Thai Orchid, a humble new takeout place on Madison's far southwest side, has what is easily, without question, and unequivocally the best Pad Thai I have ever had – and I was raised on the stuff.

The store, which opened in June, is owned by Taratip Buchli and her husband,  Terry, a local veterinarian who brought Madison its first Thai restaurant, Bahn Thai, on University Avenue in the mid-1980s. He sold it and a second location on Williamson Street to his employees almost 10 years ago.

The best restaurants are inevitably the ones with an enthusiastic owner who’s always around and obviously loves the business. That defines Taratip, 39, who married Buchli four years ago in Hawaii.

Buchli spends his time running his two veterinary clinics and Taratip works from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Thai Orchid, where she is always cooking. Before opening the store, Taratip, who has a food science and restaurant background, spent two years decorating cakes at Lane’s Bakery. It was hard on her fingers, she said.

“I feel like I want to make something like a real Thai food,” she said. Buchlin suggested she open a carryout and delivery place.

“He doesn’t want me to start big. He’s scared,” said Taratip.

“I like to work. I like work. Terry likes to tell everybody that his wife has a problem,” she said.

Ironically, I have never liked Bahn Thai’s Pad Thai, the cuisine’s signature noodle dish. It has always seemed too simplistic, too sweet, too clumpy and unnaturally orange. Before now, Vientiane Palace on South Park Street had the most reliable Pad Thai since the departure of the overlooked LT’s Thai on Odana Road in 1993.

The dinner-sized Pad Thai ($6.95 or $8.95 with shrimp) is a super deal and must weigh 5 pounds. Two of us ate and ate and ate and only seemed to make a dent. The dish can be ordered with chicken, beef, pork or tofu. The chicken was rather fatty but was camouflaged by its stir-fried treatment. Besides a generous helping of chicken, there were also small cubes of tofu everywhere and lots of egg – including a fried egg on top. A lunch version is $4.95 and also monstrously big.

The kitchen does not skimp on the oil, which is part of what makes it so tasty. There are not as many bean sprouts here as in most other versions, which may be a red flag to health conscious. Some ground peanut on top adds a little crunch.

So, enough about the Pad Thai. The Pad Kee Mao ($6.95 or $8.95 with shrimp), another noodle option, is a good alternative for those with less of a sweet tooth. The rice noodles here are wider and the spices are hotter and more intense. Basil and chili sauce dominate the dish, which is more successful ordered “little spicy” instead of “medium”. It includes green and red pepper, onion, strands of bamboo shoot and mushroom.

The Som Tum salad ($5.95) was a interesting experiment with shredded green papaya, cabbage, lettuce, carrot, some small green beans, wedges of tomato and whole peanuts. It was like a refreshing Thai coleslaw with lots of bite. It was watery but more flavorful the next day.

Thai Orchid also does well by its appetizers. The gorgeous Orchid Fresh Spring Rolls ($2.95) are wrapped in translucent skins and hold bean sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, vertically cut cucumbers, noodles and one large shrimp. Two large rolls come in an order with containers of sweet, vinegary fish sauce and ground peanut. The subtle rolls are brought to life by mint and cilantro.

Satay ($4.95) comes with five wooden skewers of beef or chicken. The chicken here was more lean than what came in the Pad Thai and the peanut sauce was fantastic. It also came with a small container of cucumber salad.

Pot Stickers ($2.95) also came five to and order and were a pleasant addition. They were lightly pan-fried and served with two sauces.

There were three young Thai women in the small, clean kitchen on my first visit. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. My food was prepared quickly and while my meal didn’t include napkins or utensils, they put an adorable package of Japanese orange bubble gum in my bag. (It tasted like a cross between orange sherbet and children’s chewable aspirin.)

Everything is packaged in sturdy containers that don’t leak. On my first visit, each container was adorned with a Thai Orchid sticker that gives the telephone number and Web site (!).

Check it out at www.thaiorchidcarryout.com. It’s so professional-looking you’d swear the store was a chain. And if you don’t live near the 6700 block of Raymond Road, you’ll wish it were.

If you have restaurant news or suggestions for reviews, e-mail Kalk at samara@madison.com or call her at 252-6439.

From Dining section The Capital Times, Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday, Aug 2, 2001.






Carryout curry

Thai Orchid serves it up mean and quick

By Raphael Kadushin

I was out collecting my holiday foodstuffs, following the precise pilgrimage dictated by the big three (Clasen’s, Fire Glazed Ham and Scott’s Bakery), when I slipped into the Bermuda Triangle of west-side malls. Somehow I ended up at a PDQ, then and especially homely strip mall next to it, and then at the take-out window of Thai Orchid, because my appetite was whetted by that big boulder of a spiral-cutham rolling around in the trunk.

This is a lesson in how deceptive appearances can be. Thai Orchid is really designed for carryout and delivery (within a three-mile radius of its Raymond Road outpost), a cooler and a nice teak bench where you can wait for your order.

There’s no reason to anticipate much more than some unexceptional stir-fries, except that the two women working the pots in the kitchen are clearly making everything fresh, to order, and the sound of sizzling vegetables is promising. And the kitchen keeps that promise. When we unpack the expertly bagged smorgasbord at home, the dishes release a perfume of curry and ginger, and the appetizers alone bode well. Granted, the crab Rangoon manages to hide the merest whiff of crab in lots of cream cheese, but the shrimp purse is a delicate bundle of sweet seafood. Even better: a chicken curry puff that packs a rich, gooey tumble of minced chicken and yellow curry into a flaky pastry triangle.

The second revelation is the pad Thai. While too many local kitchens reduce this to a gummy kugel, Thai Orchid’s rendition is fresh and clean. The pan-fried rice noodles fold around the crunch of bean sprouts, cabbage and ground peanuts, and the strips of soft tofu and egg add subtle flavor. That success echoes through most of our entrees. The panang offers zucchini, squash, green peas and carrots – supplemented by your choice of chicken, beef, pork, tofu or seafood. Our choice, the chicken, comes in big tender chunks. So, surprisingly, does the pork in the pad ma khua, which features big wheels of Thai eggplant, purple eggplant and squash, all roused by basil and a spicy chili sauce. Also good: a stir-fried heap of sliced ginger, black mushroom, carrots and red pepper ( the pad khing); a curry that combines a mild red curry sauce with cinnamon, anise, peanuts, sweet potatoes, yams and carrots (gang masaman); and roast duck curry that comes loaded with big, rich pieces of dusky duck.

The only disappointment is a fish dish listed on the menu as “sexy seafood”. While the mussels on the half-shell are a nice touch, the impenetrably chewy wads of squid aren’t. But that’s the only big misstep in our meal. In fact, if you stick to the curries, noodle dishes and stir-fries, Thai Orchid dishes up some of the best Thai Orchid dishes up some of the best Thai food in town, and belongs on any west-side pilgrimage.