The Eastside of Cleveland is pretty pathetic when it comes to regionally diverse restaurant offerings. Let’s see you’ve got American Fare, Italian, take-out Chinese and maybe a Japanese steakhouse which I have to believe is about truly Japanese as a Styrofoam Cup-O-Ramen. However, there is a new kid on the block trying to change that by bringing authentic Thai cuisine to sleepy Pepper Pike, Peppermint Thai Cuisine.
Located in a roadside shopping center near Heinens, the unpretentious exterior of Peppermint might cause you to miss it. My wife and I visited on a Saturday afternoon finding plenty of parking right in front of the restaurant. With 30-40 tables in a wide open restaurant, Peppermint can hold quite a crowd, but they were slow with only a few other tables occupied during our trip.
Fat Man Tip: Try Peppermint during lunch. You’ll find the same menu items, but at a 40% discount over their dinner prices.
Peppermint offers a big menu with dozens of traditional Thai dishes like noodle bowls, fried rice and curries. From the moment we decided to go I had my heart set on a spicy Thai curry, but to start out the meal we tested their chicken satay to see how it measured up. While the chicken was average its accompanying peanut and cucumber sauces were awesome. I’m thinking a smart man will one day figure out how to add alcohol to the peanut sauce to make one delicious shot.
With the restaurant being slow the service was excellent although it was almost to the point of overbearing. Many free waiters and waitresses meant that someone was checking in on us ever two minutes. We also had a bit of an issue with our waitress understanding what we wanted, I don’t believe she understood English too well, but it all got sorted out when a manager came over to help her.
While Peppermint offers a number of Thai-style curries, I opted for the Panang Curry ($8.95), a sweet and spicy coconut milk based curry with red and green peppers, mushrooms, green beans, eggplant and kaffir lime leaves. I wish the dish would have come with two more items, a camera and something with which to capture the smell.
The dish was beautiful with tons of meat and vegetables in a thick pink-tinted sauce, I almost didn’t want to eat it. I said almost. The smell wafting up from my plate was intoxicating and I’m pretty sure it is the undiscovered cure for the common cold.
The Panang curry tasted as good as it looked. The vegetables and meats were cooked perfectly, but the jasmine rice soaking up the potent sauce was worth the price alone. Plus, the portion was enough that once I was full there was still enough left for another meal.
Peppermint Thai Cuisine provided for an excellent and unique dining experience, especially for the Eastside of Cleveland. Outstanding service and delicious food made for a great lunch in Pepper Pike which might very well be the last place you’d think to find a Thai restaurant.
Tagged with: New Restaurants • Pepper Pike • Thai Food
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May 13th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Hey! Enjoy your posts. If you want to try another good ethnic eats place – and on the east side – have you tried Ricky Ly’s? It’s a little out of the way – behind PF Chang’s on Chagrin at 271. A little more atmosphere (the bar is ultra cool) and excellent food too. (Try the bar for an Asian Scene – dumb name – excellent libation.)
Cheers!
R
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July 31st, 2008 at 5:06 am
Worst experience EVER
We went to the place to celebrate an occasion. Food was OK but the service was worst. There were multiple people taking orders, they served too fast like a fast food and on top the they didn’t even ask her how the food was. when the bill case, we added 10% tip and got ready to leave. At the door the owner stops us and ask “you only tipped 10%, they expect you to tip 18%”. We asked they either they should include in the bill or put it in the menu and the owner acted smart and said yeah we do include mention in the menu and showed 18% on the menu, we did paid the extra $5 and left. When I looked at the menu it says ” Large parties of 6 or more are subjected to an 18% included gratuity” HOW CHEAP!!!
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July 31st, 2008 at 6:30 am
Worst Customer Service Ever.
I had the same experience with the tips. I went with 4 of my friends for lunch and they shamelessly added 18% gratuity. I just didn’t bother to ask. Next time when I went with my family, I ordered Mango curry with rice for my husband and forgot to tell vegetarian since he is doesn’t eat meat… so, when the food came with chicken and shrimp in the mango curry, i told i’m sorry i forgot to mention, he is a vegetarian… so this lady there almost screams at us and says…. “you said mango curry and not veg mango curry… but its ok this time” in a loud irritating voice… i just felt like leaving the place but didn’t want to spoil my husband’s mood as it was his birthday… then they got us the mango curry and it was the hottest ever. We eat quite hot food and we just couldn’t keep this curry in our mouth. We had also ordered a fried rice which was good but i thought they purposefully made the mango curry hot to take revenge???? the food may be OK there… so it doesn’t mean that they should have such bad customer service… they lost a customer right there… and may be all my other friends too…
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August 27th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Absolutely wonderful service and the best Thai I’ve had in a long time! FYI- Ricky Ly’s closed! Peppermint Thai is true authentic thai food – nothing like the Chinese/American versions that Ricky Ly’s and other Thai-wanna be restaurants dish out. Not only was the food appealing on three recent visits, but the dishes were prepared to resemble the authentic taste of Thailand! Service was fast and excellent!!! I would disregard the other comments if I were you – infact, those comments stopped me from trying the place a couple of months ago and had I of known how good this place was, Ricky Ly’s would have never had my dollars! I’m half-Thai and know good Thai when I see it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!! Prices are affordable and besides the disgruntled customers up there- It’s been a packed house of happy customers every time I’ve visited so far.
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September 24th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I have never had a bad experience at Peppermint Cafe and have never had a dish I didn’t enjoy. The Landerwood String Beans are fantastic; great curry sauce and wonderfully fresh vegetables. Have always had fantastic service and we have always found the place to be crowded regardless of the time of day. I am stunned to read some of these reviews and this has never been my experience and I have never seen/heard it happen to others and I’ve dined there probably once a week since it opened. Always filled with happy (and mostly repeat) diners!!
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October 21st, 2008 at 10:20 am
Nothing wrong with the customer service, I rather say they are very good and a friendly teamwork service. I’d read some restaurant reviews before I went here. I was wasting my time for listening to them. I assumed that they might have a bad day, so could they give a restaurant a bad name. The waiter pays attention to take my orders. I would say if you got something wrong, it because you didn’t know the ingredient or you didn’t read through items on the menu. You’d ordered Mango curry, what you expected the vegetarian one!! In 2008, what do you think?? Most of the customer tips 18-20%, if you want to tip less than that it because of your attitude not cause of all the service things. I’m a fair educated customer; do not give me a bad smell by your cheap. If I get want I want, I will pay what I have to pay. They have an excellent Thai food and very fast and sweet service. There is only one waiter to take you order but after that you can ask every waiter around your table to get something else, in others big restaurant I had to wait my waiter for a long to get my water fill and some more sauce.
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October 27th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[...] Liz was nice enough to share her experience at Peppermint Thai that I had written about previously: We were taken here last month by a local friend who spent some [...]
January 6th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
It was very disturbing to see that someone thinks that the “East Side” isn’t very diverse in its cuisine! Have you been to Paladar, Anatolia, Lopez, Lemon Grass, Sergio’s… I could go on… I think you should do your research before saying the East side is “pathetic”!
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March 18th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Have to agree with B on the East Side, he picked some good ones and I can throw out a few more:
Shuhei – excellent Sushi and Japanese and about as authentic as you will find in the Mid-West.
Rachel’s Caribbean – great little place that serves excellent food.
Richie Chan’s – no atmosphere and a take out place, but the Chinese food is excellent and very true to its roots, check out the large number of Asian students from Case who eat here.
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