Thai-Lao Restaurant

Our hunt for a Thai restaurant on a Monday night in Horry County, SC led us to Thai-Lao Restaurant. The understated nature of the outside of this small restaurant made us choose this restaurant (over the other, fancier Thai restaurant right next door). Thai-Lao delivered both on taste and customer service. The feel of this restaurant is that you've been invited into someone's home for a meal and on a rainy night, that's exactly the mood we wanted. The food was served with pride and love. We split the perfectly fried tofu appetizer (gluten free - no flour) which is served with duck sauce and crushed peanuts. There are spicy condiments and extra peanuts on the side. I had the green curry with chicken and was so excited I forgot to take a picture. My favorite Thai dish is green curry, and Thai-Lao's is a lovely balance of cream and spice with perfectly cooked fresh vegetables and mushrooms. My dinner companion had the stir fried vegetables with beef, which also did not disappoint. Both were served with rice. We had the fried bananas and ice cream for dessert. The bananas are wrapped in a bean paper and then fried, delicious and also gluten free! I remembered to take a picture half way through...

I have a gluten allergy and rely on reviews when traveling. We tried calling in an order, but couldn’t get through so we went in to place a pickup order. I’m glad we did because this was the best Thai food I’ve had in years. The spiciness scale was 1-5. I ordered the yellow curry with tofu (level 3 medium) and it was the perfect medium spice. We also ordered a large shrimp tom yum soup (level 4 spicy) which was perfectly balanced for sweet, spicy, sour, salty. My husband got the beef pad Thai and said it was the best he’d ever had.