IT IS a sign of the increasingly sophisticated ways in which Dubliners use restaurants that a place like Pad Thai, a small room a few steps from Portobello bridge which opened up for business just before Christmas, doesn't make much of an effort to be a special sort of place.
The decor, the ambience and the modus of this Thai restaurant are understated. It's neither grandiose nor trying to be grandiose.
It is simply doing what it does, and doing what it does rather well.
It's the kind of place you might drop into at 9.30 p.m. on a Tuesday night, as we did, and hang out for a few hours, drink some wine, and have some good Thai cooking. The style may not be serious, but the cooking is. The chef is a young Thai woman called Fon, who has that rather delectable style of cooking which suggests she cooks what she likes to eat herself, an idea echoed by the charming waitress from who we asked assistance. "We eat all the dishes so we know what we're talking about, but I haven't tried that yet," she confessed, for our visit coincided with a new menu.
The menu in Pad Thai offers soups, starters, noodle dishes, Thai salads and curries, sea food and meat dishes and a few vegetarian selections, and it offers them in a language which, I must confess, is utterly incomprehensible to me. The Thai titles are accompanied by an English description, mercifully.
It wasn't a fear of the language that led me to choose satay as a starter, however, but a desire to see how this Thai classic was handled here. It was handled perfectly: a quartet of skewers was laced through excellently barbecued chicken with a perfect satay sauce of finely diced peanuts which was moist and flavourful. Satay has become as ubiquitous and as badly handled as the hamburger, but this showed the elegance and refinement of the dish at its best.
Grat Doo Moo Yang - spareribs marinated and served with a spicy dip was also very fine, and one of the three soups offered Tom Yam Gung, a hot and sour clear prawn soup seasoned with lemon grass, lime leaves, co-riander and chillies - was also graceful and balanced, with none of the chilli harshness which can mar the precision of Thai cooking.
I chose one of the new dishes on the menu as a main course, Prik Sod Sy - hot peppers stuffed with tofu, nuts, coriander, corn and lime leaves - but the mixture did not have the clarity the other dishes offered, and the ingredients had become an indistinguishable mass. A little more practice should see this improve.
There was no such problem with Gai Pad Prik Haeng, breast of chicken fried with chilli and cashew nuts, which was a smashing mixture, the slices of chicken suffused with the flavours of garlic, chilli, soy and fish sauce. Gung Phat King, stirfried prawns with ginger, onion and Thai fungus, was equally enjoyable. Both these dishes had mastered that delicate balancing act between sweetness and sharpness in which good Thai cooking revels - proof Fon knows her way around the stove. Fried rice with egg and soya sauce and house noodles were excellent.
From a small list of desserts, we chose a lime sorbet, which was unremarkable, and we drank some Coldridge Chenin Colombard and a Campo Viejo Rioja, from an astute and well-priced wine list. Indeed, prices in Pad Thai are keen: soups cost £3, starters are £3.50 and £4.50, salads which are substantial and could be shared as a starter - cost between £6.50 and £8.50, while main courses and curries all cost in and around £10.
Some might find the fund lighting and slightly loud music of the restaurant not to their taste, and service can be a little uncertain, but Pad Thai is, all told, a fun place, a good place to hang out. It's not exceptional and, as such, it's just what every city needs.