Thai food somehow seems conducive to conversation.
During my career, I’ve only interviewed a few people over a meal, but most of those meals have been Thai food. Maybe it’s the lively spices? Perhaps they invigorate the brain?
Whatever it is, when I needed to get together to chat with Rose McAvoy, one of our food writers, we went for Thai food. We ended up at Lanna Thai, one of my favorite Thai spots in Everett.
When I go there for lunch, I often notice people that appear to be having business meetings. Maybe they’re taking advantage of the brain-stimulating spices as well.
The dark wood and cozy eating nooks of the restaurant balance the spacious layout and high ceilings, giving the entire space a publike feel. That feel is reinforced by the long bar that runs the length of the restaurant. The feeling is more upscale than most local Thai restaurants. There are tables in the open as well as many high backed booths to settle into.
The staff are friendly and attentive. They usually manage to show up when you need them, yet don’t make you feel rushed.
The menu features a lot of appealing pictures to help visualize what you are ordering. If you aren’t familiar with the difference between Pud Thai, Pud Se Ew or Pud Woon Sen, the images will be tremendously helpful. Even with the pictures, though, the menu is far too long. By the time you get past the 102nd item and on to the side dishes, you can’t remember what sounded good originally. It usually takes several flips back and forth to settle on a dish.
When I shared dinner with Rose, our appetizer of fried tofu ($7.95) was exactly what we wanted. It was a large portion and was toasty brown and crisp on the outside with a warm, soft center. The sweet chili dipping sauce wasn’t spicy but it had a nice tang. It was just the thing to enliven the tofu’s mild nutty flavor. The appetizer was more than enough for the two of us. It would be a modest portion for three or four adults to start a meal.
Rose ordered her entree, Pud Woon Sen ($11.50), as 3 out of 5 on the heat scale. The dish features prawn stir-fried with noodles, egg, shitake mushrooms, Napa cabbage, tomatoes, pineapple, green onion, and chopped celery and seasoned with Thai thin soy sauce. The dish arrived with visible chili flakes and delivered an initial dose of pleasant heat, she said. But after digging in a little farther, it was clear the heat came almost entirely from the sprinkled flakes on top, not from spices incorporated into the dish.
Her plate included a generous portion of large tail-on shrimp and chunky pieces of vegetables mixed into the thin noodles. In general, she said she really enjoyed the mild flavor and comfort food quality of the noodles. However, the mixture of ingredients wasn’t quite right. There was a single too-big piece of tomato, a moderate amount of mushrooms, too much celery and far too much pineapple. Rose said the shrimp was cooked about 30 seconds less than her liking; it wasn’t fully tender.
I ordered the Tom Ka soup with seafood ($14.95). The soup was served extremely hot, and my shrimp in the seafood mix were perfectly cooked. I like the addition of noodles to the soup, it made it feel more like a meal. The squid were too chewy, but they also were cut thin, so they weren’t hard to eat.
I sipped a cup of mint tea ($2.95) with my meal. Lanna Thai offers a nice range of teas, which is a good complement to their food.
Lanna Thai is easy to recommend for a moderately-priced meal, somewhere you can wear your “good jeans” and enjoy a leisurely evening out. It’s also a great place for lunch meetings because the service is friendly and fast. And if you’re a lucky parent whose kids enjoy Thai food (I’m still working on mine) it would be a comfortable spot for a family meal.
Jessi Loerch: 425-339-3046; jloerch@heraldnet.com. Rose McAvoy contributed to this review.
Lanna Thai
7825 Evergreen Way, Everett; 425-438-3888; www.lannathaieverett.com
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 9 p.m. Sunday
Speciality: Thai food
Alcohol: Full bar
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