City: Des Moines, IA

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (515) 225-8111

Address: 8801 University Ave.

Description: “Cool” is the correct adjective—the muted colors, track lighting, and friendly black-clad servers help make this a fun dining experience. The menu, with a large selection of dishes, helpfully includes descriptions of different herbs, spices, and flavors in Thai cooking. The extensive selections include curries with a choice of meat, tofu, or vegetables, as well as a roasted duck curry tossed with pineapples, grapes, tomatoes, and fresh peppers. The herbal crispy catfish is one of the chef’s specialties, deep-fried and covered with a special herbal curry sauce and sweet basil leaves. Peppers in the other curries are nice and crunchy, while the panang curry is silky smooth, cooked with coconut milk and sparkling with Kaffir lime leaf and a creamy peanut sauce. Pad thai and other noodle dishes are good, and the tom ka kai soup is infused with lots of lemongrass, giving it a peppy kick. There are many stir-fried options, including some vegetarian choices like sweet basil, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms. Dishes can be prepared on a spiciness scale of 1 to 6—3 and greater will make your eyes water at least a little.