This is our second visit, and I'm fairly glad I waited for the second go-round. Our first visit was downright phenomenal. We were ravenous and went for appetizers of spring rolls and roasted quail. There wasn't a whole lot of meat on the quail, but with the salt, pepper, and lemon, plus its crispy exterior and succulent interior, it was divine.

We had two entrees that were wonderful mixes of meat and veg, but I can't recall their names any more than the names of our servers. The real cake-taker from that first visit, though, was the Salted Squid. The squid itself somehow tasted fresher than any we've had out here, and the light breading was full of savory, umame, picante, and just a hint of sweet. We wept with delight eating it, even though we actually made it take-out and ate it cold the next morning.

The real joy of that first visit, though, was the older lady who served us. I'm rubbish at remembering names, which in this case is a real tragedy, since her warmth, good humor, and readiness to answer our questions took the visit from good to astounding.

Fast-forward to today's visit, and the young man who was our server. Again, I'm absolute rubbish at remembering names for good or ill, but it was not the same experience at all. We ordered a Shrimp (Thai Style) Fire Pot and the Salted Squid this time. The soup that came out on the fire pot had maybe 4 shrimp total, and a bunch of onions, some assorted seafood (fake crab, 2 mussels, and a handful of squid pieces), some tomato bits, a few mushrooms, and chunks of some of the most astringent ginger I've had the pleasure to bite into. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to bite into the ginger since it was downright woody. The broth was delightfully picante, but also fairly sweet, though Raz couldn't enjoy it due to the hefty clump of Cilantro that did not lend itself to my attempts to gather it all, and therefore found its way into every bite. I enjoyed the soup, even if I'm still convinced that it wasn't what I ordered, so I'm not about to review them super harshly for bringing me good food that didn't kill me...

The Salted Squid tasted every bit as glorious as the first time, but the portion seemed much smaller than we remember. For the inconsistency in the visit, we definitely could not award 5 stars, but since the food is actually pretty amazing even when it's wrong, I'm still giving 4.