Chow Down Phoenix!

Rating:

It had been about five years since I last visited Mint Thai Cafe in Gilbert.  It’s one of the closer Thai restaurants to our house, so I decided it was about time I review it.  

The restaurant doesn’t really grab your attention from the street.  It’s located in a quiet strip mall, and is one of the few restaurants in the vicinity.  I immediately noticed they had done some major renovations to the dining area, namely knocking out one of the walls to make it more open.  They used a pastel green on the walls, obviously going for the mint tone.  It was calming but not overly appealing to me.  Still, the improvements managed to enhanced the atmosphere substantially. 

It’s nearly impossible for me to visit a Thai restaurant without getting one of their creamy drinks.  I ordered my standard Thai Iced Tea ($2), while my wife got a Thai Iced Coffee ($2).  Both were quite good, but not quite as wonderful as the ones we had at Thai Basil.

We started with an order of Fried Wontons ($4) with pork filling.  They looked appealing and tasted fine, but I was disappointed that the filling was nearly non-existent.  This dish was not worth the price. 

My wife got the Thai BBQ Chicken ($9.25).  It was a half chicken grilled to perfection, and it looked amazing.  The special marinade they used gave the chicken a nice color and flavor.  It must have been marinated for a long time, because she said every bite was flavorful.  A sweet and spicy dipping sauce was served on the side.  She absolutely loved the dish. 

I seem to get coconut curry dishes whenever I eat Thai food.  There are typically four classes of coconut curries to choose from–yellow, green, red, and brown.  I ordered the Mussaman Curry ($10), which is prepared with brown curry.  At Mint Thai, they rate the heat of the curry dishes from one to four stars, which gives you a lot of options.  I went with two-stars, and it was a true medium heat (I can’t imagine how hot the four star must be).  This version was a little different than I’ve had before.  They used tomato in the sauce, which added a new dimension to the flavor and color.  I liked this recipe; the addition of the tomato gave it an extremely rich flavor.  There were a lot of thinly-sliced, tender pieces of chicken in the dish.  All the ingredients were tasty and the portion was generous, making this a solid option. 

They seem to have a small staff at Mint Thai Cafe, so the service doesn’t exactly move at warp speed, but they do their best to keep up.  Other than the weak appetizer we ordered, our experience was very good.  Mint Thai Cafe is yet another solid Thai option in the valley.

Note: we didn’t try it, but Mint Thai claims to have an amazing homemade coconut ice cream.

Mint Thai Cafe
1111 N. Gilbert Rd. #102 (Map)
Gilbert, AZ 85234
(480) 497-5366
hours: 11-9 M-Sat, 11-8 Sun
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