Rosemary Wang, the eponymous Rose of West Vancouver’s Rose Thai Restaurant, smirked ever so slightly as she weighed up Gil, my dinner partner, and I one recent weeknight in her dining room.
The room was an elegant and unusual space with an enticing aroma of lime leaf and warm wooden decor. I glanced at the wall over Rose’s shoulder and noticed an imposing painting featuring her likeness, donning the same sardonic smile. It was a surreal moment and I half expected my wristwatch to start ticking backwards while a crying clown holding a small woodland creature emerged from the nearby kitchen.
Gil and I shifted in our seats and summoned sufficient confidence to say “yes.” You see, we had been asked if we could handle spicy heat in our meals.
Our initial affirmation, however, was apparently too casual because Rose, adopting a much weightier countenance on her second asking, challenged us with “are you sure about that?”
Our server had summoned Rose when we told her that rather than order for ourselves, we’d prefer to be served a selection of dishes about which the kitchen was proudest, the rare and unusual house specialties that would take us far, far away from the ubiquitous Pad Thai, Green Papaya Salad and Tom Yum Gai.
The server deferred to her boss, who was over at our table in a heartbeat and seemed to relish the challenge of taking us out of our comfort zone.
Rose Thai’s menu is an impressive volume, a visual illustration of the cuisine of chef Roger Xu, a Thai specialist who Wang met in Shanghai and convinced to move to West Vancouver to helm the kitchen of a new joint venture back in 2007. Xu has led the kitchen and Wang the front-of-house ever since. Gil and I felt the photo-heavy menu was overwhelming and thought it wise to let the experts take control of the reigns.
By and large, we were steered in a positive direction and emerged grateful for Rose’s sound counsel.
First up was a silky, tangy and fiercely hot bowl of what was introduced as Coconut Soup. OK, so Gil and I are both familiar with Tom Kha (ginger soup typically made with coconut milk as a base) and its various iterations, but this potent riff on a well-known theme turned out to be a real treat, shamelessly fiery and bold.
The coconut milk-rich broth, with its rusty orange hue and velvety texture, was a full-on flavour assault of chilli, aromatic galangal, lime leaf and lemon grass tempered ever so slightly by morsels of mushroom, chicken, bell peppers, tomatoes and cilantro. It was a good start to the meal that prompted us to switch from Thai beer (Rose Thai offers Chang and Singha) to a local, spicy, food-friendly Gewurztraminer by Sumac Ridge, its floral nose and slight residual sugar pairing nicely with the intense flavours of dinner.
Arriving next at the table were six enormous tiger prawns breaded in panko, deep-fried and served with a requisite sweet/salty/sour/spicy dip of fish sauce, chilies and plum sauce. Now look, the prawns were of exceptional quality, about that there was no doubt. However, Gil and I were surprised that of all the seemingly exotic and flavour-packed appetizer options on the menu, this dish, effectively panko-ed shrimp tempura, should have been selected to challenge our palates.
While we enjoyed the plump and tender prawns well enough, I would suggest this was the one miss of the lineup and that we would have preferred something a touch bolder.
Happily, we were soon back on track with a phenomenal dish of Crab in Yellow Curry, a house specialty that Rose explained was not ordered often enough given its exceptional quality. We had to concur as we tucked into a large plate of Dungeness crab slathered in a thick, coarse yellow curry paste and garnished with scallions and cilantro.
The curry was packed with deep flavours of toasted spice including cinnamon, coriander and turmeric, as well as hefty doses of garlic and ginger. We attacked the crab with nut crackers, forks, finger bowls and a dozen paper napkins, relishing the marriage of fragrant yellow curry paste and delicate Pacific crab and remarking on the relatively tame chilli heat aspect of the dish. It was a laborious affair to get at the meat, but worth the effort and certainly an interactive experience I would recommend trying for yourself.
This creative and thoroughly stimulating dish didn’t come cheap, mind. The crab was listed as “market price” on the menu and we noted with a slight gulp that the dish represented $78 of our pre-tax, pre-tip final bill.
A deceptively complex dish of Stir-Fried Cabbage appeared shortly after the crab and revealed lovely notes of garlic and green chillies, while a late arrival of House Special Fried Rice with chopped prawns, calamari, tomato, onion and peppers reverted back to our meal’s fiery start and had us reaching for water within two bites.
Our owner-directed meal of soup, appetizer, rice, vegetables, and crab main, along with a reasonably priced bottle of white wine and a beer each, was $210 before gratuity. Beware market price mains!
Rose Thai is located at 130-1425 Marine Dr. in West Vancouver. rosethaidining.webs.com 604-925-0070
Chris Dagenais served as a manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. North Shore News dining reviews are conducted anonymously and all meals are paid for by the newspaper.
