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We Lower the Boom on Zoom
By Michael Anderson and Anthony Lowenberg
There comes a time in most peoples’ lives when they have to leave their comfort zones and venture out into the big, wide, unknown world. We are not those people. 972 is scary. What’s past the Galleria? North Dakota, probably, but who knows these things? Well, we may live and review restaurants in 90214, but we decided, in the interest of serving our faithful readers toiling out there in the Great Plains with the tatonka, it was time to travel further than we had ever traveled before in our never-ending search for good food. It was time to travel beyond LBJ, to the land where dragons roam the Earth and a post-apocalyptic (pre-Apocalypto) Mel Gibson fights against crazy guys with eye make-up, a Mohawk and shoulder pads. You know, near Willow Bend. Road trip!
For our first incredible journey outside of the Loop, we gassed up the Reviewermobile and headed to Zoom. Clearly, the owners of Zoom realize that it may be out of the way for many of its patrons since they explain the rationale for its name on its website as depending on where you are, you can zoom in/zoom out to see them, which is actually true since it’s right off of the North Dallas Parkway on the Frankford Road exit. The cuisine, as you could not guess from the name, is Vietnamese and Thai. What’s the difference, you say? Well, Thai food tends to be spicier and utilizes more peanuts and lemon grass, while Vietnamese food is a reminder of the limits of America’s ability to project its power globally that will never, ever be repeated again in our lifetime.
One way to describe Zoom’s d?cor is eye-catching; another way would be to say it is like what you would see if you mixed pastel crayons and crack. The restaurant is so brightly colored that it can keep a small child hypnotized for a whole five minutes more than he normally would be before going back to banging his spoon on the table (true story). The service was fairly languid, just when we started to get a little edgy they would bring our food out – it was almost like they could read our minds. Maybe the bright colors allow them to read our auras or something.
The food, while more creative than other Thai and Vietnamese places we’ve tried, didn’t always live up to its creative aspirations, but in certain instances it was truly inspired. We started off with the Zoom Appetizer Plate ($7.50), which was disappointingly small for its price. It came with one chicken satay skewer, one shrimp on a sugar cane, two fried shrimp wontons, four small pieces of beef wrapped in La-Lot leaves and four sauces (Yep, we just got all that from the web site). The leaf-wrapped beef had an interesting, bitter taste, but the other appetizers and the sauces that came with them were fairly bland. All right, we’ll say it, “Thanks La-Lot!” We also tried the vegetarian deep-fried wontons ($4.50), which were crispy but seemed to lack in the vegetable department.
As for the entrees, the beef panang ($11.50), a Thai curry staple, was creamier than we prefer but otherwise very tasty. The Pad Kee Mow ($9.50) was a bit on the bland side, and even though it was ordered mild, came out fairly spicy (the heat from the spice did not mask the blandness of the dish). The Beef Sukiyaki ($11.95) was disappointing as well. The few clear noodles soaked up the tasty sukiyaki sauce nicely, but the sliced beef and vegetables that rounded out the dish were, again, on the bland side of things. However, the red curry duck with lychee fruit in a clay pot ($12.50) was a nice mixture of crispy duck, creamy curry, spices and sweet lychee fruit all combined together pleasingly in one dish. The menu is so large that we figure you could eventually find another winner besides the duck; or, it could be a case of too many dishes for the kitchen to handle. After one visit, we figure the latter.
So, having Zoomed safely back to our cozy neck of the woods, on our road rambling five gavel scaleTM, where five gavels is Easy Rider and one gavel is Euro Trip, we reluctantly give Zoom two and three-quarters gavels or Joy Ride – it starts out like a fun road trip but ends up with a psychotic trucker and Leelee Sobieski. And stay tuned, kids, ‘cause next month is our year-end spectacular featuring the Second Annual Golden Gavel AwardsTM. It’ll be award-tastic!!
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