I would typically avoid a restaurant that foregoes air conditioning in 90-degree weather and where a bottle of bug spray comes standard with your table. And I'd usually be a bit suspect of a place which, at a time when every hole-in-the -wall deli has an interactive website with menus, twitter and RSS feeds, has zero internet presence at all save a bundle of positive reviews. So I'm glad I knew none of these things when I showed up at Panita Thai Kitchen in the VA Highlands for my friend Sara's birthday.
Walking through the vine-covered walkway into Panita was unbelievable - I've never been to Thailand so I have no idea how authentic it was, but if I had a sweet Asian grandmother with a knack for hoarding collectibles and plants, this is how I imagine she'd decorate her home. It strangely reminded of the place where the Caribbean witch-woman in Pirates of the Caribbean lived. Nerd alert. Anyway, there were Buddhas, flowers, statues, pictures all over the place. It was a sweltering night, so our group of six decided to sit outside, fully equipped with a can of OFF. It was still pretty sweaty, but the guy filling our water glasses was a champ, so the heat was bearable.
Onto the food...I love Thai food and have been to a good few of Atlanta's Thai restaurants over the past few years, but I've yet to master their long and embarassingly unprounceable (ok I know that's not a word) menus. Usually my ordering strategy consists of closing my eyes and pointing my finger, hoping for the best. I was glad when four of us decided to order a few dishes together to share. Since there's no menu online, I won't even try to spell what these were, but they were all delicious. I especially loved the center dish pictured below, which was a spicy eggplant concoction of some sort. The pad thai tofu was good, much more authentic and tasty than your Doc Chey's counterpart, but still pretty tame. The vegetable curry (top picture and again, no clue about it's real name) was absolutely wonderful, with a really strong flavor and a little kick to it. Check out their creative plating and presentation:
Yes, that's a foil swan. Such a unique, tasty hidden gem in the middle of the Highlands, a must-see for Thai food lovers or for those who love foil animals.
