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Thai Star Restaurant, Addison TX

Last month my parents and I drove to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. It’s an 11-hour drive, so we broke it up by spending the night in Lafayette on the way down and in Dallas on the way back. Dallas is by far one of my favorite cities, and since it’s only about 4 hours from Stillwater I get down there as often as I can. I booked us a hotel room in the Dallas suburb of Addison. The hotels are nice, there are tons of restaurants, and my plan was for us to have brunch at one of my favorite restaurants nearby that Sunday morning before heading to Stillwater.

My mom had driven the first couple of hours from New Orleans, and then I took over. We had stopped for lunch at Athena Greek & Lebanese Grill in Shreveport and I felt fine until we got about 45 minutes east of Dallas, and then that post-lunch eye-droop hit. I tried to push through, but it wasn’t working very well. My dad clearly noticed, because he suggested that we stop for a minute. After a pit stop and some caffeine, I was feeling a million times better. For some reason my GPS gets screwy every time I’m in downtown Dallas. I think it’s partially because they’ve done construction down there, but that construction has been done for long enough that GPS should have the updates. After a couple of u-turns, we finally made it to our hotel, and by then it was time for dinner. My mom wasn’t hungry, so it was just me and my dad. I went online and began with restaurant.com, but didn’t find anything close by that jumped out at me. I then went onto TripAdvisor. I suggested 3 different cuisines to my dad, and he said Thai. Perfect, because Thai Star was listed as #7 in Addison. As we walked through the hotel lobby, we asked the concierge for recommendations just in case. He picked 3 completely different places. We asked his opinion of Thai Star, and he said he had never heard of it. We got into the car, and my dad immediately boycotted the concierge’s suggestions. So off to Thai Star we went.

Thai Star is one of the hardest restaurants to find, especially in the dark. It’s in a business park behind a strip mall, and because it doesn’t face the street, you have to drive around to find it. I drove around the front strip mall twice, not realize it was behind. I had told my dad one more try, and then we were going somewhere else. Then I saw the building behind, and found it.

Thai Star, Addison TX

Photo Courtesy of Thai Star Restaurant

The restaurant is very small, but they make use of every available inch of space. And they need it, because the place was absolutely packed when we arrived. So obviously it was just us who couldn’t figure out where it was. There are lots of photos from Thailand displayed on the walls, as well as other decorations and very ornate tablecloths and pillows. I would say the restaurant seats maybe 50, with a combination of half-booths and tables.

There were 2 other couples ahead of us when we arrived, and it took us about 20 minutes to be seated. Really, on a Saturday night in Dallas that wasn’t bad. Besides, there were basketball games on the TV so we watched as we waited. I don’t think they take reservations, and you wait near the door until your table is ready. We were finally seated at one of the half-booth tables. They do acoustic live music on Saturday nights, so we got to hear that. To me, it was a little bit too loud. On the one hand, it kind of had to be because the restaurant itself was so loud from the diners. But on the other hand, you want to be able to hear the conversation at your table. Thankfully we were seated a couple of tables away so it wasn’t too horrible.

The Thai Star menu is pretty substantial, with appetizers, salads, entrees, curries, noodles, chef’s specials, vegetarian dishes, and desserts. When I went online today to take another look, they’re actually in the process of updating the menu with new dishes. We were starving, so we stared with the appetizer menu and decided on Thai Star homemade dumplings. You can choose between steamed or fried, and then pork/shrimp or vegetarian. I figured it was probably smart to go the healthier route, and my dad is a vegetarian, so we did steamed vegetarian.

Thai Star, Addison TX - Karyl's Kulinary Krusade

Vegetarian dumplings filled with garlic & herbs, and served with Thai dipping sauce

These were really good. They were light, but had a big punch of flavor. I could have easily eaten all of these myself, but my dad really liked them as well so we shared.

My dad went with the salmon 5 star noodle, one of their seasonal specials

Thai Star, Addison TX - Karyl's Kulinary Krusade

Pad Kee Mow sauce crusted pan fried salmon on flat rice noodles, peanuts, cabbage, broccoli, snow peas, onions, sprouts & egg, stir fried with Thai chili & spice

My dad doesn’t usually give his opinion on a dish until I ask, but before I even had the chance, he raved about it. I only tried a bite of the salmon, and it was cooked perfectly and really delicious. The sauce went really well with the salmon. My dad doesn’t do spicy, so he went with the lowest spice he could get. Our server said it would still be a tiny bit spicy, but he said it really wasn’t.

After my typical can’t-decide back and forth, I finally went with the Pad Kee Mow

Thai Star, Addison TX - Karyl's Kulinary Krusade

Fresh big flat noodles drunken with garlic, sweet Thai chili sauce, basil, tomatoes, broccoli, onions, carrots, bell peppers and egg.

Oh my. This was outstanding. It came to the table screaming hot, which is exactly the way I like it. They used chicken breast, which can easily get very dry in cooking. However, it was very tender. The sauce lent a wonderful flavor to the dish.

My dad was good, and took some of his dish back to the hotel for my mom. Me, I devoured mine in record time. I wanted to stop eating because I was getting full, but I couldn’t help myself because it was so good.

I read a couple of negative reviews about the service and staff. The manager that night was very friendly, and apologized to us for the wait. Our server wasn’t overly friendly, but she was professional and helped me with recommendations when I couldn’t decide which entree to get. We did have to wait for a little bit to place our order, but that can and does sometimes happen when a restaurant is absolutely jam packed.

Will I go back to Thai Star? You shouldn’t even have to ask. When we got back to the hotel, we told the concierge that he needs to definitely add Thai Star to his list of recommendations. And we both told my mom that she missed out by not going with us.

 

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Helen Fern

Wednesday 16th of March 2016

Sounds really good! thanks for sharing at the "What's for Dinner" linky party!

Karyl

Wednesday 16th of March 2016

Thanks Helen!

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