Last night, on invite from Bill I joined him, Kim, Laura, Art and Laurie at Taste of Thaiyai down in Apple Valley. I’d been spending the majority of my day helping a buddy remodel his house, so I was certainly up for a tasty meal at a new restaurant.

Located in a tiny little strip mall, it’s what you would expect, a few tables, cliche decor, and the smell of good food about to be eaten. The menu had a large number of options, ranging from appetizers, a variety of main dishes, soups and sides.

I’m not the most adventurous person when it comes to trying different foods, so I tend to stick with dishes in my comfort zone, usually something with noodles, and a meat/poultry. I really don’t care for vegetables, so that limits a number of my options right off the bat.

I’ll contradict with last sentence, and say that I started my meal with the fresh spring rolls, with port and shrimp in them. The rolls themselves looked very tasty, similar to what I’ve gotten at the now closed Vietnam Restaurant. These rolls did have shrimp in them which tasted pretty good, seeing as I’m not a big fan of shrimp. The menu also stated that there was supposed to be pork in the rolls. What I found, was little pork balls, no bigger than you’d find in a serving of Dippin’Dots from the state fair. I dug to find actual pork chunks, and found none. Now, I’m not going to discount these spring rolls, because overall they were pretty good. The dipping sauce, however was a bit off. I’m used to being served some type of peanut sauce with my rolls, and these was almost like a vinegrette sauce, thick, with a splash of the red sauce and peanut chips on top. Again, not bad, just different. Overall, I would order these again on a return visit.

For my main dish, I went with a known dish, Pad Thai. Nothing like chicken chunks and noodles. I opted for the ‘REALLY SPICY’ variety, however, I don’t think our waitress understood that I really did want it spicy. My meal came out, and I was impressed by the large serving, and little did I know, the more I ate, the more the plate would keep growing more and more noodles.

The actual taste of spice of the dish was good. The food was excellent, a little sweet aftertaste, and the spice did slowly build on me, not to the extent that Mai Thai Cafe’s version of the Pad Thai did, but very good none the less. As I mentioned, the more I ate, and dug into the dish, the more and more noodles kept appearing on my plate. Not that it was an endless refill of noodles, but, they almost appeared to be breeding on my plate! We all got quite a chuckle out of this, and were treated to more of Bill’s cackling. I did manage to down all of my chicken and a good portion of the noodles, however I didn’t overly stuff myself as I’ve been trying to eat smart, and lose some extra pounds, and I didn’t think stuffing myself full of noodles was a wise choice.

I ended up getting out of Taste of Thaiyai for about 15.00 before tip and tax, which I thought was very reasonable for the huge amount of food I had. Typically, one would have split up my dishes into two meals possible, or share with someone special, however, seeing as my someone special lives three hours into Wisconsin for the time, and I’m not a fan of leftovers, I scarfed as much as I could and called quits.

Overall, I would suggest you stop by and give the place a try. Everyone in our party enjoyed our meals, and I know I will sure go back again when I’m in the area!

Taste of Thaiyai
7705 147th Street West
Apple Valley, MN 55124