Little Saigon Cuisine ^^^½

237 Division St NW, Olympia

Date of visit: 5/17/07

What we had:
Pad Thai w/ chicken, #6 Soup, spring rolls, Thai iced tea, Cà phê sữa đá

While the name of the #6 soup has been forgotten during the ride home, the unique flavors in the soup are memorable. Rice noodles, clear broth, squid, prawns, bbq pork, and ground pork aren't a combination normally seen but surprisingly they work well together.

Spring rolls should always taste as good as this. Fresh mint leaves and quality lettuce and bbq pork set them apart from your average spring roll. The peanut dipping sauce was a perfect blend with essences of real peanuts and hoisin.

The cà phê sữa đá was too sweet and it was served already mixed so there wasn't the fun element of waiting for the coffee to drip through the filter, stirring it together, and pouring it over ice.

The pad thai was unexpectedly not orange, but rather a more greenish in color. This didn't detract one bit from its flavor and the flavor of the similarly colored sauce. Bits of chicken breast were mingling with the noodles and tasted as if they were marinated for hours prior to being cooked.

My skewered chicken strips were quite tasty, with a nice tumeric spice, mildly peppered flavor. Again, they must have been marinated for hours to achieve the flavor.

The Thai iced tea was on par with the cà phê sữa đá, in that it was rather sweet, even for my liking of sweets. A first-timer with the iced tea...though, I would order it again, no question. What's not to like about iced tea that's creamy and sweet with a hint of what seemed to be caramel?

The service overall was quite acceptable. The servers could have been a bit more attentive to us when ready to order. They did visit our table more often throughout the course of the meal making sure we were satisfied.