Restaurant Review: Silk Cuisine

Restaurant: 
Address: 656 West Lancaster Avenue Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Rating: ★★★★
Style: Thai
Food: Reliable, tasty Thai food 
Atmosphere: Serene with plenty of Thai memorabilia
Parking: Challenging, there are only a few street parking spots.
Service: Good
Price Range: Affordable, most entrees are less than $12
Unique Feature: Menu offers plenty of vegetarian items and red rice. BYOB.

Stepping into is like setting foot in Thailand. It is a gorgeous restaurant with black lacquered chairs, decorative wooden wall fixtures, brightly colored cloth napkins and even some metal birds in flight adorning the wall. There are photos of the king of Thailand, paintings of Thai temples and various Thai decoration throughout the space.

I ordered calamari salad, Thai corn cakes, chicken pad thai and beef drunken noodles to go. I had a Thai iced coffee while I waited for my order. The iced coffee was strong and tasted like it was made with evaporated milk (Thai iced coffee can be made with heavy cream, half and half, evaporated milk or even condensed milk) and plenty of sugar. It hit the spot on such a hot day.

Our food came out quickly and I was on my way. My friend met me for dinner at my house and we both enjoyed the corn cakes to start. Slightly sweet from the natural sugars in the corn kernels and delicious enough to be enjoyed alone, a dip in the acidic and slightly spicy sauce was a slight improvement to the corn cake.

The calamari salad was tasty. This mix of raw red onion, julienned carrots, chopped scallions, cooked mushrooms, fish sauce, tangy lemon juice, greens, cucumbers and calamari was a wide array of flavors and textures in every bite. The calamari was a bit overcooked, but I didn’t mind. Thai food is marked by wonderful interplays of sweet, savory, tart and tangy. This salad was a great example of this.

The chicken pad thai was a textbook example of the famous dish. At first glance one could see the wedge of lime, crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, abundant noodles and generous amounts of grilled chicken. Pad thai gets its sweetness from sugar and tartness from tamarind paste. Rice vinegar adds acid and fish sauce adds some salty notes. The pad thai was more savory than anything else but enjoyable nevertheless. The white breast meat was fully cooked with a nice subtle smokiness from the grilling.

Drunken noodles are one of my favorite noodle dishes ever, and this rendition did not disappoint. Well-made drunken noodles are spicy, delicious and deeply satisfying (they are called drunken noodles because they are allegedly so spicy you need to drink tons to combat the heat). The fat noodles are hearty and fun to eat. While one is given a choice of protein, I always opt for beef because the strong flavors of the dish pair well with a more robust counterpart. The drunken noodles were perfectly cooked, slathered with the hot, rich and vaguely sweet sauce and swimming in a sea of tender beef and vegetables.

We enjoyed it all with a bottle of white Cotes du Rhone, which went well with everything except the beef drunken noodles. I can’t wait to head back to Silk Cuisine with a nice bottle of mild red—better pairing for the beef drunken noodles.

Click here for Silk Cuisine’s website.

Click here for Silk Cuisine’s menu.