Spice

Spice
110 Waterman Street, Providence, RI.


Spice is a Thai restaurant in the East Side of Providence, 1 block from Thayer Street. Situated between a smoke shop and a Subway sandwich shop and slightly below street level, it's easy to overlook what looks to be a sandwich counter through the large front window. After entering, however, being greeted by a pair of hostesses and led past the large front counter area to a 20 table dining room adjacent to the kitchen.

For first course I selected Tom Yum soup with shrimp. The portion size was very generous for the $3.75, with probably a 1.5 to 2 cup bowl of spicy broth with mushrooms, green onion and a few shrimp. This was my favorite dish of the evening.

For the main course I had a dish that I am very familiar with and can cook myself with a high degree of success, Green Curry. Uniquely, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen green and red peppers used in an curry. I've become used to the inclusion of green beans as well as the substitution of peas for the tiny green eggplants used in Thailand. The kitchen also made the easy substitution of eggplant (aubergine) for the golf ball sized green eggplant traditionally used. I found the dish to be too sweet and not in any way spicy, though still enjoyable.

While they were out of desert on my preferred item, Mangoes with Sticky Rice, they did have my second choice, Crispy Fried Bananas, served with vanilla ice cream. A unique twist to this dessert item, though not particularly authentic, is wrapping the bananas in layers of what appeared to be philo dough though it may have been layers of spring roll wrappers. The flavor of the banana was excellent. I suspect that these were made ahead and kept chilled or frozen as the bananas were still cold when served. The wrapped bananas may solve the problem of the bananas disintegrating in a wok, but they also make the dish more difficult to eat since the wraps were tough to cut with the desert spoon. My other complaint is that there wasn't much banana compared to the two scoops of ice cream. At $5, while the ice cream was probably the most costly ingredient, I'd much rather have had more fried banana and less dough and ice cream.

The dinner items run $10.95 in general and come in a generous portion which can easily serve 2 based on my own and the plates of the diners around me. I must admit to committing what is probably a crime by not having Thai Iced Tea, instead having a $2 pot of green tea. I also noticed that the traditional condiments were not provided with plates of Pad Thai.

Taken together, I'd recommend the soup and service, but would suggest trying one of the other curries if searching for a traditional spicy curry.

[UPDATE: 1/27/08] - After reheating my leftovers, it would seem that there is indeed some spice to the green curry, it just didn't compare to the spice of the Tom Yum. Still a little sweet for my taste and only mildly spicy, but tasty. If you don't like overly spicy, possibly a good choice without resorting to the traditional noodle dishes.