THAI INTER
Address: 22622 MacArthur Boulevard, California, MD 20619
If you ask my old team lead, he’ll tell you that I was the one who got him addicted to pad thai (you’re welcome, Steve). Ever since then, I think that Thai food was almost always on our team’s take-out rotation during night shifts, and while on day shifts, we got our fix with the cafeteria’s Pad Thai Tuesday. Needless to say, my Thai food cravings had started to flare up again after moving down here to southern Maryland, so last week I ventured out to satisfy those cravings.
I found Thai Inter when I was looking around the area for Thai restaurants, and after seeing that it was well favored by diners, I decided to give the place a shot. The restaurant itself is located right off of MD-235/Three Notch Road in a shopping center, and very visible from the highway. The building looked like it might have been a chain restaurant at one point, but then the owners bought it out and remodeled it to become Thai Inter. The inside is nicely laid out, with a large dining room space providing ample seating. I went on a Wednesday evening, and it was definitely a quiet night of service with not too many others dining in (quite a few people for take-out, though).
The menu offers a wide array of items to try, including curries, noodle dishes, rice dishes, and soups. I stuck with my chicken pad thai, which for some reason, is normally the first dish that I try at any new Thai restaurant I go to. After I placed the order, one of the waitresses came out and brought me some shrimp chips, which are a popular snack in southeast Asia. It was the first time that I had seen a Thai restaurant serve those chips as a starter.
I didn’t have to wait too long until my pad thai came out of the kitchen, and when the waitress set the plate down, it just looked like a gigantic pile of delicious. The smell alone was enough to double my hunger, so I went ahead and squeezed a little lime juice over everything, and took the first bite. And it was fantastic.
The tamarind sauce that enveloped everything had that sweet but tangy characteristic that was not too overpowering. The raw bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, and scallion chunks gave everything a little more crunch, while the pieces of chicken, after having soaked up that tamarind sauce, were tender and full of flavor. The lime juice added that fresh zest to nicely round out everything.
This was another surprise for me: finding some very delicious Thai food in a restaurant tucked away in southern Maryland. The quality of the food, combined with the value for how much food there was, had me walking away from the restaurant satisfied, from both a craving and wallet perspective.
Let’s now take a look at the Thai Inter Dish Spotlight. Asterisks (*) below mark my recommended dishes.
** Pad Thai with Chicken **
Thin rice noodles stir-fried with bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, scallions, bean curd, and eggs.
Boy, was it filling.
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Pad See Ew
Wide rice noodles stir-fried with broccoli, eggs, and garlic in a brown soy sauce mixture.
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** Drunken Noodles with Chicken **
Wide rice noodles stir-fried with Thai basil leaves, bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes in a spicy sauce.
The combo of the red pepper flakes and basil really bring out some heat.
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And finally, here are my rankings for Thai Inter:
Food: 5 / 5
Some really great tasting food and a variety of options. I can’t wait to go back to try some of my other go-to Thai dishes and see how they compare.
Atmosphere: 4.25 / 5
The restaurant’s interior was pretty nice, and the darker-themed furniture contrasted well with the light-colored walls. There were two flat-screen TVs in the dining room as well, which kind of stuck out set against all the other decorations, but I didn’t mind.
Service: 4.5 / 5
The food came out really fast, and the waitresses that came around were really nice. They checked in multiple times to see how my food was and to refill my water.
Price: 4.75 / 5
Pad thai dishes at other restaurants I’ve been to were usually under $10, so I was skeptical at first when I saw a $12 pad thai. But when the dish came out, my skepticism was gone. For the amount of food that was there, I would pay $12 again.
Overall:
18.5 / 20
(93%)
Categories: Maryland, Restaurants
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