My friend Karen is vegan, so I had to be sure to find a restaurant where she could get something good to eat. We settled on Tara Thai, since none of us had been there before, and we all love Thai food. It's right on Route 1 in Hyattsville, MD, right down the street from DeMatha HS.
Back in college we drove past this area a million times on our way down to the bars in DC, but there was never anything much to make us stop in this area. Well that has definitely changed. It's now called Arts District Hyattsville, a $200 million mixed-use revitalization development area. There's really nice apartments, shops, restaurants, and DeMatha has expanded and created a gorgeous new entrance to the school.
Even though it was a Friday night and there are only about 20 tables in the restaurant we only had to wait a few minutes to be seated. My dad and I shared an order of calamari. It was good but it was battered, and I'm a much bigger fan of breaded. But the sauce was good, and it was cooked perfectly. Mom and Karen each got soup, which they both said was really delicious.
For dinner I went with the pork pad thai
It was really delicious! It was a lot of food, but I was super hungry and cleaned my plate anyway. I was expecting whole peanuts, but then I realized that I didn't read the menu properly because it clearly says crushed. I thought it was interesting that they had 2 kinds of pork in the dish, but as weird as it sounds they had different flavors. The "regular" pork tasted like you would expect from a pork chop, and then the smaller pieces were cured I think, kind of like bacon. The only thing I would change next time would be to ask them to make it spicier. I usually do that with Asian food, but forgot this time and I think it would have made the dish even better.
Will I go back? Yes! As a matter of fact I want to go back and try a couple of the other restaurants in the district.
