My last week in Boston saw many Last Meals with friends. Cactus Club’s run-of-the-mill Tex-Mex, and Golden Leaf’s surprisingly good Malaysian, were chosen for convenience’s sake. Domani was carefully selected from a list of top contenders that included Sel de la Terre and Petit Robert Bistro (though it failed to live up to critical hype.) Montien, my last Last Meal, was chosen just because I had a craving for Thai food.
We were sitting by an open window, and right in the middle of our meal, yet another torrential downpour started. At least four different waiters and waitresses asked us if we wanted it shut. Wasn’t the rain bothering us? Wasn’t it coming in through the window, landing on our arms? Sure, a little. But the air felt nice, and we were too busy enjoying our meals to care about a few droplets here and there.
Montien shares the same owners as Chilli Duck in the Back Bay, and likewise has a regular menu and something called a Traditional menu. I’ve eaten with a group at Chilli Duck, and for some reason the food at Montien is a lot better, even though the prices are the same.
A great appetizer was the mussel pancake, stir-fried with sprouts, scallions, and egg and served with Srichacha chili sauce. The mussels themselves appear to have been first fried by themselves before being cooked with the other ingredients, which gave an added crunch. The curry turnover dish was the only one we didn’t order from the traditional menu (it was a special). It was pretty good, but didn’t seem much different from vegetable samosas you find in Indian restaurants.
The Moo-Krob, a dish of crispy pork with basil, rhizome, and peppercorns, was served with a medium chili sauce. Poo-Nim-Rad-Prik was a dish of two large soft-shell crab under a sweet chili sauce. Both were ample-sized and very good. My favorite, however, was the roast duck in a what was simply called curry sauce. It was thicker than many of the watered-down curries in Thai restaurants, but still had the same sweet flavor.
After dinner I bid adieu to my two friends, whom I’ve known for 10 years. Wow, I thought, I’m really going to miss Boston. And to think, all this time I’ve been looking for a great authentic sit-down Thai restaurant in Boston proper, and I found it on my very last night.
Montien
63 Stuart St., Theatre District
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