Circles Thai Cuisine
812 North Second Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123
My
fiancé and I would love to find a really amazing and authentic Thai place in
Philadelphia. We have tried a few places since our trip last year, but none of
them have quite measured up. We headed up to Northern Liberties to try a place
we had heard about and see if it finally measured up. That place was Circles
Thai Cuisine.
I
was a little worried when we got there, because we were the only people in the
place at first. That changed a little while after we got there, but it always
makes me a little apprehensive. The restaurant was dimly lit, making for a
romantic setting. I wish I had remembered it was BYOB, but I didn’t, so we just
had to endure without. The menu was pretty interesting with tons of traditional
Thai dishes, and some that were definitely a bit more on the thought provoking
side. We ordered the Papaya Pok Pok Salad, seitan pumpkin curry, pork pad kee
mow and mango sticky rice for dessert.
The
papaya salad was up first, and I thought it was a pretty tasty rendition. It
was beautifully presented, and the flavor was definitely authentic. The flavors
of the green papaya, tomato, carrot and peanut are all brightened up with the
lime dressing and heat from the Thai chiles. It left me with that slight mouth
tingle that I have come to expect from Thai cuisine. My only issue with the
dish was that the papaya was that it was a little tough. I am not sure if that means it was
not ripe enough or not marinated properly, but something was off with its
texture. Everything else about the dish was spot on though.
Our
main courses were up next and they fared pretty well also. I was a little
apprehensive about the seitan dish, but it wound up being my favorite of the
two. Both were very traditional Thai flavors, well, the pumpkin I am not so
sure about, but the curry base was definitely Thai. I really have come to enjoy
seitan, especially the more that I have it. It really eats like meat, and it is
always flavorful when cooked properly. The pork pad kee mow was intensely
flavorful as well. It had some heat as all my favorite Thai dishes do and it
was packed with noodles and veggies.
I
really didn’t want to order mango sticky rice for dessert because I knew it was
not going to taste as good as it had when we traveled to Thailand, but my
fiancé is obsessed with it, so we did wind up ordering it. It was about as good
as I imagine mango sticky rice can be here in the States, but it just wasn’t
the same. The Thai mangoes just taste different, and they get the sticky rice
the perfect creamy texture every time. Its worth ordering here at Circles
though, because it was definitely the best I have had around here.
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