These muddled thoughts swam through my brain as I slogged out to outer Forest Avenue. My destination? The final stop in the Thai-o-rama campaign: Sengchai Thai.

Sengchai Thai's Panaeng Curry

Weighed down by 9 hours driving from 2 days of Irish pub debauchery in Nova Scotia, I expected to slump in my seat and force conversation with the rest of the blogging crew.

Instead, I found Portland’s (New England’s?) most enthusiastic waitress. She lifted my spirits and (warning – corny ahead!) made me appreciate the joy of living. Her somewhat forced litany of anecdotes and stories peppered the evening with a large dose of weird, slightly inappropriate and off-topic. I loved it. Jillian captured it nicely here.

The food? Better than some but certainly no Boda.

I ordered Tom Khar Gai and Panaeng Curry and found them both passable if unremarkable. Nice flavors but little to write home about. The soup was as thin as Lindsay Lohan’s excuses and the curry hardly registered as such. Medium spicy is tame here, folks.

Nibbles around the table told me that others ordered better. Uke’s Drunken Noodle offered the tangy punch that makes me appreciate cold beer (even watery Singha). Kate’s Larb Gai got all fresh and lemongrassy on my ass. A’s Pad Thai proved to be one of the better ones in town – complete with citrus! Jenner’s mind appeared to be underwhelmed by her Crab Rangoon – so I passed.

I left feeling cozy and satisfied, but I think that was mostly due to the company and the odd, bubbly service. The food was pretty good. Servicable Thai.

All and all – not a bad way to end.

Blogger’s Note: This post is the final (yay!) in a series of Thai restaurant reviews being conducted — and posted on the same day — by a group of Portland bloggers and writers. For other reviews, check out Portland Food Map.

Adam enters Vientiane Restaurant and Market

The perfect time for take-out, you say? Naw, I love atmosphere – the good, the bad and the ugly – and this place has atmosphere in spades.

So, Adam and I stay and sweat through the spiciest curry we’ve eaten so far on this Thai-o-rama journey.

But more on the food in a bit.

Doubling as a specialty food market, Vientiane stocks the wares vital to Thai home cooking.  Shelves overflow with varied sizes of Sriracha sauce. Packets of Gogi and Agar-Agar powder lay about in bins. Rows pack can upon can of whole palm seed, jackfruit, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts (both Dragonfly and Twin Elephant brands) and langans.

Side note: Nope, I don’t know what a langan is either – and a quick web search proved fruitless. Anyone know?

Coolers chill green and jasmine teas, sodas, and a pre-fab Thai Iced Tea called Honey Bee that turns out to be sickeningly saccharine — yet enticingly addictive.

Red curry chicken and one focused little girl

Settling into one of only four tables, we have only moments to survey our surroundings and drum our fingers on the mint-green laminate top before the food arrives. It’s steaming and pre-packed in wafer-thin, to-go containers.

How convenient.

Our waitress thoughtfully sets the piping hot aluminum on little hand-cut cardboard trays to prevent finger burns. We slide them around the table and fill our Styrofoam plates with heaping piles. The little girl’s game honks and beeps.

Thick with coconut milk and flecked with red pepper, the red chicken curry starts my nose running like a good curry should. On this hot day, it also causes beads of moisture to form on my upper lip. Floating in the creamy sauce are crisp veggies – green beans, bamboo shoots, zucchini, and eggplant – as well as a ton of basil leaves. Overall curry effect: very spicy and very yummy.

Fresh and well-cooked, the Pad Thai pleases at first. Full of peanut flavor, with just-right noodles, plump shrimp and tender chicken, I think I’ve finally found a great Pad Thai. But, again, subsequent bites reveal a cloying sweetness that overpowers the positive. It’s nothing that a squeeze of lime and a tad more heat won’t cure. However, we are – again – limeless. Pad Thai score: slightly better than okay, bordering on the edge of good.

We also ordered a papaya salad, but at this point in the meal I’m beet-red and feeling a little faint, so we pack up (a quick endeavor, considering) and shuffle home.

Asian foodstuffs at Vientiane Restaurant and Market

Now, sitting here in the evening, I’m snacking on the salad — which is packing a pleasant punch, even if a mite stale and heavy on the fish sauce — and considering, with 10 restaurants down, where Vientiane fits into the Portland Thai food scene.

The food certainly doesn’t come close to Boda’s or even Pom’s. But, compared to the other neighborhood Thai restaurants, Adam and I both feel it fares quite well. Rather strongly, even.

The curry was quite nice and the atmosphere — authentic and weird — can’t be beat.

Blogger’s Note: This post is the tenth in a series of Thai restaurant reviews being conducted — and posted on the same day — by a group of Portland bloggers and writers. For other reviews, check out Portland Food Map.

Pom's noodle soup with crispy duck and five spice broth.

It’s what I get every time.

Now, it’s not the best soup in the world, but it’s dependable, hearty, filling and affordable. At $8.95 (lunch size) and $12.95 (a formidable dinner size), it’s a deal. And, with a heat level that turns your cheeks rosy and sinuses clear — it’s a flavorful way to warm up in winter and sober up on First Friday’s.

So, branching out of my rut for this review was a bit tough. Sometimes I just like what I like. But, I set my resolve and waltzed in for lunch on a recent Friday.

Feeling slightly pressured by the regimented efficiency of Pom’s wait staff, I scanned the expansive menu for a suitable duck soup replacement. Still searching through town for great Pad Thai, I choose the restaurant’s Maine shrimp version. For an appetizer, I couldn’t resist the intriguingly titled Steamed Butterflies.

Billed as the Pom’s house specialty, the butterflies were mostly just a sticky and overly sweet mess. Essentially dumplings stuffed with ground chicken breast, ground peanuts, herbs and turnips, they tasted — strangely — as if they had been dipped in a vat of maple syrup. It was hard to get past the pasty texture of the dumpling shell and the cloying flavor of its contents. Even a dunk in the accompanying soy sauce didn’t mute the sweetness much.

The Pad Thai arrived looking promising. I enjoyed the first few bites. It was fresh. Noodles perfectly cooked. Shrimp the requisite blend of buttery and meaty. Crisp bean sprouts added snap. But, quickly, a sweetness (with undertones of fish sauce and overtones of peanut) took control. I scanned my plate for the lime.

No lime! What’s wrong with the Thai restaurants in this town!

Instead of suffering in silence I flagged down a waitress and begged for citrus. It came promptly. One squeeze and the flavor profile balanced out and I was able to contentedly finish the rest of my meal. Once tamed, the Pad Thai was quite tasty.

Through all this drama, across the table, Adam was happily slurping his duck noodle soup.

Lucky bastard.

Blogger’s Note: This post is the fourth in a series of Thai restaurant reviews being conducted — and posted on the same day — by a group of Portland bloggers and writers. For other reviews, check out Portland Food Map.

Weird and wonderful flashing-eyed lobster at Viet Bangkok.

1. The authentic Pho.

2. The trippy, giant lobster mounted to the wall.

I’ll take them one at a time.

The Pho: Viet Bangkok serves a pleasant version of this classic noodle soup. Laced with roasted ginger, anise and freshly chopped scallions and cilantro, the restaurant nailed the “musts” of this Southeast Asian stable. Thin rice noodles were velvety and fresh – easy to wind around chopsticks and slurp up into our awaiting mouths. Aromatic steam billowed and curled from the light, sesame-oiled broth.

Two juicy lime slices (thank God!), a handful of cool, crisp bean sprouts, a few sprigs of Asian basil and a pile of fresh chiles waited on a side plate for our measured addition. The result – an earthy “green” flavor that epitomized tasty Pho.

Where the dish faltered a bit was with the beef. Most traditional Pho requires that rare meat slip into a hot broth for a flash boil. Our Viet Bangkok beef was pre-cooked, a tad tough, and clumped in the middle of the bowl in a huddled mass. We had to pry it apart. Not any easy feat with chopsticks.

While the Pho didn’t quite pass our strict “San Francisco” test, it was good — and a lovely surprise here in Maine.

The Lobster: Three feet long with flashing eyes that blink while you eat – what’s not to love?! The fake lobster was just the sort of wacky Asian-restaurant kitsch that makes me giggle. Our waitress confirmed that the mounted masterpiece is a native of Vietnam. Beyond that, she had no more insights. Pity.

As for the rest of our meal? Mixed results.

I was disappointed in a Basil Roll starter. Adam kinda liked it. As thick as an Italian salami, the roll featured scarce chunks of pork, scant bits of cucumber and rare sprigs of basil hiding amongst vast amounts of fridge-flavored lettuce. Not a homerun.

Tom Kha soup and basil rolls -- a mixed bag of starters.

A Tom Kha soup pleased us both with tender chicken floating in a rich coconut milk, a zingy balance of sweet and sour flavors, and fresh onions, mushrooms and galingale (a root related to ginger).

The night’s big fail was a massive bowl of Duck Masaman Curry. An overly heavy sauce drowned hapless potatoes, onions and bell peppers in a dense morass. Not one hint of spiciness managed to burst through the gloppy stuff, which was more like a burnt brown sauce than a curry. The duck itself resembled shoe leather — in both consistency and taste. Truly unappetizing.

So, my advice? Stay away from the curry and go for the Pho.

Blogger’s Note: This post is the second in a series of Thai restaurant reviews being conducted — and posted on the same day — by a group of Portland bloggers and writers. For other reviews, check out Portland Food Map.

Sala Thai's spring rolls were crisp and fresh.

The veracity of Adam’s argument (which is reoccurring and touches on the meager amount of bean sprouts, as well) is quite heated, and, hearing him, you’d be apt to assume that our recent meal at the Washington street restaurant was thoroughly lousy.

The truth is more complicated.

While the Pad Thai was just about the worst we’ve ever eaten, many other aspects of our Sala experience were genuinely nice.

I was charmed by the dozens of delicate wooden mobiles suspended and slightly swaying from the ceiling. We both reveled in a tender duck entree. Crisp and fresh, the spring rolls were a delight.

But the restaurant’s website doesn’t boast about the duck. . .or the spring rolls. . .or the atmosphere. It boasts about the Pad Thai. In fact, it calls it the “best in town.”

Oh, the irony.

Sala’s Pad Thai was a variation on the classic dish that I found truly perplexing. It tasted overwhelmingly of fish sauce and red chile  — the punch of tamarind and garlic completely absent. Somehow both oily and pasty at the same time, the noodles were simply unpleasant going down. Scant quantities of shrimp and chicken did little to help, and the tang of the lime and crunch of the bean sprouts were sorely missed. Maybe we got a bad batch. Maybe they were out of limes. Whatever the reason, it was just not good.

The bulk of it remained on the serving plate.

We fared much better with the Tamarind Duck. Served in a tangy (if not exactly spicy) brown sauce, the duck was well-seasoned, perfectly roasted, and boasted just the right amount of fat. Cooked with onions, green peppers, ginger, pineapple, scallions and tamarind sauce, it was pleasant and hearty.

Our choice of starters – although not gush-worthy – were satisfying. A pungent Tom Khar Gai soup offered that sweet, coconutty richness expected in the simple stew, and the spring rolls were, again, fresh and delightful.

Not so for the accompanying peanut sauce, however. Lacking a certain zestiness, it was completely overpowered by the thick layer of crushed peanuts coating the top.

Service was pleasant, but rushed – a puzzling development considering the general dearth of other diners and the early hour. On two occasions, Adam had to snatch back both the soup and the duck from our waitress’ eager bussing routine.

Unfortunately, the uneaten Pad Thai sat there — still on the table, mocking us – for the entire meal.

Blogger’s Note: This post is the first in a series of Thai restaurant reviews being conducted — and posted on the same day — by a group of Portland bloggers and writers. For other reviews, check out Portland Food Map.