Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Mekala's Thai Cuisine in Eugene, Oregon


When in Eugene recently, I chose to try something new and hit Mekala's instead of Ring of Fire, which I'd been to AND LOVED.

My bad; such is the price one pays now and then for trying new things. They can't all be winners; and if they are, you must have very low standards!

It wasn't a disaster, by far, don't get me wrong. But when a Massaman Curry is thin, weak and without the slightest touch of heat... something is wrong. The server didn't ask, "How hot?" and I figured they made it "medium" as house style and you asked if you wanted mild or super hot.

Not so. The sauce was thin and watery, and the chicken used was poor quality dark meat chicken, stringy and fatty in parts. Ugh. The Phad See Yew, with chicken, tofu, wide noodles in a black bean sauce was better, but still not great.

We started with Thai Spring Rolls and Golden Fried Tofu, simple appetizers with which you can't go wrong. The spring rolls were large and cut on the diagonal, making them easy to eat, and very pleasant in presentation!

Service was a bit slow to boot, despite it being slow with less than half of the tables full. Our server was very pleasant and discussed some menu options with us, though.

I've had much better Thai for much less $$$. With the many options for Thai available, I probably won't make it back around to Mekala's. The atmosphere wasn't much to speak of, either; a lot of windows in a restaurant are nice if you have something nice to look at. But gazing upon a gawdy pizza joint next door doesn't fit that bill.

The high point? Their plum sauce rocked.

(The photo is of our appetizers, but I took it after we dug in. But you get the idea.)

4 comments:

  1. Well shoot! I'm sorry it wasn't as good as we remembered it 7 years ago!

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  2. You tried it seven years ago and didn't tell me? That's a lifetime or two for most restaurants! :-) But like I said; it was great to try something new!

    As I told Leah as I walked out to the car, "I have to get my camera, because you know how I like to write about my food." Oh yeah, she said, rolling her eyes.

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  3. My biggest problem is trying not to forget to take pictures. I'm working on it. Keep an eye out for my Food Crawl series. :)

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  4. That was a big span of time, wasn't it? When you're my age, so many things seem like they happened yesterday! ;>)

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