Thai Tales
Excuse me, but is that a flaming banana in your hand or are you just happy to see me?”
I can’t remember if it was Patrick or Frank who said that when our stone-faced waiter at Thai Place Northland seta plate with four fresh banana halves in front of us. He didn’t appear to apprecate — or even notice — the humor. With a surprising lack of flair, he doused the fruit with rum and set it ablaze. My friends watched the little blue flames lightly caramelize the surface of the bananas. Meanwhile, my attention was pulled away by a tall, skinny young man carrying an umbrella and a child-sized suitcase, roaming the room to chat with different diners. A couple of them pulled out their wallets and gave the kid a few bucks, but others squirmed in their seats, clearly uncomfortable. I could hardly wait for his arrival at our table.
“Hello!” he said, smiling beatifically. Frank didn’t bother to look up. “I know where this story is going,” he whispered as he speared a flamed-out banana with his fork.
“I have just gotten off an airplane. I arrive here from Russia,” said the man with the suitcase. “And I’m so excited. I’m a missionary with the Unification Church and — ”
“We are eating our dessert,” I hissed, “and you are invading my space.”
I gave the kid the evil eye, and he scurried to another booth. It didn’t take long for the waitstaff to notice that there was a stranger in the room competing for their tip money. A few seconds later, two servers unceremoniously pulled the chatty missionary from the dining room and escorted him out the front door. A table of vivacious young women who were taking part in a bachelorette party — they didn’t seem any more inclined to listen to his story than we were — giggled as he was led away.
“Do you think that the girls thought he might be a male stripper hired for the occasion?” Frank asked. “I mean, he wasn’t much to look at, but he sure knew how to get tips.”
If the incident had taken place at the Thai Place in Westport, I might have ignored it. After all, a Russian missionary for the Unification Church wouldn’t have stood out from some of the other eccentric characters who work that neighborhood. But north of the river? Well, OK, he did say he had just gotten off a plane.
In any event, this new northern Thai Place may be the most lavish venue yet for restaurateur Ann Liberda and her children, who run the Thai Place restaurant empire. A few people are disappointed when, with each new restaurant opening, Liberda amps up the glamour. Not me. I don’t like eating in ugly settings, and though I’ve always loved the spicy, sexy food at the original Thai Place on 87th Street in Overland Park, the formerly dowdy interior was a turnoff.
In her new locale, Liberda had a real jewel box to begin with. The building was formerly occupied by a couple of PB&J concepts and had been tastefully designed from the start. But Liberda, who started her career in the beauty business, has a knack for the dramatic. She’s done up Thai Place Northland like a Siamese palace, complete with twinkling votives, glazed pottery and dazzling floral arrangements. “She spends a fortune on fresh flowers every week,” one server confessed.
Adding to the ambience: “a very, very attractive staff,” Frank said. “That waiter over there looks like the Thai Johnny Depp,” he said in between bites of succulent roasted duck.
Patrick and I were more dazzled by our dinners: the classic phad Thai for Patrick and, for me, one of my favorite dishes in Liberda’s repertoire, the soothing ginger chicken stir-fry in a clean, mildly hot mahogany-colored sauce. Patrick’s generous mound of amber rice noodles was loaded with shrimp, fried egg, scallions, cabbage and cool bean sprouts and scattered with crunchy peanuts. Frank’s Moon Flower Duck had been delicately stir-fried with shiitakes in a ginger-garlic sauce — heavier on the garlic. I ate a lot of it myself because he didn’t want to ruin his appetite for dessert.
That’s when the banana comment — and the Russian — came in.
When I returned a couple of weeks later with Debbie, the serving crew was mostly American, including our blond waiter, Bryan. Debbie was wowed by the décor but confused by the urban soundtrack — funky contemporary rhythm and blues. “It’s not what one expects in the Northland,” she said, dipping a crunchy coconut-battered shrimp into a pool of sweet chili sauce.
Obviously, a few of us need to rethink our assumptions about what goes on up north. Apparently there are plenty of surprises in these suburbs — such as “Asian wood-fired pizzas” on Thai Place’s menu. We wanted to try one and were intrigued by the lemongrass shrimp version, but Bryan informed us that the pizza oven wasn’t working that night. Instead, we opted for one of Liberda’s signature starters, the lusciously tender and fiery jumble of Tiger Cry beef.
We agreed to share our dinners, but mine was so fine that I kept it all to myself. Liberda’s spicy basil fried rice is a visually stunning assemblage of rice, orange carrots, red and green peppers, and soft tendrils of basil; I swear that, over the years, it has cured me of head colds, depression and all sorts of ennui. Debbie’s golden, nutty Panang curry was rich with coconut milk, and it packed a spicier punch than I’d expected. She was mad for it, but after a few bites we were both gulping ice water.
“We need something cooling for dessert,” Debbie said as Bryan cleared the plates away. “Coconut ice cream, perhaps?”
Bryan suggested his favorite, the coconut crème brûlée, which he promised was made in-house and with coconut milk. I rolled my eyes at the very idea of a coconut crème brûlée, but Debbie insisted on it. I ate my words — and most of the brûlée — when this silky custard arrived, its crackly brown crust blanketed with coconut flakes.
The dessert menu has changed a bit since Thai Place Northland opened a few months ago — there are now chocolate cake and coconut cream pie and a “tower” of coconut ice cream. It occurs to me that I’m sort of like that Russian missionary — only my mission is simply to go back and taste them all.
