The Weekly Eater

BY NADINE KAM

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AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STAR-BULLETIN.COM Montien Olney plates a dish of pad thai.

Thai restaurant both a culinary
and aesthetic pleasure

Good help is so hard to find, and then when you do find them, your bunch of hires suddenly want to go on vacation, at the same time. But it's OK; they're family, so you close up shop for a couple of weeks. That's your prerogative when you're the boss and Montien Thai is your restaurant.

Those hungry for Thai food should get there ASAP before Montien Olney and her family head home to Thailand July 1. Otherwise, mark your calendars for their return July 18. It'll be a trip worth waiting for.

The restaurant is on Moiliili's restaurant row, between buildings housing Kokua Market and Mother Rice Preschool. There's limited parking in the back, but the lot entrance is just before the restaurant, so don't blink or you'll miss it.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STAR-BULLETIN.COM Aesthetics aren't ignored at her restaurant on King Street in Moiliili.

You'll find a pretty pink interior, with window frames and details in lime green. It's a palette usually reserved for funky boutiques, not restaurants, but I thought it was appetizing enough. I don't think it would challenge the masculinity of guests of the opposite gender either. The cuisine is gender-neutral.

The menu opens with appetizers you'll find on any Thai menu: chicken satay ($7.95), spring rolls ($6.50), stuffed chicken wings ($7.95) and fish patties ($6.95). Unique to this one was a listing for Mermaid Delight ($6.95), which sounded simple enough: shrimp wrapped in thin spring-roll wrappers, quickly deep-fried and served with a sweet garlic-chili sauce. These delicate, single-bite morsels were as crunchy as potato chips and, like a certain brand, it would be impossible to eat just one. If no one else were at the table, I could have scarfed all eight in 10 minutes. I considered ordering seconds!

After that, a healthier calamari salad ($7.95) naturally paled. This salad of lettuce and onions was topped by the scored tubes of squid and doused with the usual sweet-sour-fish sauce Thai dressing.

Olney's visual aesthetic carries over to entrees presented on blue-and-white china, with condiments such as crushed peanuts and chili powder presented in matching jars. Her pad thai is an uplifting tangerine color, the noodles amazingly springy, and not served as one flat brown mass as at other Thai restaurants.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STAR-BULLETIN.COM A dish of pad thai.

Also quite exquisite is a regular bowl of red chicken curry ($7.95) that's smooth, made with a high-grade coconut milk. At other restaurants, the chicken served in the dish seems like it's been hacked into random pieces with a cleaver and cooked 'til it could bounce off the floor. Here, the meat is so evenly sliced it seemed strange at first. But the flavor and tender texture were reassuring.

For an opposing flavor, lemon pork ($7.95) offers the tart flavor of lemons and lemongrass, spiked with fish sauce, green onions and the herbal flavor of cilantro. Don't combine this dish with an order of garlic beef ($6.95), however. The textures are too similar, even if the latter is served in a pool of garlic gravy thickened with a bit of cornstarch, Chinese-style. There is some MSG in these dishes, but you can ask them to leave it out or make other special requests.

Then, don't let the yogurt shop across the street lure you away for dessert. You must stay for Montien's homemade ice cream. The texture is divine, like an extremely fine, powdery shaved ice with the intense flavors of fresh mango and haupia. As a reward for awaiting her post-vacation return, she may even bring home more dessert recipes to share.

MONTIEN THAI RESTAURANT 2671D S. King St. / 949-2679 Food 1/2 Service Ambience Value Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays to Saturdays, and 4 to 9 p.m. Sundays Cost: About $25 to $30 for two

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Nadine Kam's restaurant reviews run on Thursdays. Reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Bulletin. Star ratings are based on comparisons of similar restaurants:

	excellent;
	very good, exceeds expectations;
	average;
	below average.

To recommend a restaurant, write: The Weekly Eater, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or send e-mail to nkam@starbulletin.com