Return to Aroma Thai

Don't you just love this drive by shot....

which was taken by TC. The last time I was here, it was night time so this time, we could enjoy it during daylight hours...

This particular weekend, we met up  for lunch with Bert's oldest bro (aka my BiL, brother in law). He hadn't been to IB in decades so we treated him for lunch at Aroma Thai...just steps away from the beach and pier. I saw that they had Tod Mun (kinda pricey at $7.95) and wanted to try it having had it recently at Siam Nara.

Our iced coffees were in these tall faceted and footed glasses (very fancy!):

The Tod Mud served with cucumber (and carrot) relish (kind of like a thinned out sweet and sour sauce).  These patties were on the smaller and thinner side. They were also not as "springy" or "bouncy" as the versions we've had at Siam Nara and Supannee House of Thai. This was a bit of a disappointment. Lesson learned.


Bert's Aroma fried rice with cashews and shrimp (they're there, must hidden). This was shared between all of us.

TC's Pad Thai with mock chicken. It even had pieces where it looked like it had fake chicken skin (raised bumps). I thought that was kind of funny but also creepy. If one is going to be vegetarian, why eat fake meat at all?

My Thai bbq chicken which I had during our first visit last year. I forgot that it was boneless but that was good since I didn't have to worry about bones. The chicken was juicy with a flavorful marinade/paste. What would have made this better was sticky rice but I'm trying to cut down on rice.

My BiL's Pad Thai with shrimp (they were a good size and very plump too):

Nothing too earth shattering here. It's good to have a Thai option in IB. They offer a tiny bit more than the run of the mill Americanized Thai places. One of my friends who is half-Thai says this is her go-to Thai place down South.

Previous visits to Aroma Thai:
January 2015 - First visit with Bert
July 2015 when Bert took out TC and her friend to the beach

The folks here are quite friendly. It was nice to sit down and enjoy the restaurant in the daytime. It wasn't that crowded unlike our first visit where we had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard. There's a few new Thai places that popped up north of the 54 (but south of the 8) in National City that I am curious about...I've pretty much gone to every Thai place in the South Bay;  I'll have to do a compendium post one of these days...