The Secret to Finding an Amazing Thai Meal

Again, as the bare trees of autumn give way to the green, festive garlands of Yuletide, we must bid farewell to a semester full of common defeats and victories.  Forgetting to do the class reading, getting an A on a quiz, all in the past now with the quiet, familiar bustle of Christmas overtaking the world and the vague, threatening clouds of next semester skittering across our wind-tossed, finals-addled minds.  Starting this week, a line of battered minivans and warhorse Ford Explorers will form stolid lines in front of dorms, possessions being slung into increasingly narrow gaps for the freeway ride back to the blessed cloyster of lazy mornings and holiday traditions.  One questions must loom in the conscious of these anxious travelers: where should we eat before we leave?

Don’t feel like Chick-fil-a?  Too scared of the local Burger King?  Denny’s hash browns got ya down? Then why not meander over to Thai Chef Noodle Fusion, literally right down the street from school and literally smack next to that sketchy-as-heck Burger King.  Literally, not meaning figuratively, which is now an alternative meaning for literally, so literally in the traditional sense, not the valley-girl sense. My apologies to any valley girls who may be reading this.  If you don’t know what a valley girl is, look it up, we live in a first world country and you have Google… Google, the terrible, Google the inexorable! All hail our silicon overlords! Kneel before the all mighty throne of targeted advertising and burn incense for the pleasure of Lord Zuckerberg so that he may devour our free time with his clutching jaws of political rants and cat photos forever and ever, Amen.   

Oxymoronic pedantics and the constant abuses of big-tech aside, I have been going to this restaurant for years before coming to college and I feel the need to recommend it to people getting ready to head home for the holidays, especially for lunch.  The restaurant itself is quite small, a brown, stucco building in a tiny parking lot, if it could be called one, shared with a medical supply shop. Inside this humble building a wizard of cuisine, a sage of the magic of Thai food stirs great kettles and woks of enchanting spices.  The restaurant is small, dark, and clean, quite removed from the traffic that races past, bounding over potholes with reckless abandon. Tables are secluded from one another by exotic dividers, giving the place pleasing privacy, often lost in contemporary restaurant layouts. As soon as one steps through the front door, a flood of exotic smells and the sounds of fast, precise cooking washes out from the kitchen into the dining room.  

What should you order?  That’s a very private question.  Seeing as how I am a writer, not a psychic or a food critic, and not much of a writer at that, I’ll tell you what I like.  My favorite thing on the menu is probably Masaman Curry, an opulent blend of potatoes, onions, peppers, and chicken in a mild peanut curry smooth enough to drink like Pepsi.  It smells like a unicorn frolicking through the Texas Roadhouse waiting room, and you need it in your life as soon as humanly possible. Other great options include the classic Pad Thai: thin noodles, meat, eggs, and vegetables stir fried in a sweet and savory tamarind sauce served steaming hot,  or maybe a big plate of fat, spicy Drunken Noodles: a thai favorite with no alcohol in it for you puritan undergrads! Other options include very spicy Korean Spicy Noodles, classic creamy Green Curry, Thai Fried Rice, and sweet and savory Japanese Yakisoba.

Earlier I recommended Thai Chef for lunch because dinner prices are a bit steep. But for lunch, it is extremely reasonable considering you also get a soup, an appetizer, and a gigantic mound of food for usually under $10.  It makes a wonderful stop on the way out of town to celebrate your triumph over finals week and the doldrums of winter. Warm yourself, warm your soul, and ignore that our computer overlords know that you cared enough about this column to look up valley girls.  Go get some Thai food at Thai Chef Noodle Fusion, you, and/or the people helping you move out deserve it. Also, guys, if you wanna impress the ladies on a date, come here: sophisticated food, tablecloths, candles. It’s so romantic you might even hold hands.

At last, Merry Christmas dear reader and remember if you use literally incorrectly, Santa will kidnap you and magically change you into an elf whose sole purpose in life is to shovel out the reindeer stalls; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Thai Chef and Noodle Fusion

57 W Lincoln Hwy, Penndel, PA 19047

Find more information Here

4.6 stars on Yelp!