. How can you design a parking garage that floods? Isn't a perpetual incline the hallmark of these concrete monstrosities?
I could have valeted — hey, it's the Planet's tab — but getting in that creeping queue promised to delay my dinner even longer. I consider leaving my car running, walking downtown to the Jerk Hut, buying a big bag of spicy meat and making it back to my car before the line moves more than a few feet. As it turns out, that would have been the right choice to make.
Because of location, I'm going to punish Thai Thani. I'll be honest: The restaurant's bland, one-dimensional food — punctuated by a few acceptable treats — might deserve two-and-a-half stars. But because it's in Channelside, I'm going to take away a half star. Deal with it.
I wouldn't be here at all, if it wasn't for the IMAX theater. Here's a secret: I'm not just a food geek, I'm a comic book geek. Superman Returns has me salivating for all the tights-wearing, goody-goody, alien superhero IMAX 3-D action I can get. And the only place I can get it is Channelside.
It doesn't help that by the time I make it through the gates of hell — that humid tiled walkway that feels like a pool changing room at the YMCA — and take the escalator to Thai Thani's second-floor location, my guests have been sitting and waiting for 10 minutes.
No menus, mind you. Thai Thani doesn't have enough, even when the restaurant is less than full. A few minutes after I arrive, a Thani staffer takes two menus from a table just finished ordering and hurriedly runs them over to us. When I ask for another, she shrugs and walks away. I guess I shouldn't be greedy enough to expect everyone at the table to have their own menu.
I use tom yum soup ($2.95) as a benchmark for Thai food. It's a simple dish and a perfect vehicle for the sour-salty-spicy-sweet continuum that defines Thai cooking, four vivid flavors that are found in almost every good example of this Southeast Asian cuisine. Thai Thani's tom yum is none of those things. It could have been warm water laced with overcooked shrimp, for all I can tell.
Pad thai ($9.95) is a take-out standard — referred to as the national noodle dish of Thailand on Thani's menu — but I doubt that this gummy, flavorless version would be claimed by any nation. Maybe it's geared toward the uneducated palate that wants to experiment but is afraid of bold, unfamiliar flavors. Nothing unfamiliar here, certainly.
Wait a minute, there's nothing here at all! No meaty fish sauce, no tart tamarind, no pungent garlic, nothing but the vague taste of fried. At the end of the meal, the plate still piled high, I can't even justify packing it up for a late-night fridge nosh.
Even Thani's best items are dumbed-down versions of what you can find at better restaurants. The broth puddled at the bottom of a bowl of overcooked andaman seafood ($16.95) was good, but lacked the depth that would make it a dish worth ordering again. Chicken laab ($7.95) has almost enough lime and fish sauce, but not nearly enough punch from spicy pepper or bright cilantro to give it life. It's also sweeter than it should be, maybe because of what it lacks, but more likely because of what was added.
In fact, sweet seems to be the one part of the continuum that Thani can't get enough of. Thin spring rolls ($3.95) are sliced and stacked upright on a plate, perfectly adequate until they're drowned in cloying plum and vinegar sauce. Spongy discs of bland fish cake ($6.50) are served with super-sweet red pepper jelly that doesn't even get the benefit of a vinegar kiss.
Ever want to try candy that's packed with protein? Order Thani's Bangkok chicken ($10.95)! Although cooked to the point of desiccation, we power through that crispy, candied chicken jerky. We considered ordering a basket of it to go, for the movie.
One of the only high points of the meal is the arrival of a whole, deep-fried red snapper ($17.95), its skin glowing with a caramelized glaze of vivid red pepper sauce. Like almost everything else, it's sweet, but the steaming hot flesh, spicy peppers, heady garlic and crispy skin are a great combination. There's also enough of it to feed the whole table, a definite plus considering the rest of the meal.
I love finding angel wings ($7.95) on Thai menus, primarily because none of the restaurants I frequented growing up carried them. Thai Thani's aren't bad. These chicken wings — stuffed with mushrooms, pork and noodles, then battered and deep fried — are just waiting for some national, non-Thai chain to pick them up and start experimenting. Think of the possibilities: jalapeno poppers made from chicken wings, turducken wings, fancy wings packed with truffled boniato puree. Who would have thought that you could cram more tasty fat into a basket of wings?
Maybe there's something about the artificiality of Channelside that forces Thai Thani to dumb down its dishes and serve food akin to a Thai version of cheap Chinese takeout. It's mall food. Nothing here has that intense combination of flavors and sensations that I associate with good Thai.
On a brighter note, while I may only give Thai Thani two stars, Superman Returns deserves at least 3.5, especially in giant, IMAX presentation. And the popcorn was a hell of a lot better than that pad thai.
Brian Ries is a former restaurant general manager with an advanced diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Planet food critics dine anonymously, and the paper pays for the meals. Restaurants chosen for review are not related to advertising.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2006.
