OnTheTable: Digital Ordering, Soup 'n a Couch

NARAI SIAM CUISINE
Rating: 3.5/5
120 E. Cheyenne Mtn Blvd
www.narai-thai.com
(719) 434-1975
Hours: Sun: closed; Mon-Fri: lunch 11am-2:30pm, dinner 5pm-9pm; Sat: 5pm-9pm
Entrée Prices: Three Courses: $37; Five Courses: $43; Two Wine Pairings: $16; Three Wine Pairings: $11.49-$21.99
What you need to know: Convenient take-out ordering with offerings of big winners and big losers

There are bustling metropolises with dense populations resulting in restaurant competition so fierce that it necessitates clever innovations in dining convenience. These are lands of eateries where survival of the fittest is a harsh reality. And while such biting capitalism may weigh upon the entrepreneurial restauranteur, it greatly benefits consumers, and almost always results in better food and service.

Weary nights often find one desiring nothing more than spicy, Asian food delivered to the front door—preferably in under thirty minutes. This desire for convenience can easily be empathized with. It’s a subset of the human condition, perhaps even primordial, that appears to have found its zenith in smartphone applications where one can peck out a delivery order on the touchscreen, summit payment via pre-recorded info, and then insouciantly await delivery as Netflix flickers to life on the big screen.

Short of a few pizza franchises, this supreme simplicity of meal ordering has yet to take hold in towns such as Colorado Springs—towns without Manhattan-like population densities. Yet there are local eateries which have taken steps in this consumer-coddling direction.

NaRai Siam offers an elegant dining room for anyone interested in not watching reruns of Seinfeld while enjoying dinner on the couch. Yet, if sitcom couch dining is your idea of a Monday night, NaRai Siam also offers online, take-out ordering. Perhaps not the full-blown luxury of big city convenience—you do have to leave the couch to retrieve the food—but it results in some excellent (and not-so-excellent) Thai for minimal effort.

A Monday night, online order required only thirty minutes of wait time, with culinary results ranging from, “Will the dog finish this?” to, “You must try this!”

While the spring rolls ($5.49) were anemic, chewy and dry, the tom kha gai soup (cup, $6.29) was the most brilliant iteration we’ve experienced outside of Bangkok: deeply creamy and rich, enticing with a subtle coconut sweetness, and an addictive heat. If you are fearless, try the “Thai hot”; if you are allergic to heat, go for the “no spice” (or maybe stick to Italian).
The Panang curry ($11.99) was robust and creamy with chicken pieces pounded-flat; a type so favored in Asian-American cuisine. Nonetheless it was tender and plentiful, as were the vegetables. Extra basil comes at no additional cost and is recommended.
The Singapore noodle dish ($11.99) may be outside the traditional wheelhouse of Thai eateries, and a critique may be leveled that the noodles were overly sautéed, thus resulting in a somewhat under-sauced chewiness. However, with its pile of wide, rice noodles powdered in curry, generous and tender beef strips, flecks of chili seeds and remnants of scrambled egg, the tremendously large dish was a satisfying semblance of flavors, and easily sharable.

NaRai Siam may not deliver to your front door. Their menu items may not all deserve praise. Nevertheless, NaRai Siam is doing something right, even if it’s only a Monday night bowl of soup enjoyed on the couch. 

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