Baan Thai (Cadboro Bay)

Address: 104-2000 Cadboro Bay Rd.
Phone: (250) 598-0057
Website: http://www.baanthaivictoria.ca/
Price: Less than $10 for lunch, ~$13 per dinner entree
Notes: Some of the best Thai I've had in a while!

I think Baan Thai downtown was my very first Thai food not in Thailand ever (and I really only ate one authentic dish while in a 24-hour stopover in Thailand...). It just wasn't a cuisine that was ever on my radar growing up. It's also heavily infused with soy, and I think I pretty much equated pad thai with Thai food for a long time and sometimes I'm just not in a pad thai mood!

I love, love, love spicy food - the spicier the better, so Thai is a good cuisine for that. Unlike many Indian places who often shy away from serving spicy food (I always wonder if it's my whiteness or if it just takes away from the more subtle flavours) you can get amazing spicy Thai without destroying the overall flavour of the dish. I think it must be the specific kind of pepper that does that.


Service:
April 20, 2011
Today, my coworker and I realized neither of us had lunch, and she was craving Thai so we hatched a plan to phone ahead to Baan Thai and go and pick it up. We called at 11:10 and were told to pick it up at 11:45. Seemed like a pretty long wait time, but I guess if the kitchen only opened at 11:00 or 11:15 that kind of makes sense.


Food:
April 20, 2011
Lunch combo A was advertised as coming with spring rolls, soup and a main. For some reason, I didn't get any soup - which I'm not really worried about because it was way too much food to eat for lunch anyhow and I probably would have ended up giving it away.

The spring rolls were excellent - lots of delicious vermicelli noodles inside which are nice because they make for a non-soggy roll. Soggy rolls are just not on, ok?

Lunch Combo A (Gaeng Gai/Red Curry) via foodspotting.com

This was the main dish, the red curry. It was so fantastic! I got it 'hot' and it was, in fact that red stuff you can see in the picture is the pure chili. Mmmmm! The flavours were excellent, and I was way too hungry to remember to take a picture before I started, but the presentation was pretty good despite being in a to-go. Sometimes red curry is a little bit bland in comparison to green curry, but it was very delicious!