Jump to content

Cee, In The Old China Gourmet Space, Fairfax - Chef Tu Nopphon Comes From Crystal Thai - Closed


Recommended Posts

Do you happen to know if the new restaurant will offer delivery?
At the moment, the only thing they're offering is a banner sing over the front of the building. The building looks deserted (if it were a former Dairy Queen would that be desserted?). I didn't see any lights or activity of any kind when we came by on Saturday.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wife and I tried Cee tonight. I'm not a huge Asian fan, but my wife raves about Thai so we gave it a try.

First of all, we ordered Thai Iced Tea. That was possibly the worst thing I've ever tasted. Since I've never had it before, I can't tell you whether it's just that I don't like Thai Iced Tea or that they don't make it well at Cee. Either way, I don't think I can ever even try it again. I can still taste it.

For an appetizer, we had the Jacketed Shrimp. We liked it and it was great to have something to start the all-important process of getting that tea out of my mouth.

We ordered Pad Khing Sod with beef and Pad Thai Shrimp. The Pad Khing Sod was really good. The shrimp were overcooked in the Pad Thai Shrimp.

We arrived at 5 and were the only people there. One other couple arrived around 5:15. We left around 6 and still nobody else had arrived. The place was absolutely dead. I know it was early, but I would expect a few more people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To add one data point: My informant tells me of a conversation with a waiter at Cee. Informant: Didn't you use to work at Tara Thai? Waiter: Yes, but they have American Thai food. Here they have Thai food like in Thailand. (I'm paraphrasing a paraphrase, but that was the gist.)

Tonight was my second visit to CEE, and I duplicated my order from last year. I went to Busara (Tysons Corner) a few weeks ago, a place notorious for a sugary, Americanized version of Thai cooking; CEE was even more so, and not quite as good as Busara. The owner of CEE also owns Crystal Thai in Falls Church, yet another sugary place. One thing about CEE is remarkable, however: the wine list. It has a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, and deserves it - it has surpassed Paya Thai (Tysons Corner) for the best Thai wine program in town, with plenty of drinkable bottles in the $30 range, although this evening I opted for a couple Weihenstephan lagers ($3.95).

I did not like the Roasted Duck in Curry ($15.00), floppy pieces of de-boned duck in a vapidly sweet red curry sauce, made even sweeter by pineapple chunks and coconut milk. This can be a great dish, even at restaurants that tend to do a sugared-down version, but tonight there was as much skin as duck meat, and I mean whole pieces of floppy skin - after awhile the dish became very unappetizing. Steamed Dumplings ($7) were decent, but a Pad Thai Chicken ($11) put the sugar-meter on red alert once again.

Americanized Thai has its place in my life, but not here, not tonight.

Cheers,

Rocks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to agree with Don about the wine list at Cee, it is the main reason why my dad and I go there over any other Asian restaurant in the Fairfax area in which we live. To my dad, drinking wine with dinner is VERY important, so we essentially never will eat out at an Asian restaurant in our area, it is only takeout or delivery, but Cee is the exception.

It has been a few months since I have been there, but I always found the food to be better than the other Americanized Thai places, but, to be honest, I couldn't tell you one thing that I ordered there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tonight was my second visit to CEE, and I duplicated my order from last year. I went to Busara (Tysons Corner) a few weeks ago, a place notorious for a sugary, Americanized version of Thai cooking; CEE was even more so
I had dinner at CEE a couple of weeks ago, and I have to agree. A couple of appetizers (larb and "jacketed shrimp") were actually pretty good, and not sweet. But my god, the red curry was revoltingly sugary. Why do they do this? When I first encountered Thai food in Washington back in the 70s, the restaurants didn't load everything up with sugar. Why do they do it now? Is this really what their customers want?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's too bad.  There are other Thai places that we go to close to our house, but if we ever wanted to eat outside, we often went to Cee (maybe four or five times a year).  Their food and service have always been good and, for a while, their wine list was light years ahead of most suburban Asian restaurants.  The wine list got worse every time I went there, but it was still much better than other competitors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They've been regulars on the Living Social and Groupon lists every week for probably two years, so I had an inkling they were scrambling.

They were not only scrambling; they had been trying to sell. It was delisted on January 21, 2014, so I guess they gave up and tried to rent (the price had been lowered a couple of times, and it still hadn't sold).

post-2-0-39883000-1426954085_thumb.png

Does anyone know what's going on with the location now?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...