Gingergrass and the quest for a green curry

I'm not going to write restaurant reviews, however I do want to write about my restaurant experiences in my new city.

I'll admit, I was a little concerned when I moved to Halifax that I would be moving to a more homogenous culture, with not as many opportunities to sample international cuisine. And I LOVE ethnic food of all kinds!

So now I'm on a quest to try ethnic restaurants in and around Halifax.

Tonight I tried Gingergrass Thai & Vietnamese. It was enroute to the public lecture I went to this evening and from the outside I thought it might be a casual place where I could grab a quick Thai dish (like Pho Hung or Green Mango). Once inside, it was cle ar I had made a mistake. I could tell they weren't going to be cheap. So I decided to make the most of it and have a nice dinner, even if it was by myself.

Since moving to Halifax I've been hoping to find a suitable replacement for Salad King. You see, I LOVED the green curry from Salad King. I'm hoping to find another good green curry. So, guess what I ordered? Green curry (mild), and a Perrier to drink. Not 2 minutes later my server returned to say that they didn't have any Perrier, would I like bottled water? I said no, a glass of water would be fine. Several minutes later, the cook came out and said the green curry was already made and she wouldn't be able to adjust the spices. She strongly recommended I try the yellow curry instead; the green curry will be too spicy for me. I reluctantly agreed - afterall, it's the green curry I wanted. When my dinner came, they also brought a small bowl of the green curry for me to sample. It was good - spicy, but not intolerably so. The yellow curry just didn't cut it for me. I agree, it was sweeter and less spicy, but the flavour of the curry was too Indian for me. It tasted like they combined an Indian curry with a Thai dish. Next time I would definitely go for the green curry instead.

So, after I finished I thought I would order the Thai custard for dessert. It was reasonably priced, and I still had another 45 mins to kill, so I figured having a leisurely dessert would be the way to go. Again, not 2 mins later, my server returned to tell me they didn't have any custard. What? I didn't get a single thing I ordered from the menu. Not the perrier, not the green curry, not the custard. The servers were friendly enough, but really!...why bother having a menu if you're not going to have the dishes it lists!? And to boot, I had to pay for the rice, after she told me she thought it was included.

Although the food I had there was decent, and I liked their sample of green curry, and the servers were nice enough, my experience at Gingergrass wasn't worthy of a repeat visit anytime soon. There are other Thai/Vietnamese restaurants to try. And I will.