May Restaurant

On Monday night a few local bloggers (IHeartBacon; Orangette; Gluten Free Girl) got together to catch up on what was going on both inside and outside our blogging worlds.

We met at May Restaurant in Wallingford, a place that has been on my list of places to check out for quite some time.   The building is very exotic and on it’s own can transport you to another place and time.  And then there’s the food!  Lovely, lovely food. 

I arrived just at the tail end of Happy Hour (I’ll be going back to specifically check it out at a future date…) and sat at the bar.  The place was almost completely empty, although it was a Monday night.  I asked the bartender about a couple of the drinks – you know me; I don’t want anything too sweet!  She volunteered that she could make any drink to order.  So I requested the Melon Cosmo and asked for a "non-sweet’ version.  She did a great job!  The drink had the flavor of melon but the tartness of citrus.  Lovely!

I’m not going to go into tons of detail here.  At these dinners we try not to be obnoxious bloggers with each other so, while I took a couple photos, mostly I just enjoyed the food and the camaraderie.  I will give you a bit of an idea of what you can expect, however. 

Once the crew arrived we took the stairs up to the dining area.  We decided to share everything and started with the Papaya Salad.  It didn’t really seem to match the menu description, but who cared?  It was light and luscious.  The shredded papaya was arranged on one side of the plate, white rice on the other side.  We served ourselves a bit of each and enjoyed the resulting mix of taste and texture. 

Next up was Pud Gramao Sumui.  The scallops were especially perfect in this dish but it was all wonderful.  A mix of scallops, shrimp and calamari all topped with a Holy basil sauce – put this with a little rice and you have the makings of one very fine meal. 

 We also ordered Pad Thai as several of us mentioned that this is the one dish by which we judge Thai restaurants.  Well, this one passed the test with flying colors.  First, the dish arrived as you see it to the left. Our server then removed the banana leaf and proceeded to assemble it at the table, according to our tastes (which was basically, yes, we’ll take everything and 3 stars, please!") 

I don’t remember the name of the reddish item in the photo but our server told us that to relieve the burn from the heat of the chili we should eat one of the inner leaves.  None of us felt the need to relieve the burn but at the end of the meal we decided to try this new item.  While the taste was okay, even interesting, as you chewed the leaf the texture suddenly changed and left your mouth feeling really chalky, earthy.  None of us particularly cared for that part of the experience but it was interesting. 

To finish off the meal there was an order of Lychee Sherbet, which tasted much more of citrus than lychee and so even those who normally don’t care for lychee liked it! :-) 

This place was really great and I would like all of you in Seattle to go check it out – I’m worried that if business doesn’t pick up they won’t last and that would be a real shame!  So go check it out this week – and then go back next week!  :-)  I’m sure you’ll see me there – or any of a number of other local bloggers, too!

May Restaurant
1612 North 45th St
Wallingford
206.675.0037
Happy Hour: 5pm – 7:00pm & 11:00pm – 1:00am