Charm Modern Thai has its allures, but this shiny Yaletown amulet doesn't do much to tinkle my taste buds.
Launched last winter, the 60-seat resto-lounge took the baroque shell of the short-lived Flite Restaurant (previously Lucky Diner, and Diner before that) and vamped it into the sexy silhouette of an Indochinese boudoir. Ornate chandeliers and giant gilded mirrors inherited from the previous owner now nuzzle up to ruby red walls and plush banquettes that are partitioned into secluded nooks by tall bamboo screens.
Draped in a soft gauzy glow and hypnotic down-tempo soundscape, Charm feels like it could very easily set the mood for an enchanting first date. Just beware of what you're drinking: A lasciviously slurped patpong or soi cowboy, two of the bar's many red-light-district inspired “dirty martinis,” may break the spell in a flash.
Uncouthly named cocktails aside, Charm is a decidedly sophisticated departure for the Thai House group, which counts the blazingly garish Chilli House Thai Bistro and wondrously kitschy, sword-wielding Samba Brazilian Steak House among its collection of Vancouver restaurants.
Yet when it comes to achieving the graceful balance of sweet, hot, sour and salty seasoning that lies at the heart of Thai cuisine, the kitchen stumbles. Or perhaps it's not even trying.
“Classic Thai food has always been too boring for me,” executive chef Tipnari Kulriwanich has said to the media, explaining such unconventional menu items as Thai-style ahi tuna sashimi and green-curry-marinated cheeseburgers. Yes, cheeseburgers.
Although she's reluctant to call it fusion (why, I'm not sure), her food seems to fall into the same trap as so many other globetrotting confusions that have given the F word a bad rap: a lack of grounding in the basics before soaring off into flights of fancy.
Take the Tom Kha lobster bisque ($9), for instance. It isn't the unusual combination of lemongrass and coconut cream that turns me off this Thai-imbued twist on the French stalwart. Heck, I can barely taste those ingredients through the soup's funky dragnet of fermented fish sauce. Help, this dish needs to be resuscitated with a revitalizing squeeze of lime.
Duck sticks ($9) suffer from a similar insouciance to the defining role of texture in traditional Thai cooking. The rich confit filler, flecked with finely sliced carrots and cilantro, would make a luscious companion to a shatteringly crisp spring roll wrapper. But here, it's buried in a doughy, deep-fried sponge that reminds me of corn dogs.
Even the more typical Thai dishes lack a delicate hand. Northeast Thai-style beef salad ($12) is a merely passable rendition of this deceptively simple take on hot-and-sour flank steak. Charm's tartly mouth-puckering version certainly doesn't stint on the chilis, but it needs a little more sugar to mellow the burn. Perhaps that's because the salad is tossed with thickly sliced red onion in place of shallots, which are sweeter.
When we ask our waitress, a delightfully attentive young Thai woman, about some of the more authentic dishes, she's at a loss for suggestions. There's nothing on the menu that you would find in Thailand, she explains.
She isn't overly enthusiastic about the Thai-style three flavoured fish ($17) and I can understand why. Rather than marinating a fillet in a subtly seasoned robe distinctly ringed with hot, sour and sweet notes, Charm dumps deep-fried chunks of white fish over a goopy sweet sauce that tastes like something you might find in a bad Cantonese food court stall. It has the caramelized colouring and molasses flavour of oyster sauce and the sticky consistency of cornstarch thickening.
The waitress is much more quick to recommend the Thai pappardelle ($15), but in this case, I honestly don't see why the dish is allegedly so popular.
The boneless beef short ribs become meltingly tender when slowly cooked in a creamy coconut red curry sauce. And the al dente slices of zucchini and red pepper add a nice countervailing crunch. But the strongly licorice-scented flavour of holy basil, combined with overcooked durum semolina pasta, just take this bizarre concoction a couple of creative steps too far. I much prefer the curry soaked into a bowl of jasmine rice that we order on the side, but I suppose that defeats the whole point.
Ms. Kulriwanich was born in Chiang Mai and grew up in Australia, where she ran a Thai restaurant in Sydney. She cooked in Thai restaurants from the Japan to the United States before moving three years ago to Vancouver, where she studied at the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver and recently headed the O Thai restaurant on West Broadway.
You would think that she knows her way around a Thai kitchen and could parlay it into something more interesting.
But this food just feels somehow aggressively insubordinate.
That said, Charm Modern Thai has lasted longer than most of its predecessors in this ill-fated location. So maybe it has a lucky talisman on its side.
Charm Modern Thai: 1269 Hamilton St.; 604-688-9339
