...Khao San Thai Kitchen (Calgary)

Overall - 8/10
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Food - 8/10
Service - 8.5/10
Ambiance 9/10

You may have noticed but we've been on a bit of a Thai kick recently. There is something about the fresh and bright flavours, spicy heat and family style dining that we love. Our favourite Thai place to date has to be Juree's, but after hearing all the buzz about Khao San Thai Kitchen which has opened up on 17th AVE we had to give it a try.

We started the evening off with the Pla Meuk Yang or the marinated and grilled squid with a spicy seafood sauce. You know a Thai restaurant is authentic when their sauces are actually spicy as advertised. This spicy seafood dipping sauce was as hot a sauce as I've ever had but had a great depth of flavour probably from the fish sauce in it. Thankfully the grilled squid had a hint of sweetness that balanced off the spicy sauce. Our second appetizer was the papaya salad which again was nice and refreshing side to the spicy squid.

For our mains we shared a chicken Pa-Nang curry which if you've never had one before is sweeter and less spicy then either the green or red curries on offer here. The sauce I felt was on the thin side but was still packed with flavour and there definitely was more then enough to be poured over our sides of coconut rice.

When we saw "Crying Tiger" on the menu we were pretty intrigued. It was a dish of grilled rib eye steak served with a northeastern style dipping sauce. The steak was well cooked and the dipping sauce had a nice tartness from an ingredient we still can't quite put our finger on. It was fairly mild on the spiciness scale but not to worry as we were provided with a huge assortment of hot sauces to use at our own discretion. There was a chilli oil, chilli fish sauce, a chilli garlic sauce and chilli flakes to choose from.

For dessert the taro pearls served with a sweetened coconut milk caught our eye. The 'pearls' were more like tiny and tender little taro dumplings that melted in your mouth. The most interesting part of the dessert were the corn niblets in the coconut milk that surprisingly went really well with the overall flavour of the dish.

At the end of the night we were pretty satisfied with our meal. The spiciness was definitely there as were the expected Thai flavours. The prices may have been a bit higher then Juree's but the originality of the dishes made up for the added expense.