Syphay

Syphay Restaurant
6010 104 St
780-438-8338

Located in a sketchy looking building on Calgary Trail, Syphay is a cozy restaurant with food to die for. We decided to go on a Friday night at about 5:30. Having been there before and knowing how busy it can get, I called ahead to see if they would have room for us, and they did! The person on the phone also ended up being our server and she was very friendly, attentive and efficient.

Andrew gave me full control over ordering our meal this evening. I chose the Yum Vermicelli salad with chicken ($13.95), Phanang Curry with beef ($15.95), Pad Thai with chicken ($15.95), along with an order of coconut rice ($3.50).

My platter of food - sorry for the poor quality iPhone pics!

The Yum Vermicelli was yum. This salad was served warm and consisted of vermicelli mixed with pieces of chicken, finely shredded cucumber, carrot, red onion and mint. It was topped with cilantro and peanuts and dressed with a sweet and spicy peanut sauce. I thought the dish was very delightful, and I would describe it as warm, sweet, and spicy. The cucumbers in the salad were quite refreshing and made for a nice, light dish. I found that there was excess sauce in the dish but that was not a problem as I ate it with coconut rice after.

Yum Vermicelli

Next came the rest of our meal. The Phanang Curry and Pad Thai were also both warm, sweet and spicy. In addition, the coconut milk in the curry added much creaminess to the sauce. This dish tasted wonderful with coconut rice. The veggies included in this curry were bell peppers, broccoli and snow peas. The only bad thing I found was that there was too much broccoli in the curry and they were cut into large chunks. Since the place settings did not include knives, it was hard to eat. The coconut milk in the curry, as in many curry dishes, added a lot of richness and so it felt quite heavy as I was eating seconds of the curry.

Phanang Curry

Pad Thai is always one of my favorite Thai dishes. Syphay does there's exceptionally well and had perfect proportions of spicy and sweet in the sauce. The other add-ins (bean sprouts, eggs, carrots, chives, peanuts, and cilantro) were all well-balanced.

Pad Thai

We had a ton of food leftover, but that wasn't a problem as it still tasted delicious the next day! When our server took away our food to pack up, she also asked us if we wanted an order of coconut rice to take home. That's the sign of either efficient upselling or having a good understanding of what customers want. Thai food is something we both enjoy, but we don't seem to eat it often enough. We had a very positive experience at Syphay and we will not hesitate to return.

5/5