A Taste of Thailand in Wheaton

Tucked into a row of low-slung beige brick buildings on University Boulevard sits a hidden gem. Fresh, colorful, juicy, spicy, savory and sweet, Dusit Thai's cuisine will leave you wanting to come back to try more, new and different wonders.

Having heard that people in and around Wheaton were recommending Dusit Thai, two friends and I dropped in on a recent Friday night to check it out for ourselves.

Don't let the folding tables and paper napkins or the busy glow of different colors of neon coming from every corner of the place fool you, Dusit Thai is serious about its food.

Dusit Thai's cuisine consists of beautifully simple plates of delicious food. Only the slightest garnish of carrot strings or sprigs of cilantro are used to add color. When the food is this colorful and this sumptuous, it doesn't need a lot of accoutrements.

After a brief back-and-forth over the menu — who doesn't eat seafood, who likes and doesn't like spicy and yes, let's all agree to ignore the two-page vegetarian menu — my two carnivorous dining companions and I settled on a series of seven dishes, the first four appetizers.

A Thai staple, Tom Yum soup ($3.50) should serve as a barometer for any Thai restaurant's quality. The fragile yet bold lemongrass and herb broth was a happy surprise for some at my table, who got their entire nightly fill of vegetables in a few slurps of broth. The mushrooms, carrots, onions and cilantro were fragrant, fresh and flavorful, and the broth was quickly imbibed, a healthy and fresh start.

Next up, Northern Pork, or Nam Sote ($7.50). Nam Sote consists of ground pork quickly heated to a sizzle, with red onion, cilantro and peanuts in a spicy citrus-ginger dressing. What the Nam Sote lacked in visual appeal — our table was split between elegant simplicity and "I thought it would be slices of pork, not crumbles." — all three diners agreed on its excellent taste and remarked on how good and bright in flavor the dressing was.

I, unabashedly, have a thing for crispy duck. I will not try to hide that, and any restaurant that has a dish that promises even slivers of the wonderfully crispy, sweet and savory stuff, I'm ordering. So twice-cooked duck was a natural. That this duck is disguised as a salad tossed in shrimp paste vinaigrette made me feel like less of a pig for scarfing down the crunchy morsels, as they were accompanied by slices of onion, carrot, cilantro and some crispy vegetables.

Usually, chicken satay (grilled spiced chicken on skewers, $6.50) is tasty but a little dry. But at Dusit, the chicken was juicy, not over-cooked. Still sizzling when it arrived at the table, even the cucumbers and onions in one of its two dipping sauces looked like they had been cut to order for us — crispy and fresh, not looking like they had been sitting in vinegar waiting for the chef to ladle them onto our plate. The peanut sauce was excellent in consistency (runny, but holding together just slightly) and flavorful, with a touch of spice. It's hard for satay to stand out, but this one did.

When trying a new restaurant, I like to ask the servers what they recommend. They know what's fresh and good. With Dusit boasting five different curries (green, red, country, panang and pineapple), I sought guidance. "Panang," I was told. "You like spicy?" Oh yes, make it good and spicy, we said.

Our waitress did not steer us wrong. The panang beef ($10.25) was quite spicy, but even the weakest stomached member of our table, the one who generally says, "N-O," to anything with serious heat, couldn't keep her fork out of the panang. The beef may have been slightly over-cooked, but the curry was superb. Not too much coconut milk. Not too much peanut. Not too much heat. Just right.

Up next, the ubiquitous pad Thai ($10.25): It was served with no fuss or pretension, just some sprouts on the side and a few cilantro sprigs tossed on top. The rice noodles were expertly fried with shrimp, pork (instead of the usual chicken) and some more excellent peanut sauce. Not a bite was left behind.

For a closer, we went whole hog, er, fish: crispy whole flounder topped with spicy tamarind chili and garlic sauce (market price, $31 at this visit), as if we hadn't made fat gluttons of ourselves yet.

A good test of the quality of ingredients, ordering a whole fish can give you insight into just what is going on in the kitchen. Does it smell good? Check. Does the fish look like it was healthy? From the size of the behemoth that landed on our table, and the giant hunks of flaky, yet moist and tender flesh, this fish screamed, "Oh, yes!"

At other places where I've ordered the fried whole flounder, I've usually been left with thin bits of fish fillet, picking out the meat morsels from the fish itself. Not here. Huge strips of fish came right off, covered in the sweet and spicy sauce. The sauce, while pungent, did not overpower the fish, leaving us trying to eat as much of the fish as we could. 

Every person in our party enjoyed each dish we ordered. That almost never happens, and it speaks volumes about the quality and taste of Dusit Thai's dishes. A table for two could reasonably eat for around $30. We'll certainly be back, and next time, we'll bring more people to help with the flounder.