Day 3.313: Some spice, only a little Blue

We have a visitor at work at the moment - a colleague recently returned from here to the UK and now doing some contract work for the company.  To celebrate his visit, three of us went out for dinner this evening.  He is staying in the Wolf Road area and it was about 8pm by the time we were ready to eat.

We ended up at the Blue Spice Thai Restaurant on Central Ave.  When we got there I immediately had deja vu - only realising a little later that I had been there before - when it was still a Mexican restaurant called Garcia's.  The ambiance has changed a lot since then - I rather like the open feel with its unusual patio-furniture styling, but there was not much in the way of atmosphere except for frustrated customers.

My frustration started with the no-alcohol situation.  I was ready for a beer by then, after that it wasn't that the service was bad - it was just a bit chaotic.  Two soups came out long before the spring rolls (which looked almost too good to eat and tasted equally good), the Shrimp Tom Yum soup was rather good too.

As we ate I watched several other tables having problems with their orders or some food coming out with others waiting.  So, when our main courses arrived all together I was relieved.  But too soon.  The vegetarian in the group definitely did not have the tofu he had ordered in his red curry.  So - for the second time he watched us eat until his food arrived.  The food was good.  I had the Gaanploo Duck which was excellent and the others reported satisfaction with theirs too.  In all, with a generous-in-the-circumstances tip it was $28 a head.  Nice - but not for those obsessed about attentive and accurate logistics or for anyone who's in need of a drink!

After visiting a couple of places with too-loud-for-us music, we ended up having a beer at the Recovery Room off Wolf Road - all's well that ends with watching seven different sporting events at once!