The Thai House CafeLike all types of food, some people like Thai food - and others don't. For those that do, it is nice to have a local restaurant that can satisfy that craving. The Thai House has been on the SW corner of Cortez and Sheldon for quite some time now - several years at least.  It
was never a fancy place to
begin with, and the years have not been kind to this restaurant. The "decor" is in the 4 walls and a ceiling style. There are a few booths and 10 or so tables - mostly 4 tops with a few 2 tops thrown in. As near as I could tell there have been no improvements to the restaurant, including paint, since it opened. Our server greeted us with a big smile and left us with menus and , before we knew it, she was back with water and ready for our orders. This turned out to be the theme of the evening - quick, efficient and friendly service. We placed our order - Spring rolls (Por-Pia Sod), Pad-Thai and marinated beef with a spicy chili sauce (Nour Yarng). Our dishes arrived in short order. I don't profess to be an expert on Thai food, however I have eaten Thai food in a lot of different places - including Thailand - so I think I know what good, authentic food of that country should taste like. The spring rolls looked great, translucent little rolls stuffed with lettuce, cucumber, fresh cilantro, tofu, rice noodles and carrots . Unfortunately, the rice paper wrappers were sticky - but the the peanut dipping sauce was good. Thai House professes to cook "home style" food, and I believe them. The Pad-Thai was presented in exactly the same way that I would expect to see it presented at a family table in Thailand - back to basics with little or no thought given to what the dish looks like. We had ordered extra shrimp with our Pad-Thai - and what a bargain that turned out to be! The generous portion of shrimp (8-10 I think) was only a buck extra! The shrimp were perfectly cooked - no complaints there! My wife and I both thought that the Pad-Thai was too sweet. Ideally this dish should be sweet & sour, salty & spicy. One flavor should balance the other and no single flavor (sweetness in this case) should overwhelm the dish. To much palm sugar here I am afraid. The last dish we had was marinated beef with spicy chili sauce. The marinated beef had lots of flavor - but a texture close to beef jerky. The spicy chili sauce was a mystery to me. Again I want to say I am not a Thai food expert, but was the chili sauce supposed to be grainy - like chewing fine sand? I doubt it, but who knows? While there were certainly some good things about it - the shrimp were excellent and the service was top notch - overall the the meal was a disappointment.
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