Thai and Malay dishes spicily delicious
Mark Laba
Province
Chili Garden manager Brad Kemash with a display including King Prawns, Panang Duck and Tom Yum shrimp. Photograph by: Les Bazso, The Province
CHILI GARDEN
Where: 4186 Main St., Vancouver
Payment/reservations: Major credit cards, 604-879-8896
Drinks: Beer and wine.
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily
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Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow / With silver bells and cockle shells and chili peppers that’ll have you yelling “fire in the hole.” Anyway, that’s the way I think the nursery rhyme should go, at least the South East Asian version. Though I don’t have a green thumb when it comes to gardening, I’ve certainly got a red tongue for slamming back the hot stuff from the flammable section of the vegetable patch.
I might need a couple of inner tube patches on my intestinal tract if I keep up with my obsession with heat, but my motto is if you’re not burning yourself a third nostril or second rear end, you’re just not getting the full taste experience.
It was with that philosophy that I steered Peaches into this new Main Street eatery because once I saw the sign I was hooked.
Inside we were greeted by the serenity of a thousand Buddhas or maybe more like three or four rendered in both sculptural and painted mediums. The whole room evokes that monsoon-season feeling, with bamboo dividers, persimmon-coloured walls and tropical wood fixings.
At least they appear that way from the carved teak elephants to the tables and chairs. This joint used to be Sandy‘s, a Filipino cafeteria-style restaurant and, considering the former utilitarian design of the interior, this new facelift looks like a million bucks — or more George Hamilton than Mickey Rourke.
Usually my antennae would be twitching when I’d see a billing like this place, advertising both Thai and Malaysian cuisine. I’m a fan of each but don’t see them co-existing under one roof. Still, if you see them on a map and ignore that scale measurement at the bottom, hell, these countries aren’t too far apart. So why not mix ‘n’ match and see what a little culinary country-hopping would bring?
Began with a great appetizer called a Golden Bag ($4.95). Six crispy rice pastries tied up like pouches with a strand of lemongrass and, inside, a delectable mix of minced onion, corn, carrots, peas and potatoes, dusted with a touch of curry and fired up golden brown.
“Papa’s got a brand new bag,” I told Peaches as I snagged the last one.
“James Brown you ain’t.”
Our table filled up quickly with orders of cashew crispy chicken ($9.95), mee goreng ($8.95) and beef gata ($11.95). The mee goreng was very satisfying, not as spicy as I would’ve expected, which was a good thing for Peaches, and it was brimming with chicken, beef, shrimp and hulking pieces of tofu that looked like soybean curd icebergs adrift on a sea of noodles.
The beef gata, a Thai construction, came with onions, peppers, zucchini and Thai herbal touches awash in a tomato brandy sauce. A hint of sweetness, a tinge of heat, along with tender thinly sliced beef made this dish a delicious choice.
As for the crispy cashew chicken, it was OK, although the poultry was a little tough, probably due to the light breading going off the crispo-meter during the wok-frying. But the cashew imbued a sweet, nutty flavour that saved this bird.
It’s certainly an intriguing menu, from sambal prawns to Thai barbecue chicken, Malaysian whole fried crab to crispy duck. As for the heat, most of the chili factor is handled with a balanced hand in the kitchen, meaning that an insane guy like me will have to wait another day to turn his stomach into a spewing volcano. You have to be cruel to be kind in the right measure but my form of culinary cruelty knows no boundaries.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Can’t stand the heat, stay out of the garden.
RATINGS: Food: B Service: B+ Atmosphere: B
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