Naree Thai, a cheap restaurant in Stavanger

Date of the meal: 13/05/2012
Number of people: 2 adults and 1 child (2 yo)
Order (number in parenthesis is the number in the menu): Chicken soup with lemon and chili (21), Fried chicken with cashew nut - lunch portion (450), Fried chicken with ginger - dinner portion (58), Beef fried rice thai style from the children menu (920)
Total price: 372 NOK (about 80 nok for a lunch meal, 140 for a dinner meal)

I was introduced to this restaurant by a Tunisian friend. He told me this was his favorite restaurant in Stavanger and I have to admit that Naree Thai is a good option, especially for people on budget.

The principle of this restaurant is to propose meals in two ways: the lunch portion for people who are not too hungry and the dinner portion more expensive but more voluminous. It is in my opinion a very good idea as it reduces the food waste and makes prices attractive if you are not too hungry. 2 comments about lunch/dinner. First, to avoid any confusion for people speaking abit of German, Latin or whatever language close to Norwegian. Dinner in Norwegian is "middag". This may be confusing for people thinking "mid-dag = mid-day = meal in the middle of the day = lunch" but that's the way it is. So "Lunsj" (pronounced the same way as in English) is lunch, and "middag" (pronounced as it is written) is dinner. The second comment is that normally, the restaurant only offers lunch potion for lunch (ie until 18 o'clock form Monday to Saturday and not available on Sunday) BUT my experience has shown me that they are flexible (could see many people order lunch even outside lunch time).

What I particularly like in this restaurant are the soups. Thai soups have incredible rich flavours and aromas due to the many ingredients used to make them. Notice that not all these ingredients are eatable (some roots, leaves or vegetables are too hard to be eaten). But again, these ingredients (even though not eatable) are essential to give the soups a good taste. Today, I went for the "Chicken soup with lemon and chili". For soups too, you have the choice between small and large portion. I would recommend the small portion if you are having it as a starter and large portion if you have it as a main or want to share it (1 large portion should be enough for 2 maybe even 3 people). This soup is really nice. Lots of flavour, a hint of lemon, a bit of chili, ... It was just a little bit spicy and I think most people could handle this level of spice.

My wife had the "Fried chicken with cashew nut", in lunch portion. She likes this dish and has it quite often. I am generally not a big fan of nuts in meals but I have to admit that in this dish, the cashew nuts fit pretty well with the sauce. Today, the dish was a bit more spicy than usual and for people not used to hot dishes, or who cannot eat spicy food, it would have been a bit too spicy (still I would not say it was impossible to eat).

I went for the "Fried chicken with ginger" in dinner portion (as you can see in the pictures, the dinner portion is more voluminous than the lunch portion). This dish was said to be a bit spicy on the menu and it was. The meat, the onions and the sauce was just a tiny bit spicy but the ginger bits were quite spicy. If you don't like spicy food, you would still have been able to eat it by just leaving the ginger. Other than that this dish was pretty good but not exceptional.
We ordered fried rice for our son. It was quite good and the portion was in my opinion just what we needed (not too much to avoid wasting food, and not too little so that my son had enough to eat).

All in all, I think Naree Thai is a very good option for people on budget. For low prices, you will be able to eat pretty good food, especially when it comes to soups. If you don't like or cannot eat spicy food, you should precise it when you order your meals.
Here is the link to the restaurant: http://www.nareethairestaurant.no/ and here is the google map of it: http://maps.google.no/maps?q=naree+thai+stavanger

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