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Best Bargain Restaurants: Taste Of Thai

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Taste Of Thai
Fairfax

This attractive, family-run thai restaurant may not have the vast repertoire of a Duangrat's or Rabieng, but there's enough to keep one enthralled for many visits.

Standards such as spring rolls, Mussaman and panang curry, pad see-ew (wide noodles with chicken and a sweet soy sauce), and the national noodle dish pad Thai are all tops. But there are flashier offerings, too. Five-spice-crusted duck with basil, chili, and garlic; shrimp pot with bean-thread noodles and ginger; and deep- fried squid with garlic sauce are positively wonderful. The last is an example of the lightness the chef brings to the cuisine: The ringlets of squid are greaseless and airy.

Two fiery starters are the spicy duck, a "salad" of lemongrass, pepper, and chili, and a northern dish of minced pork with ginger and peanuts called nam sod. A recent special of fried sticky-rice cakes with a coconut-chicken curry dipping sauce was tasty, as was a crab-cake-shaped fried "dumpling," fat with minced chives.

It's worth inquiring whether any papaya salad is tucked away in the kitchen and whether a special of whole, charcoal-baked rockfish is smoldering over coals. If not, order the crispy fish with chili sauce or the very mild whole fish with ginger and black-bean sauce, both usually made with flounder.

Don't miss the hot coconut-milk sticky-rice pudding with a slab of cool, eggy custard on top.

Taste Of Thai , 9534 Arlington Boulevard, Fairfax; 703/352-4494 or 352-4188. Open Monday through Thursday 11 am to 10:30 pm, Friday and Saturday 11 am to 11 pm, Sunday 4 to 9:30 pm. AE, CB, D, DC, MC, V. MapIt!

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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