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Thai One
1205 Main St.
Branford
Svea Avenue
203-488-6171

By PATRICK WHITTLE

New Haven Advocate

Published 7/3/2003

Enter Branford's Penang Grill and you step into a world where window plants share space with slick, polished wooden tables. Manicured miniature fir trees coexist with a flickering electronic "open" sign. A short, dark entryway ends where the aromatic fragrances of cross-pollinated Asian cuisines begin. And a curry tofu dish shares the same menu as the exquisite spicy mango chicken.

Penang Grill seeks to merge the culinary cultures of China, Thailand and Malaysia on one menu, all while giving some legitimacy back to dine-in Chinese restaurants. Owner Steve Zhang has seen one too many red-and-yellow-sign-storefront-in-a-strip-mall faux Chinese joints, and he sees preparation and presentation as the keys to filling up his grill with new faces. True to form, dishes are served (quickly, mind you) in ornate covered bowls and shining metal dishes from smiling wait staff. Though some dishes lack the punch promised by the little green peppers by their names in the menu margin, the love is apparent.

Penang, named after a touristy city in Malaysia, isn't located in the heart of a mangrove swamp, but rather the heart of the suburban shoreline. The attractive conservatism of its modest outer trappings will be greatly enhanced when it loses the "grand opening" flags--after all, it opened in April. Feeling fit to be Thai'd, Tara and Manuela joined me in search of decent pad Thai.

Tara summoned the aforementioned tofu in red curry sauce ($9), which arrived with promise. Served sizzling hot in an enclosed bowl, the dish gave the appearance of the inside of a volcano. What lay inside was more dormant than she had hoped. Still, a half-hour or so later and it was all gone.

Manuela, a second-time patron, speaks more highly of the spicy mango chicken ($9). Served in a hollowed out mango shell, this dish combines effective presentation with good taste. She says it's "really unique" and "really rocks you."

I chose the pad Thai ($8), a familiar Thai dish of fried rice noodles, vegetables, eggs and peanut sauce. This is truly a difficult dish for any Thai restaurant to screw up, and Penang's, served in a neat-looking metal dish, didn't let me down.

Following dinner, we dissected the fabulously fluffy passion fruit mousse cake ($5.95), which arrived flanked in syrup and split in two cloud-like triangles. Comments from the peanut gallery included "light," "zesty," and flat-out "excellent." While hardly a staple of the Far East, this desert holds its own on the Connecticut shoreline.

Zhang, a mainland China native who has been in the restaurant business for 14 years, also owns restaurants bearing his own surname in Madison, Old Saybrook and Mystic. He says he hopes Thai and Malaysian cuisine can overtake sushi as the white-collar powerlunch of choice. "These last few years people have been liking sushi a lot, but people are finding out about Thai and Malaysian," he says.

Restaurant manager Terry Yang says the fast-food style Chinese restaurants that dot the suburban landscape have given the cuisine a bad name. He likes to call Penang's dishes "high-class Chinese food," and notes the French influence in the preparation. "I think people are really tired of just traditional Chinese food and takeouts, so we tried this new style, what we call a European Chinese style," he says. "All people know Chinese food from takeout restaurants, and we want to change that. You can see, it's a different style of Asian food here."

Hours: Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Sun., 12:30 p.m.-10 p.m.

Extras:

Cuisine Thai Meals Served Lunch, Dinner Parking Available in small lot behind restaurant. Payment Method American Express, Visa, MasterCard Price Range Inexpensive Reservations Recommended on weekends. Services Carry Out Spirits Full Bar Website Wheelchair Access Entrance and restrooms are accessible.