“Real Thai food: no kidding.”

That’s the introductory phrase on the Thai Curry Simple website. Leading off the menu? “No fish sauce.”

Come again?

Let us get this straight: a restaurant that builds its reputation around the notion of real Thai food, then advertises that its disdain for the defining flavor element of Thai cuisine is so intense that it refuses to use it—ever.

There is the occasional appearance of an interesting Chinese-Thai dish on the special menu, like roast pork with egg or fish-ball noodles or khao man gai (steamed chicken) that bears some decent resemblance to Bangkok street food...but read that menu, and you might start to think that Thai Curry Simple does harbor some desire to make authentic Thai food. But then you notice that the garlic-black bean dipping sauce is more Chinese-American than anything else. Milk teas, tapioca pearls...wait a minute...is this place even Thai?

Move away from that label, and consider this as Seattle pan-Asian-American food, and then you start to get it more; it’s actually, in fact, a cute coffeehouse of sorts. It’s also a grocery store, and a dessert and breakfast place—Seattle through and through. Breakfast consists of sweet roti—pan-fried flatbread topped with condensed milk and banana, chocolate, or eggs.

Yes, there may be certain curries that come “Thai spicy” if you ask, and hot sauce made with “bird’s eye chili.” But our bird’s-eye view of Thai Curry Simple: it’s simply not Thai.