Last year, there was a fire at the apartment where M lived on 19th in North Vancouver. He was kept from his apartment and his belongings for about a week, then told to evacuate his belongings as the apartment management and owners wanted to do a restoration and renovation before opening it up again for rentals this year.
We spent a couple life-sucking days trying to clean, dispose of, salvage and pack any items that were not water-damaged - it was an extremely hot time of year and the fact that the air cleaners and dehumidifiers warmed up the air made it unbearable at times.
After one such afternoon, we peeled off our dust masks and went for a drive around the North Shore. Driving along Marine Drive in West Vancouver, we came upon Rose Thai. We'd seen the owners painting and making minor renovations to the space a before (it used to be a Greek restaurant with a nice-sized patio) and had inquired then what kind of restaurant they'd be running.
Now, over a year later, we returned again, after a day of shopping and tinkering about in West Vancouver. Time kind of flies as you get older, huh?
It was a visit that was a long time coming. We settled on three choices: Pad Thai with seafood, Green Curry Chicken, and Beef with vegetables. The Pad Thai came first, with a generous garnishing of freshly roasted peanuts and a wedge of lime. When we were brought the dish, though, one of my dining companions exclaimed, "Is that for one of us?" It was such a small portion!
The Pad Thai at Rose Thai was pretty saucy. To their credit however, there were lots of white shrimp, egg, and bay scallops in the dish. This brought the following thought to our minds: how much do rice noodles cost?! Could they not throw in an extra brick of noodles? They certainly had enough sauce for it. Apart from the lack of noodles / extra sauce issue, the pad thai was flavourful and mildly spicy. The shrimp were nicely done and the sauce highlighted the sweet flavour of the shrimp.
The green curry chicken was a hands down favourite. It came with chunks of bell peppers, eggplant, onions, and green peas. We ordered two bowls of rice with it and had the following conversation between us (M Me MM):
Are we going to order more rice?
That depends. Are we going to pack up the rest of this?
There's so little though.
But it's so good!
Oh nevermind! I'm going to finish this all! [Proceeds to rapidly drink the remaining curry like soup]
[Makes mental note to blog about this]
The beef with vegetables came last. It was nothing too special, with a mildly spicy glaze coating onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, snow peas and slices of beef. It went well with rice and supplied some daily nutrients!
It should be noted that restaurants in West Vancouver do not, generally, offer great value. The same notion is carried out at Rose Thai: where Thai restaurants in the GVRD do not generally offer huge portions for the money, Rose Thai seemingly takes the two generalizations to the extreme - smaller portions than average, and smaller portions than other Thai restaurants! They don't even offer the "discount lunch specials" on weekends! That being said though, it does offer great flavours and is one of the only Thai restaurants in West Vancouver.
1425 Marine Drive [map]
West Vancouver BC
Phone: 604-925-0070
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