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Type: Thai
Hours: Lunch: Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.
Dinner: Sun.-Thurs. 5 p.m.-10 p.m., Fri. 5 p.m.-10:30 p.m., Sat. 3 p.m.-10:30 p.m.
Good choices: Shrimp in a basket, nang fa, silver soup, vegetarian pad Thai, garlic chicken, hot basil seafood.
Credit cards: All major credit card except Discover.
Access: All facilities on one floor. Fully accessible.
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MALAI
266 N. Main Street, Randolph
(781) 963-0012
Restaurant reviewed 12/17/98 by Adam Pertman
Malai is a warm embrace of a place, a lovely restaurant with muted blue-green walls and salmon carpeting, simple ethnic artwork arranged carefully throughout, piped-in classical music, and a beckoning, elegantly furnished waiting area.
The effect is serene, to be sure, but also a bit formal, as if though to signal patrons that they should keep their voices down, their backs straight, and their demeanor dignified.
Ah, how wonderfully deceiving appearances can be.
It turns out that, in addition to looking good and serving up fine food, the proprietors of this roadside restaurant demand anything but straight-strait-laced behavior. We know this for two reasons: because the employees were clearly delighted (and even participating a bit) when two groups of regulars were joking around during in one visit; and because, for during another visit, our party included four young children whose public behavior has not yet been, shall we say, perfected.
More on the kids later, though; their tastebuds haven't developed to the point of fully appreciating Thai cuisine. anyway. And that's too bad, because Malai offers some inventive fare and some particularly nice versions of typical Thai dishes.
Two appetizers fit neatly into the former category: the nang fa ($5.25), which are fried, oversized chicken wings into which the chef managed to stuff a tasty paste of ground shrimp, chicken, water chestnuts, and black mushrooms; and the visually inviting golden basket ($5.25), a crispy egg-roll skin shaped into a bowl and filled with a curried blend of ground chicken, shrimp, black mushrooms, and green and red peppers.
Among the entrees that Malai has made its own, the vegetarian Pad Thai ($6.25) stood out. Fresh, fragrant with cilantro, and subtly infused with lemon grass, the dish was more alluring than the more common versions with chicken or shrimp ($6.75 and $7.25, respectively).
The silver soup ($2.75), a light chicken broth teeming with shrimp, chicken, glass noodles, snow peas, and several other vegetables, was similarly pleasing Among the entrees that Malai has made its own, the vegetarian Pad Thai ($6.25) stood out. Fresh, fragrant with cilantro, and subtly infused with lemon grass, the dish was more alluring than the more common versions with chicken or shrimp ($6.75 and $7.25, respectively).
The silver soup ($2.75), a light chicken broth teeming with shrimp, chicken, glass noodles, snow peas, and several other vegetables, was similarly pleasing in its subtlety. And so was the garlic chicken ($8.50), which featured shreds of white meat with zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and carrots in a fresh garlic and black pepper sauce.
Several other items satisfied in a very different way.
Most notable among them was the hot basil seafood ($10.95), a combination of fried basil leaves, carrots, mushrooms, green peppers, and hot chilies, tossed with shrimp, squid, and the like??like what?. Complexity in a spicy dish can be tough to achieve, because the heat of the chilies or the chili sauce can overwhelm the other ingredients. to the point where you can't taste them. But the elements in this seafood offering were not only discernable discernible but individually pleasing, rather than dependent on the heat to carry them.
None of this is to say Malai's offerings are flawless. Our principal complaint, however, isn't in the preparation or presentation of any particular dish.
Rather, as at many restaurants trying to hold down their prices, too many items here _ though by no means the majority _ contain the same ingredients, in the same shapes and sizes. Indeed, it sometimes seems that as if the kitchen staff must spend the entire morning slicing and dicing carrots, celery, green peppers, and white mushrooms.
But this is certainly more of an issue for would-be regulars than for occasional diners, who will find more than sufficient diversity and satisfying eating at Malai.
Which brings us back to our initial reasons for liking this restaurant: the comfortable ambience and a staff delighted to serve patrons of all ages.
They didn't seem a bit fazed, for instance, by the amount of food that four children could slide onto the floor in during the course of an evening, or by persistent special requests. Things like: ``Do you have any noodles that aren't gray?'' and ``Is it possible to get some rice that doesn't stick together?''
In fact, our waitress won us over from the start by bringing the kids some bread (not a common sight in Asian restaurants) soon after we sat down. After apologizing that the kitchen had nothing to offer as a possible spread, except for oil, she said that wouldn't present a problem, either.
She explained that she'd been shopping before she came to work, then strode to the back. She returned, smiling, with a dish of her own butter.
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