Quick Bite: Drunken Noodles at Sala Thai.

I could use this post to waft wind into the eternal fires of my soul set by my ever-developing rant about Vietnamese food in Arkansas, specifically the idea that Little Rock has very few place that serve pad Thai, yet in both Fort Smith and Fayetteville there are places where you can find four or five Thai restaurants in a square MILE.

In Fayetteville, one such area exists south of Dickson Street, where you'll find Taste of Thai on the square, Thai Express down the hill to the south, Sala Thai a few blocks down and Thep Thai just a little further

on. Each has it good graces.

This quick bite, though, was at Sala Thai, a little mom-and-pop style Thai diner (not to be confused with Thai Diner, another Fayetteville Thai noodle shop) not far from university and not the least bit fancy. This is the sort of joint you just stumble into after an evening of running around, where one collapses into a puddle at a plain table to be doted on by sweet ladies who bring you tea and keep checking to make sure you still have a pulse....

wait, let's talk about the food.

The menu at Sala Thai, like at Thep Thai down the street, is a book, with a load of combinations of noodles and rice and sauces and curry and meats and tofu, all of which are hard to comprehend when one's head is pounding and one's feet are sore.

A good bet is to start with the fried spring rolls -- which, turns out, come in either chicken or vegetable portions. The dark rolled cylinders

come piping hot with a translucent sweet pinkish sauce topped with finely minced garlic. Within the sauce was a tiny spoon, perfect for dolloping the sauce directly into the rolls. It was slightly spicy and somewhat sweet, similar to a Chinese duck sauce but thinner and more pungent.

A couple of young ladies came in and claimed a table. One was apparently a regular; the other had never been. Recommendations came flying at her, and at me, in quick succession. Though I was already sold on the palliative powers of a good pad Thai, I quickly changed my position when I heard her mention "the Drunken Noodles are the absolute best thing in the world."

That sounded like a great unsolicited opinion, so when my hostess returned, I asked for Pad Kee-Mao (the given name for Drunken Noodles) with beef as its protein. I also wienied out and got it mild (one star) instead of higher on the five star range.

What came to me was a burgeoning dish of flat rice noodles, swamped in an aromatic brown sauce and crowded with broccoli florets, slivers of red and green bell pepper, crinkle-cut carrot spears, bamboo shoots, big pieces of Thai basil and pointed lengths of ginger. And one bite reminded me immediately of beef Stroganoff, a texture and

base that continued to press on my mind later that evening. Of course, every bite of ginger or basil wiped the thought away, only for it to return strongly moments later as I let the brothy sauce relax me.

Half of it went into a box for late consumption. When the box arrived, my hostess had already prepared a small white paper sack and a cup of the sweet-spicy sauce for the remaining spring rolls. Hours later, still exhausted but craving the meal, I awoke to find myself eating the remaining Drunken Noodles straight from the Styrofoam with my fingers.

The menu, as I mentioned, is a book at Sala Thai, but I will have a hard time ordering anything else again. Drunken Noodles really are the best thing in the world, or at least, an amazing creation from within those diner walls. I'll be back.

Sala Thai
701 S. School Avenue
Fayetteville, AR 72701
(479) 575-9311

9 Things To Try at Mei Li Cuisine in Eureka Springs.

Hot Asian soups, warm noodle dishes, rolls and wontons? All these things are on the menu at Mei Li Cuisine in Eureka Springs, and they're available in-restaurant or for delivery.

Eureka Springs has a wonderful array of restaurants for every celebration. On Valentine's Day, most of those restaurants were filled to capacity with reservation-fulfilling couples ready to dine lushly.

Grav and I were not one of those couples.  We both had the same idea - to enjoy a reasonably priced local flavor that would undoubtably lack the two-hour wait we saw elsewhere.

We weren't the only ones to have this idea.

This is a view from a previous visit.  The wall to
the right is now lined with green booths.

We dropped in at Mei Li Cuisine at the appropriate Valentine's Day dining hour, right before 7 p.m. on that Saturday night, to find the parking lot full.  There was a booth left inside, though, and we squeezed in and soaked up the menu.  We both knew what Grav wanted... Pad Thai, one of his favorite comfort foods.  But I had other ideas.  I knew the Snowpocalypse was near (Eureka Springs was forecast to get 4-8 inches of snow the following evening) and I wanted leftovers.  Because, as you all know, Asian noodle dishes are always better the next day.

So we chose a small selection of dishes -- combination Pad Thai with chicken, beef and shrimp; beef Pad See Ew (a favorite of mine); and General Chicken.  Not General Tso's... General Chicken.  Not to be confused with Colonel Chicken or even Private Beef.

These each came with a soup and an appetizer.  For fun and profit, or at least for variety, we chose to sample one of each of the soups.  I've written elsewhere about Mei Li's extraordinarily healing hot and sour soup... but it bears mentioning again, this nourishing and deep beef-based mushroom-enhanced soup that needs no salt, no soy, no augmentation at all.  Grav says it's the best hot and sour soup in the state, and the guys at the booth behind me suggested it when our waitress asked which we'd like.

Of course, I'm all about some egg drop soup.  If I am sick, it is the great diviner... consumption either indicates that I'll survive or I won't.  So far, I survive.  Mei Li's is different from most egg drop soups, though.  It's far thicker, richer and enhanced with quarter inch thick cubes of sauteed onion for an additional layer of flavor.

The wonton soup, we hadn't tried before.  Here it was light but completely inundated with scallion flavor, its meatless noodles substantial within.

I was disappointed to hear that Mei Li has gone to a pork egg roll -- their previous beef ones were very good.  Grav says the pork ones are just as good.  The egg roll is the default accompaniment to each dinner, but we

switched it up a bit at the suggestion of our waitress.  She swapped it for a hand-rolled vegetarian springroll with a thin but ample peanut sauce on one dish and for two hearty crab wontons on another.  The wontons were decently packed, not sweet but served with a sweet red sauce similar to a duck sauce.

Then there were the dishes.  The Pad Thai was a bit better than our last go-round, which is saying something, since it was pretty spectacular the previous visit.  We'd opted for combination rather than sticking to one meat, and this was a good choice, with 35-40 count size shrimp along with the sauteed chicken and beef.  There was a nice hint of lime and fish sauce, and in addition to the crushed peanuts and bean sprouts that normally accompany the dish, the cook had included finely chopped red cabbage, which was a good call.

The Pad See Ew, a dish I lean towards, was very garlicky.  The wide soy-fried rice noodles had soaked up a lot of salty-sweet and garlicky flavor, and they were speckled with bits of fried egg.  The beef wasn't quite tender but it did well, upping the hearty factor of a rather good dish.

And then there was the General Chicken.  Yes, there's a little pepper on the menu that indicates it's hot, but it didn't seem so at first.  The individual pieces were very crispy, and the sauce was nice and sweet... but after a moment a fire lit on the tongue from the subtle peppering.  Nice.  The

fried rice with it was soft and plump and just about perfect.

We actually ordered more to go to sustain us through the snow to come... which it has.  Our dinner and our take-out altogether was less than $50.

What I didn't get, though, is what I'm craving now.  That's the curries -- the Red Curry and the Mus um Mun Curry, both just decadently wonderful.  That spice would be wonderful today.  Now I'm checking to see if the roads are going to clear up so we can go.

But the dishes are always

spot-on, and there's good reason why.  See, the family that runs Mei Li Cuisine came to America 30 years ago, and settled in Ohio.  They moved down to Eureka Springs in the fall of 2010, and opened Mei Li Cuisine that November in the old Cafe Soleil spot on US Highway 62.  And though we've eaten there a dozen times and had delivery from them about as often, I have yet to ever have a bad meal with them.  And that's why we chose this little yellow Asian restaurant on the bypass for our Valentine's Day dinner.

Don't wait for Valentine's Day.  Get yours next time you head up to Eureka Springs.

One more thing.  Mei Li has started to offer fried chicken and catfish.  I don't know what to think of this.  Haven't ordered it yet.  Not sure I will, since the Asian dishes are so good.

Mei Li Cuisine
3094 E. Van Buren
Eureka Springs, AR 72632
(479) 363-6678

Asian Awesome - Fried Rice in Fort Smith.

Finding a good restaurant to be your go-to spot in any community takes time. There are things to look at, like price and options. For me, Fried Rice is a go-to when I'm in Fort Smith - because it hits all the right notes.

Thai One On at Saigon Cuisine in Conway (or Little Rock).

This restaurant has closed.

There’s been a lot of pitter patter on Twitter and other social media about the need for good, reasonably priced Thai in our area. So I’ve been on the lookout. And hey, I found some. It’s in Conway at Saigon Cuisine.