Hours: Mon - Fri 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM; Sat - Sun 5:00 PM to 12:00 AM. All major cards. Licensed. Tel.: 514-289-0998
 Sometimes the craving for spice surges and almost overwhelms, and there’s only one thing that can satisfy it: good Thai food.
It’s one of those cuisines that’s incredibly difficult and inconvenient to create at home. For one thing, there’s not much you can do with those eight leftover shoots of lemongrass or 6 ounces of galangal once you’re done with the meal—that is, if you can find a grocer who stocks them. And the sheer number of exotic ingredients—kaffir lime leaves, balsam, Thai basil, jasmine, coconut milk and the aforementioned galangal and lemongrass, make for a daunting cooking session.
So I just leave it up to the pros. In this case, the pros were cooking at Red Thai, a restaurant that has definitely never appeared on my radar, although it’s been around a while.
If you can get past the weird decor—one almost feels like one is in some bizarre theme park, what with the odd fake-leopard skin seat covers and the grotesquely ornate Buddha that squats munificently in the center of the room—you’ll be in for a good Thai experience.
The menu, while not inordinately vast, is nonetheless comprehensive. The mains are divided into chicken, beef, pork, duck, shrimp, fish, seafood and vegetarian.
As restaurants go, Red Thai is on the expensive side. An à-la-carte chicken dish, say Gai Phara Ram (sautéed grain-fed chicken in a peanut sauce with crispy chicken) is $14.95, while a Kung Tord Ka Tiem Prik Tai (Grilled Mekong scampies in a lime and Tamarin juicy garlic sauce) will set you back $24.95.
Most of the mains, however, fall in around the $17 range.
In the table d’hôte department, there’s the intriguing “Imperial dinner,” which includes a tasting menu of plates such as “Red Thai grain chicken Saté with Wasabi peanut sauce” and “Lobster salad with mangoes and green mint leaves,” along with a Tom Yum soup and a main course of perhaps “Duck magret with ‘Keochai’ Chef’s sauce.” This goes for $85 for two. There’s a similar “Sampler for 2” for $69 and several table d’hôtes at around $25.
 The Poe Pia (Thai imperial rolls, $4.95) were four tightly packed little logs on an attractive bed of fresh lettuce in a boat-shaped dish and were accompanied by a zesty vinaigrette. They were crunchy and spicily toothsome.
An amazing standout was the Ostrich Saté, two skewers of moistly tender ostrich in a vaguely curry/teriyaki and sesame glaze; they were reminiscent of particularly good filet mignon. Not at all what one expects from a 7-foot feather duster.
In the mood for some fire, I asked the waiter (disappointingly from Bangladesh) what he recommended as the spiciest in the chicken section. He suggested the unlikely-named Gai Kang Pet Dang—a red-curry with coconut, bamboo shoots and fresh basil (pet means spicy). My companion ordered the Pla Mug Tod Chiang Mai (spicy squid sautéed with garlic and cilantro).
There are two kinds of rice: perfumed and sticky. We opted for the sticky, which came with the main course in little bamboo containers.
 The red-curry chicken came on an elegant blue china plate; tender morsels of chicken, onions and bamboo shoots in an angry red sauce, which, while imparting all the complex flavours of Thai cooking—fresh basil, lemongrass, garlic etc.—was not nearly as fiery as it looked. It was only at the end of the meal that I remembered the little container of chili sauce that had come with it. No matter; the earthy freshness of the ingredients and pungent garlic more than made up for the lack of heat.
My friend’s squid, while pleasantly piquant in a garlicky red sauce, was rather chewy—art-gum eraser was the term that sprang to mind.
In the libation department we were in the mood for a Thai beer, but were informed that none of the Asian beers was available that day. A hot Hakutsuru saké ($7) was a poor substitute.
It’s difficult to say how high in the rankings Red Thai should be in the Montreal Thai resto list, but the flavors are there, the care in presentation is there, and if you can take the somewhat elevated prices and jungle decor I’d say it’s a safe reliever of that urge for spice.
--reviewed by Nicholas Robinson
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