Vientiane Palace Lao-Thai Restaurant - Madison

Tried this place out on Thursday, April 12th, 2007. We met up with some new friends and they suggested it and I was all for it.

I'm told that the building used to be laundromat, which, in an un-politically correct moment, I thought was appropriate. Walking in, the place definitely felt like a family (asian family, not "gay") operation. We were quickly seated.

My two favorite dishes for 'testing' a new Thai restaurant are Yellow Chicken Curry (Kang Karee) and Coconut Milk Chicken Soup (Tom Kha Gai).

I was told many years ago that "yellow curry" is not an "authentic" Thai dish, but Thai people adopted it from India. I have often wondered how long a food item, or a dish, must be in the cuisine of a culture before it is considered "authentic" to their cuisine? I believe the Italians didn't have tomatoes until after somebody made a few trips to the Americas and brought them back to Italy. What's that, about 500 years. Does anybody say that tomato-based dishes aren't authentically Italian? So, maybe in another 450 years or so I will be able to find Yellow Chicken Curry at all Thai restaurants.

I was not able to find it at Vientiane Palace. They did have their own version of Tom Kha Gai, and the server confirmed that it was the same dish, so I ordered it. The group also ordered Pad Thai and another noodle dish that I believe was called Pad Loh (maybe Pad Lao, since this restaurant is actually Thai and Lao cuisine). Also ordered were spring rolls and the #4 Toast.

We were warned that this restaurant makes dishes on the hot side, so we ordered the soup as a "2" on a scale of 1 to 4. Mild/medium, we said.

Perhaps yours truly is not an "authentic" consumer of Thai food. Perhaps I'm a wimp who only nibbles at the periphery of Thai cuisine. But gosh that soup was HOT. Peppery hot. I believe it had an interesting flavor, and I ate all of my initial serving and the leftovers when nobody else wanted anymore, but it really was TOO HOT for me to really enjoy it. It also did not have mushrooms in it, which another in the party usually enjoys having in it. I usually don't eat many of the mushrooms myself, but I think the soup lacked something without them being present.

The #4 Toast (wish I could recall the name) looked like a Monte Cristo sandwich, or french toast gone wild. It was fried, very eggy, and had bits of ground meat here and there. As I describe it I think it sounds unpleasant, but it actually was quite tasty.

The Pad Thai with Beef and Pad Loh noodle dishes were both tasty enough. I am accustomed to Pad Thai having chunks of chicken, whole shrimps, ground peanuts on top, maybe some sprouts on the side. This just looked like a pile of noodles well coated with sauce. My companion and I don't recall really seeing any beef in it. Again, it had a decent flavor and I certainly ate enough of it, but it seemed a bit plain to me. The Pad Loh was a new dish to me. It was similiar in it's makeup to the Pad Thai but more brownish in color, probably from the heavy use of brown sugar in the sauce. I thought I bit into a piece of glass while eating this, but it turned out to be a chunk of hardened brown sugar. Again, I ate less of this as it was a bit too sweet for me and it also was a favored dish of one of my new friends.

The Spring Rolls were great. Served chilled and wrapped in a soft, pliable thin doughy..well, wrapper! Large and stuffed with veggies and accompanied by a tangy dark sauce with ground peanuts floating in it. I'm not a big fan on lots of veggies, but these were a refreshing change from the deep fried rolls one often gets.

The bill was about $42.00 (pre-tip) for four people to eat and be completely stuffed. No one ordered drinks. I felt it was a little high for the quality of the food and the ambiance, but we were located near the Capital and just off of State Street, so maybe it was reasonable.

Recommendation? Go try it, especially if you enjoy your dishes particularly hot. If you are not into hot, go try it but order everything VERY MILD!

Come back and tell us what you think.