Sunday evening Mr. Hungry and I went out to Blue Spice in Delmar for another friend's birthday. It is located right on Delaware Avenue, across from the Hannaford plaza (be sure to park in the lot behind, not out front). We'd been here a few times before and really enjoyed it, and I knew there were plenty of vegetarian options, so ordering would be easy.
We were very hungry when we arrived, so we ordered appetizers. I went for the veggie spring rolls and Mr. Hungry got the fresh basil rolls. The veggie spring rolls are like a skinnier cousin of Chinese style egg rolls. Crispy and fried, they were filled with cabbage and other vegetables and served with a squiggle of what tasted like sweet chili sauce. They were good, not great, but took the edge off my hunger while we waited for a few latecomers to arrive. The fresh basil rolls are closer to the summer rolls at a Vietnamese restaurant. They're made of rice paper wrappers, which are translucent and have a bit of a stretchy, rubbery texture. I wasn't so fond of these as Thai basil is quite licoricey tasting, and I don't care for licorice, though the honey-tamarind sauce they were served with was very good. I'm a sucker for tamarind.
I nearly always order a curry when at a Thai restaurant. The most difficult part is deciding which curry to get. Blue Spice offers a number of different curries, served with your choice of vegetables, fried tofu, chicken, shrimp, scallops, duck, pork, or beef, for slightly varying prices. I've had scallops here in the past and they were large, of good quality, and cooked correctly so that they weren't raw, but weren't overdone and awful, either.
This time I chose the green curry noodles with fried tofu. The green curry is described on the menu as a special occasion, coconut milk based curry. It's about medium spicy by default and is served with zucchini, peas, red peppers, and green beans. It was really delicious and quite a large serving for $12. I brought home half for lunch the next day and it was just as good. I'm not always a big tofu lover, but this was great - coated/breaded (not sure what exactly they do to it, but it's got a coating) for a chewy-crisp exterior, with a soft and velvety interior. The coconut milk lends a smooth, slight sweetness to the curry sauce that took some of the bite from the heat away, and overall, it was just really good. The noodles in this equation were linguine, which tasted good, but I don't know how authentic it is. I'll admit to a very limited knowledge of Thai cuisine. Maybe they do eat linguine? Anyway, I'll be getting the green curry again for sure.
Service here is very accommodating and pleasant. I don't need my waiter or waitress to be my friend, but it's nice when they seem happy to serve you, and here they really do. It can be a bit on the slower side, but it's well within my range of acceptable. Our waitress also picked up on the fact that it was my friend's birthday despite none of us mentioning it, and the staff sang to her and gave her a free fried ice cream, which was coated in a fresh raspberry sauce that my friends said was delicious.
If you haven't tried Blue Spice, do. The food I've tried here has all been really tasty and the prices are reasonable.
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