AppeThai opens doors on Ave.

[img1]Situated between Northeast 42nd Street and Northeast 43rd Street, AppeThai is jumping into a pool of fierce competition in what might be one of the city's densest concentrations of Thai restaurants. Despite this challenge, AppeThai opened its doors last week to the public.

One thing that immediately sets AppeThai apart from its competitors is the decor. Whereas most Thai restaurants go for a traditional theme, AppeThai has a modern look to it with lots of metallic furniture and dominating colors of grey, ice blue and forest green. Each table was already set with glasses and forks -- no chopsticks here -- which gave it even more of a "downtown" feel.

Although the decor may go against the grain, the menu offers most of the same dishes available at any other Thai restaurants. Their food doesn't vary much in taste from the competitors -- there's only so much you can do with the standard noodle and curry recipes. Compared to Ave. classics like Thai Tom, AppeThai doesn't stand up too well, but among the many others, you're not likely to taste much of a difference.

Along with the requisite dumpling appetizers found at most Asian restaurants, AppeThai offers dishes like prawn cakes ($6.95) and chicken satay ($5.95). The prawn cakes come in crispy deep-fried patties with a cilantro-spiked sweet-and-sour sauce. The texture is almost spongy, not what you would expect from shrimp. It reminds me of a fried-chicken patty, only with a seafood flavor. The chicken satay comes with a creamy peanut-dipping sauce, and has a strong curry flavor in the chicken pieces.

AppeThai also has two signature drinks -- AppeThai green and red soda. The green soda tasted like bubble gum, and at $2 it was not much of a deal.

[img2]AppeThai offers two different versions of the classic Thai noodle dish pad thai ($6.95). Theirs, like the soda, comes in two different versions: red sauce or tamarind sauce, the red being the more familiar recipe, while the tamarind includes tamarind fruit. Despite these choices, AppeThai doesn't vary too much from the standard recipe.

If you're looking for something off the beaten Thai path, try the coriander beef ($8.95). Neither a curry nor a noodle dish, the coriander beef comes on a pile of crisp cabbage chunks. Unfortunately, the coriander taste was somewhat absent, and despite the fact that I asked for it extra spicy, it was not spicy at all, which prompted me to wonder why they asked how spicy I wanted it in the first place.

AppeThai probably needs a few more weeks of business to settle in -- all the dishes were OK, but it feels like they don't have their routine down quite yet. In the ever-changing sea of Thai restaurants on the Ave., AppeThai will need to prove themselves worthy among their many competitors and it certainly won't be easy. Hopefully they can apply the innovation and quality that they've already given to their service and decor to their food.

Reach Intermission reporter Jeremy Konick at [url='mailto:jeremykonick@thedaily.washington.edu']jeremykonick@thedaily.washington.edu[/url].