on April 08, 2005
By MIKE PETERS / The Dallas Morning News
The best first visits to a restaurant are like encountering a music box, one that's beautifully crafted and tickles your senses.

That charm and surprise comes at Thai Pan the moment you enter: The strip-center facade has a narrow face, but the inside is wider and warmer than a drive-by suggests. Rich wood furniture and moldings complement the decorative wall hangings, some flaunting more natural wood grains while others sparkle with gold paint.

The same sense of occasion informs serving dishes, elegant blue and white china pieces that blend beauty and whimsy. Soup comes in a scallop-edged bowl that wants to be a lotus flower. One entree arrives on a long leaf platter, its gleaming white surface delineated with fat blue ribs. Our dessert was served in a shallow bowl with edges like the sun's corona.
Such loving touches suggest the food gets the same attention to detail. The menu is expansive but categorized for easy navigation by diner and kitchen: rice and noodle dishes; 10 entrees that can be adapted to your choice of meat and heat level; and eight seafood specialties.

Even the staple pad Thai is carefully prepared: festoons of scallion are as fresh as the bean sprouts, crushed peanuts seem newly roasted, and the whole plate has a made-to-order aura that sets it apart from less-proud kitchens, from which pad Thai sometimes emerges looking like leftovers. (It's $6.95, with your choice of beef, pork, chicken or tofu; add $2 for shrimp.)

The kitchen finds simple delight in other noodle creations. Pad kee mow is a spicy medley that starts with big, flat noodles – some trimmed to bite-size for easier eating. Your choice of meat will be sauced and tossed with Chinese broccoli, peppers, yellow onion, tomato and a handful of pungent basil leaves ($6.95). Pad woon sen offers lighter glass noodles and a lighter sauce ($8.95).

Pad gratiem prik Thai is more robust, a meat-centered creation with a hearty marinade and a sprinkling of chopped fresh garlic and black pepper matched with steamed broccoli and carrot ($8.95). There are more conventional entrees, too: wok-tossed medleys that are oyster-sauced or cashew-delighted. Dishes that promise fresh basil leaves are more distinctive – as is the hellish heaven of pad prik khing, with fresh Oriental green beans sent to tingly blazes by red curry sauce ($8.95).

Which brings us to the asterisks at the bottom of the menu: one is mild, two is medium hot, three is very hot and four is "madly hot." But no dishes demand a fire hose outright. All the fare designed to be spicy is tagged by a single star: You can raise the level of heat when you order.

The menu's flourishes come in the seafood specialties. Clay pot shrimp ($11.95) is a surprise, with jumbo shrimp lurking among glass noodles and mushrooms in a vaguely garlicked soy broth. Chu che pla is a deep-fried catfish fillet that packs a kaleidoscope of flavors: red chile, kaffir lime, coconut milk and roasted fresh basil leaves. Our serving was almost too crispy on the edges, but the taste was well worth the cutlery struggle required to procure it ($11.95). Another winner at our table: spicy basil calamari, stir-fried with mushrooms, baby corn, onion, jalapeño, bell pepper and more fresh basil ($10.95).

The menu includes the full range of curries made distinctively Thai with coconut milk ($8.95 and $9.95). Green harbors fresh eggplant and the most heat, then comes red, yellow, panang and massamun (the mildest, a southern Thai specialty). All can be customized with choice of meat and spice level; we liked that the veggies weren't overcooked and still had a little snap.

Soups include the Thai classic tom yum goong that makes shrimp puckerish with lemongrass, kaffir lime and hot chile paste (cup $4.50; big bowl $8.95). A spicy seafood soup is available in large size only, a pot of mussels, shrimp, calamari, scallop and crab with mushrooms, tomatoes, lemongrass, kaffir lime and hot chili paste ($9.95).

Seasonal papaya salad was a fiery delight ($5.95). The fresh green fruit is shredded and drizzled with fish sauce, chili, sugar, crushed peanut, dry baby shrimp, lime juice and tomatoes. This salad is something of an acquired taste (if you aren't born to it), but it's well worth making its acquaintance.

Desserts include Thai custard or mango (surprisingly ripe and sweet on a recent visit) with warm sticky rice; also fried banana (each $4.95).

Published in The Dallas Morning News: 04.08.05

1223 W.McDermott Dr. Ste.75 Allen, TX 75013
Tel: 972-747-0057 Fax: 972-747-0162