Thai 9, Dayton OH

This is Marie, contributing an article about Thai 9. By chance, my work had sent me to Dayton on the eve of Election Day and I had been looking forward to the time after work when I would sit down in front of the TV in the hotel room with snack food and enjoy the spectator sport of politics in a swing state. I anticipated (rightly, as it turned out) that this would closely resemble a trip to a Roman Coliseum.

But before the junk needed to come something reasonably nutritious and hopefully tasty. There are some standards one must maintain even when planning a self indulgent moment. Not knowing how tired I’d be or how late I’d be getting out of work, I had not planned much in advance, which turned out to be fortuitous. Some other guests at my hotel were discussing in the elevator where they would be going to dinner that evening and hearing what they had to say I changed my plans. Thai 9 sounded delightful, and a brief glance over their online menu sealed the deal.

The GPS in my rental car led me to the place by the only route where the nice big parking lot beside the restaurant could be seen, and the old camera steadfastly refused to function, so it was a rather lower-tech and photo-less evening than planned. Which is a shame, as my dinner was actually quite photogenic. It is a pleasant place,set up with several divisions so any eating area only has a few tables and it does not seem too crowded.

Thai 9 celebrated their ninth anniversary this year, according to my server, and when I mentioned that they must be looking forward to a tenth anniversary celebration, he said that nine is actually a lucky number in Thailand and they’d had their anniversary already. We then had a conversation about spiciness, which the server agreed was a difficult recommendation to make. He mentioned however that the peppers were hotter than usual this batch, so I stepped down my usual heat preference one notch and wound up with a highly satisfactory meal of red snapper with yellow curry sauce and vegetables.

Although the meal was delicious, I was missing my family quite a lot by the end of it, to the extent that I’d had to text them a photo of the food with my terrible cell phone camera. Although I’d promised dessert to myself, I was just going to have to deal. Or so I thought, until the server thought up a way for me to bring it back to the hotel room. Although the fried cheesecake with ice cream and chocolate sauce really ought to have been eaten on a proper plate and shared with a teenage girl, it traveled safely to the hotel and was enjoyed tremendously in front of all the combative political ads. This will definitely need to be visited again on my next trip.

Other blog posts about Thai 9:

Wine Me, Dine Me (May 1 2009)
Food vs. Face (Jan. 29 2010)
Dayton Dining (Feb. 21 2010)
The Mighty Rib (June 21 2010)
Foodnatic (Feb. 18 2011)
Another Food Critic (May 16 2012)

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