Review: Pacific Spice

I have a story about a Chinese restaurant I visited for lunch once when I lived in Stockholm, Sweden. I had recently moved there to work and on an unusually clear, bright Saturday afternoon, I wandered around the neighborhood to see what was there. After a couple of hours, I realized that I walked up an appetite and spied a Chinese restaurant just a few doors away. I went in, was greeted warmly, quickly seated and received the menu. To my surprise, the menu was in Swedish, and my server only spoke Swedish.

To extend this dining dilemma, the kitchen help, all Chinese, spoke Chinese, of course, and a little “kitchen Swedish”. Call me crazy, but I thought it was hysterical. Not even my mime skills could work in this situation.

So, I resorted, in the sudden realization that every Chinese menu I had ever seen had the exact same basic format: the appetizers are on the top left side, followed by the soups, then each entrée is divided by the type of meat the dish contains, starting with chicken first, then beef, then seafood, to let the format be my guide.

Close your eyes and recall the last Chinese restaurant menu you ordered from. The dinner specialties were a bit trickier. The clue given by the Swedish word, “specialitet” only led me to that section, but the translation of “Jade Mounting Scallop” was beyond my capacity to either mime, recall root words from four years of Latin, or any crossword puzzle!

Here’s the best part—every menu item was numbered. My salvation. And, being the adventurous type, I confidently placed my order by number: #1 (I was hoping was an egg roll), #13 (I was hoping was Won Ton soup), and a number from the specialitet section (this was my biggest gamble).

How bad could it get? I was safe. I was in Sweden, not Scotland where the specialty might have been haggis.

in Woodstock has a menu from the same playbook. As most restaurants of this type, the menu offers numerous choices all starting with egg rolls on the top left corner. Ah, globalization!

Aided by the menu in English, I went directly to the Thai section and confidently ordered Fresh Basil Rolls ($4.50). These are the rice paper wrapped rolls stuffed with shrimp, cellophane rice noodles, lettuce, bean sprouts and basil leaves. The accompanying plum sauce, the thick sauce made with preserved pickled plums and Bird’s eye chilies with chopped peanuts was fresh, sweet and the perfect foil against the crisp ingredients of the spring roll. The presentation was surprisingly beautiful.

For my main entrée, I chose the Thai Basil Fried Rice with Shrimp ($9.75). One of the reasons that I enjoy Thai food is that I can count on selections from the basic tenet of balancing the meal with something from the four fundamental tastes: sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and hot/spicy; oftentimes the emphasis is on hot.

Moreover, Thai food is normally very fragrant, and this dish, the Thai Basil Fried Rice, was wonderfully fragrant with sautéed fresh basil, sweet onions and bell peppers. This dish did not disappointment me except it was not hot enough. I would have liked a little Sriracha sauce to kick up the hot on this one. Next time, I’ll order it to “take out”, and spice it up at home to my liking. I enjoyed the meal with a tall, refreshing glass of iced tea ($1.50).

Overall, the presentation was beautiful, the atmosphere was unhurried and peaceful, tables and booths were clean upon being seated, the service was friendly, cordial and prompt, and the prices are reasonable. I’ll definitely be back to try other menu items. You see, I can do this, even with my eyes closed.