Tom yum soup: 5/5 stars
Pad thai with chicken: A+
Pad kee mao with tofu: On a scale of 1-10, Iago, this dish is an 11
Julia: Thai Spice saved my life. I was on the precipitous brink of fatigued collapse and Thai Spice restored my vigor. If I was an old-timey health elixir salesman, I would fill a bottle with tom yum soup and go door-to-door espousing its healing properties.
Mark: There may be scientific backing to your association of the tom yum soup with your miraculous recovery. The soup consists of several ingredients that are attributed with healing properties in traditional medicine.*
The day we ate at Thai Spice was a day of firsts: our first time spending the entire day together, our first time hiking together, our first selfie, our first (and hopefully not last) time making out under a waterfall. We spent the day downstate at Clifty Falls, and in hindsight it was perhaps a little too hot of a day to commit to hiking for five hours. At the time it seemed fine though, and I felt adequately sustained by our lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and Larry the Cable Guy Chili Cheese Fries-flavored potato chips.
Clifty Falls is a cool place, except for the fact it’s really hard to see actual Clifty Falls. The other falls throughout the park had well-placed lookouts that gave us a great view of drunk dumbasses stumbling toward their likely demise. The viewing angle on Clifty Falls itself was weird—or maybe we were looking at the wrong thing? To this day I’m not sure if we actually saw Clifty Falls, but we saw enough other water tumbling over cliffs to be satisfying. Also neat at Clifty Falls: an underground cave tunnel that was started as part of a later abandoned railroad project. If anyone needs to cool down on a hot day, I highly recommend doing some smooching under a waterfall and then walking through a cave.
Along with the life-size waterfalls were the miniature diorama-style falls found intermittently along the edge of the trail. Only things missing from these replicas were miniature lovers in passionate embrace and miniature drunk dumbasses tempting fate on the miniature precipices.
When we finished our hike and started the drive back to Indy, I was feeling decidedly Not Good. The heat and lack of adequate mid-hike snacking caught up with me. I put my seat back and alternately napped and groaned until we got back to Greenwood, worrying that I was worrying you and that you would think I was a total drag and/or sissy.
I definitely didn’t think you were a drag or a sissy but on the drive home I was worrying that you had contracted Brain-Eating Amoeba or some other deadly recreational water illness by incidentally ingesting Clifty creek water during our Nicholas Sparks waterfall make-out session. O the bitter irony.
As soon as we walked into Thai Spice I started feeling better. Just sitting at the table drinking cold water and smelling all the smells filled my soul with renewed energy. The food also came really fast, I think because the staff intuited the fact I was about to die. But let no one think my dramatic experience in any way skewed our ratings of the food—Thai Spice is exceedingly delicious even if you’re not suffering from exhaustion.
On subsequent visits to Thai Spice we have found that the food always comes out really fast, the staff is always accommodating and nonjudgmental (e.g. sparing us the WTF look when declining straws for our waters), and the food is always of premium quality.
Even though I wish I hadn’t put a damper on our big day together by getting sick, after Thai Spice I knew you would be gentle and generous and understanding if I didn’t feel well, which almost makes me glad it happened.
* Tom yum soup ingredients and their medical virtues
- Lemongrass – Relief from stomach disorders, insomnia, respiratory disorders, fever, aches, infections, rheumatism and edema.
- Thai chili – Reduces cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure. Has antimicrobial, anti-fungal and antibacterial qualities. Capsaicin is also a powerful pain reliever.
- Lime juice – Cleanser and purifier of blood, liver and kidneys. Lime juice produces an alkalizing effect on the body which helps facilitate detoxification.
- Cilantro contains compounds that act as antioxidants and deter the growth and proliferation of certain bacteria, including Salmonella.
- Kaffir lime leaves – Promotes oral health, detoxifies the blood, boosts skin health, improves digestion, lowers inflammation, aids the immune system, and reduces stress.
- Galangal – Promotes digestion and stimulates appetite and production of digestive fluids.