On our stay out in Rima Rock, AZ, we stumbled upon this Thai Garden establishment really, off the road! Rima Rock is a stay town adjacent to Sedona and part of the Verde Valley in northern Arizona so there are not a lot of places to dine in. After reading some reviews, I decided to take the family out to this place and check it out ourselves; since we have dined at numerous Thai restaurants from Texas to California and are acclimated to the taste from these type of food -- I mean we are Cambodians after all-- Thailand is Cambodia's Neighbor!
Parking is plentiful as this restaurant sits on the main road from the FWY exits so finding the place was very easy. Now, we went pretty late in the evening around 8:15pm and the restaurant closes at 8:30pm. When we got in, the waitress had to check with the chef to see if it's not too late to serve. We were very blessed and fortunate to have dine in that late because we were so hungry. The beautiful waitress got our menus, got our drinks and we went ahead and ordered our meal -- we didn't need to look at the menu since we already knew what we want -- we are simple minded Asian folks.
I ordered the traditional Red Curry w/ Rice, my wife got the Thai Boat Noodles, and my son got the Pad Thai Noodles.
The order came out really quick. When I glanced over to the kitchen, I spotted an elder women cooking -- you know immediately this is home cooking meal now!
We finished our meal pretty quick as we didn't want to keep the place waiting for us. The food was fantastic. The Red Curry was as excellent as traditional cooking goes. Spice was just right. The Thai Boat soup base was very very good. The only thing lacking was the traditional veggies that usually supplant Thai Boat Noodles which should have been Water Spinach, Water Cress, and other exotic Asian veggies; instead, they Americanized it with Broccoli, Carrots, etc. The Pad Thai on the other hand was a bit tooo sweet. Now, this is not normally sweet of you cook it the traditional way. Sweeting the Pad Thai nowadays has become a norm for the masses because they just live sweets. Wait until you taste traditional Pad Thai -- those are home secret cooking!
Other than that, the meals were great! Great presentation of food as well as the service. Our waitress really took care of us and was very patient with us even 30 minutes after closing.
We'll be back to try the other items if we are in town visiting again. read more