Tom Yum Yum

How does Springfield’s newest Thai restaurant stack up? If the tom yum gai soup is any indication, this is a menu we’re looking forward to exploring.

Photo by Kevin O'Riley

Nipa Thai’s Double Delight contains fresh veggies, shrimp and fried chicken covered in a barely sweet chili sauce.

Nipa Thai Cuisine resides in the building that once held Thai House. But this is more than just a name change. The new owners are from Atlanta, where they ran a top-notch restaurant (named Nipa Thai, of course) that was named among the best 100 Thai restaurants in the area, won the Authentic Thai Cuisine Award from the Thai Association of Georgia, won the Thai Select Award from the Thai government, and whose chef served as the United States ambassador to Thailand twice.

Those are some pretty convincing credentials, but did the menu stack up?

In a word, yup. I was cold, shivering and not quite willing to take off my coat the day I visited Nipa Thai Cuisine for the first time. And maybe that cold-to-the-core feeling influenced my opinion of the tom yum gai soup, but it was easily the best I’ve ever had. The hot and sour soup is made with chicken, mushrooms and plenty of cilantro, with a broth that is spicy and bursting with sharp and pungent flavors of lime,

lemongrass and galangal (a root that looks like ginger but has a flavor all its own, with hints of everything from floweriness to spiciness). It’ll clear your sinuses and warm you up, and I’ve been craving it every day since the first time I tried it.

Along with the tom yum gai soup ($3.25), fellow diner Eli Estes and I started our meal with the crispy calamari appetizer ($4.95). It has a very crunchy but somehow not-too-greasy batter and is served with a spicy-sweet chili-lime dipping sauce. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but Eli loved it.

For my entrée, I ordered the spicy noodle with chicken ($8.95). If you like Drunken Noodle dishes on other Thai menus, this is essentially the same thing. The wide, thin rice noodles are stir-fried with pieces of chicken breast, lime, basil, onions and green and red bell peppers. It’s the basil that I can’t resist in this dish—big leaves of fresh basil, stir-fried. Mmm. I actually save the basil-filled bites for last, so I can savor them. I ordered the dish medium on the hotness scale, and it was a little less spicy than I’d like. But the hot sauce that they give you on the side has a rich chili pepper flavor (lots of flavor, not just lots of heat), so I warmed it up with that, and it was perfect.

Eli ordered the Double Delight for $10.95. This dish had shrimp and fried pieces of chicken breast sautéed in a just-barely-sweet chili sauce with lots of veggies and steamed white rice. I can’t decide which entrée I liked better. Mine had yummier seasonings, in my opinion, but Eli’s wins big points for being heavy on fresh veggies. My solution: dine family-style next time, so everyone gets a taste. I didn’t get a chance to dig into the curries, and I think I see a bowl of pineapple curry in my future. I know I’ll be back.

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