Andaman Thai (Denton, TX)

Andaman Thai
221 E.Hickory St.
Denton,  Texas 76201
http://www.andamanthairestaurant.com/

I’d like to start this post with a few words of gratitude. This extravaganza wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the efforts of Shane (better known by his Chowhound handle) and the owner/chef of Andaman Thai Mr. Achava Boonumpaichaiyakul, who sourced the ingredients and crafted these fantastic dishes. Thanks for putting together a memorable lunch with such an impressive spread of food.

Named for a strait in Thailand, Andaman Thai serves authentic Thai in Denton. They recently changed locations, so double check your directions because the address listed above doesn’t match the result on Google Maps. Their menu has the usual Central Thai dishes as well as specialties like the sour Gaeng Som (the Southern version of Jungle Curry) or Nam Prik Ong (Spicy Meat Dipping Sauce) from the North.

Now, what’s so special about this particular meal? Shane collaborated with the chef-owner, who was eager to recreate a few dishes from the infamous Jitlada Thai in L.A., a Southern Thai restaurant that is uncompromisingly authentic. I’d wager that none of these dishes would be found on a regular Thai menu anywhere in the metroplex, or for that matter, the whole state of Texas. Ordering off-menu dishes at a Thai restaurant shows acceptance, tolerance, and usually yields impressive results. In other words, if you’re interested in trying dishes like this, make sure to inquire about a Thai language menu. I’m far from an expert though, so to help with familiarity, I carry around two useful resources: translated menus from Sripraphai and Jitlada.

These dishes all had immense flavor, and the spicy dishes unleashed the fury on my senses with out of this world, impeccable heat. I hate to use a cliche’d phrase, but Jitlada does turn it up to 11 so I was stoked to say the least. Here we go.

After seeing the other dishes on this lineup, it was a wise idea to start with something milder. The first dish was Kaeng Kai Nun Awn – Fried Red Curry with Young Jackfruit. This dish is typically made with gamier meats of questionable origin, but our variation  has quite an adventurous pick: chicken. All jokes aside, I’d love to try this curry with venison, alligator, or pheasant to see how a “gamey” meat mingles with jackfruit. I would rate the spice on this a 3.5, somewhere around moderately spicy, and the sweet jackfruit helps to tone down the heat. I’m also gonna have to figure out where he got the jackfruit; it’d be great to use fresh ones for halo-halo when the weather is nicer.

According to the owner our second dish, Khao Soi, had previously been on their regular menu. This curry with fried noodles was removed because the restaurant couldn’t justify stocking the noodles due to a lack of demand. A shame, especially since this is an extremely hard dish to find, almost to the point where you’d have to fly to Thailand. The moderately spicy chicken curry is slightly thinner than a Massaman curry, while it is topped with deep fried egg noodles. Mix everything together and add limes, whose acidity offsets the oil in the dish. The end result smells beautiful and has remarkably balanced flavors and textures ranging from sweet and sour, spicy and creamy, as well as dense and delicate. I’m addicted to this now and will be asking for it any chance I can get!

We were only going to have one prawn dish, but since we had some people back out, the owner decided to split it into two prawn courses. May need some correction on this, but first up is the Flambe’d Prawn topped with Curry Sauce from Jitlada. The sweet, slightly spicy, and creamy sauce nicely brightened the meaty prawn. The tails were tender and sweet tail, drawing some similarity to lobster, while the soft head was succulent.

These are Giant Prawns with a curry dipping sauce. Prawns were cooked nicely just like the first set. So meaty, so good. The dipping sauce had sweet, sour and spicy flavors all at once. I believe this appears on their normal menu and I’ve had something similar at Jasmine Thai, except theirs was grilled and I enjoyed the charred texture.

The heat significantly intensifies from this point. Here is another uncommon dish, Pad Ped Sator, or Spicy Stir-fried Sator Beans with Pork. Sator beans are also called stinky beans for a reason as this certainly wasn’t pleasing on the nose. The owner also mentioned he prefers to consume the beans fresh. Each soft bean exploded with flavor and gave a spice kick.  Rice is essential to enjoying this dish as there is nothing to tame the heat.

When Shane first put this lunch together, he asked everyone for their requests. I made one brave request and there was no turning back now. Kua Kling Phat Tha Lung, more commonly known as Beef Dry Curry, is a dry brown curry tossed with beef and baptised in tumeric. It is unquestionably, the spiciest dish I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. Wrapping the beef with some lettuce and rice helps cool it down a notch, but the heat slowly sears into the mouth, relentlessly scorching more and more without hesitating. My forehead was sweating and the sensory overload felt euphoric. The spice was simple, while there was also some smokiness in the beef.

PS: There’s actually an even spicier dish at Jitlada.

So there you have it, three amazing reasons to make a trek to Denton: a cozy sushi experience, a quaint little bakery, or scouring hot Thai food. I’ve honestly barely scratched the surface on this as there are probably many more spots left untouched, which makes me excited that Denton’s an up-and-coming destination worth coming back to.