Date Night

The Tourist Tree and I went on a date night with our first stop at Mango Moon, a restaurant which takes a modern twist to the traditional Thai street food.

The Mango Moon

The Tourist Tree started out with the restaurant's namesake cocktail made with Three Olives Mango Vodka, pomegranate liquor, mango puree, and champagne.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Tiger


Aiiyah chose the Tiger beer, a pale lager from Singapore which would pair quite well with the Thai spices.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sticky Rice and Tiny Fish


We ordered the Sticky Rice and the Salty Tiny Fish as side dishes but they arrived first. The Tiny Fish was a small bowl of very tiny dried fish seasoned with salt, sugar and spices. The fish was very crunchy with a strong taste of salt and seasoned sweetness. It could be eaten as a finger food or sprinkled on other food. We kept munching on it until the saltiness was getting to us; then we discovered a unique combination of the tiny fish with the sticky rice. Crunchiness, softness, saltiness, blandness.

Papaya Salad


A collection of shredded green papaya, vegetable, grape tomato, chopped peanuts, marinated in fish sauce and lime juice, topped with grilled shrimp.

We loved this salad. It had three of the four dominant flavors of Thai cuisine: sweet, sour, salt (creamy being the fourth), plus a bit of heat. Although we did not find any string beans (as stated in the menu) we did find some what we believed to be turnips in the salad which we enjoyed.

 

Spicy Glass Noodles Salad with Seafood

Glass noodles mixed with shrimps, baby octopus, scallops, mussels, cilantro, celery, chili and peanuts. The salad came in a similar dressing as the papaya salad but it was a little bit sweeter. We liked the warm peanuts in the salad but the seafood was lacking in everything from texture to taste. If you could get seafood from a can, this is probably where it came from.

Sai Auh

A northern Thai sausage of minced pork with galangal, kaffir lime leaves, shallots, scallions, shrimp paste and red curry. It has a nice sweet and salty taste on the sturdy casting and a grainy texture with the filling. The sausage was very juicy and reminded me a lot of the great sausages in Texas BBQ, minus the BBQ taste.

 
 
 
 

Spicy Baby Octopus


It is steamed and mixed with celery, garlic, onions, grape tomatoes, cilantro, basil, lemongrass, and mixed with a chili-lime dressing. The best part of this dish was the grape tomatoes. The baby octopus tasted just about the same as the seafood in the glass noodle salad. It had no taste and had a strange texture. I tried but could not tackle the chewiness and had to spit out my octopus.

Grilled Duck in Red Curry Sauce


Duck breast coated with a delicious rub grilled to medium, served with red peppers, pineapple, onion, basil, and peppercorn in red curry sauce. The breast was wonderful. It was moist, tender, juicy, and grilled perfectly. I loved the rub on the outside of the breast which had a slight sweetness and spiciness. The red curry was among the best we have had lately. It had just the right consistency and mild taste plus a slight heat that came later after the bite.

 
 

We absolutely enjoyed the duo playing on the other side of the dining room during our dinner. With just a guitar and hand drum, they played acoustic songs from the Dave Matthews Band to Pink Floyd. We asked for their card on our way out but they told us that they were not professional musicians and were just doing this for fun.


We enjoyed everything at Mango Moon, except the seafood. The meat dishes were the apparently winners; the juicy sausages and the perfectly grilled duck breast in red curry sauce. We liked the papaya salad too, and would only hope the kitchen could have done a better job with the seafood.




 
 

In lieu of desserts, we stopped by the Flat Rook Tavern which always seems to have interesting brews on its beer list.

Tourist Tree found one of her favorites, Hop Slam. The little hairs behind the back of my neck stood up as she drank this bottle of hoppiness and bitterness down her mouth. Yikes!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One the other hand, I found black gold in my bottle of Harviestoun Old Engine Oil. So delic after my Thai dinner!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We ended our date night with an appropriately named movie.