Thai Fighter

Thai Singha House To Go

by Drew Lazor

After carrying the curry torch for close to 20 years near 40th and Chestnut, Thai Singha House opened its second location, a teeny takeout near Rittenhouse, last spring. Though this spot, roughly the size of a high-school locker, offers made-to-order dishes, they're not what cause gaggles of lunch-hour wanderers to queue up on 20th, their backs to Village Whiskey. The grab-and-go mobs assemble thanks to Singha House's steam-table special, offered weekdays from 11 to 3: They serve up a rotating selection of pre-prepared dishes for $6 each, tax included. Helluva deal. But can you really get tasty Thai for less paper than a pack of cigs?

Certainly. On my first visit, I made out like a famished bandit who'd stuck up a Bangkok street cook, dragging out four to-go containers (actually enough to feed more than four people) and a couple of drinks for less than $30. My favorite from this haul was the chicken curry, with a creamy, roundly spicy red curry paste/coconut milk base bathing moist chunks of breast meat, crunchy bamboo shoots, frizzled leaves of Thai basil and slivers of red pepper. A vegetarian dish of crispy tofu sliced into cute polyhedral cubes and a various-veg mélange (carrots, zucchini, cauliflower, snow peas, baby corn, mushrooms) was a light choice, considering many of these eats are packed up on fluffy white rice.

The shrimp pad Thai, with peanuts, bean sprouts and well-done bits of egg, was too sugary for my taste, lacking that buzzy fish-sauce flavor that, for me, makes or breaks the most popular Southeast Asian noodle dish in America. Basil chicken, done up with stir-fried sweet basil, peppers and onions, finely diced garlic and a chili sauce drizzle thick enough to stud each piece of meat, was big on flavor, though some of the spice was hogged by that rice underbed (chalk it up to travel time).

While a second drop-in resulted in one sodium-laden disappointment — a Chinese broccoli/calamari stir-fry — I landed yet another $6 winner: a kickin' chili shrimp, whose mound of surgically julienned bamboo shoots and bell peppers provided a refreshing crunch to a handful of tender tail-on crustaceans. Wash it down with a can of Foco brand Thai tea — the stuff's packed with enough sugar to power a riding mower — and you'll be happy you waited in line.

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)

Thai Singha House to Go | 106 S. 20th St., 215-568-2390. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Sat., 4-9:30 p.m.; closed Sun. Appetizers, $3.50-$5.95; noodle and rice dishes, $6.95-$9.95; chef's specials, $9.95-$13.95; steam-table lunch special (available Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m.), $6. Delivery available 4-9:15 p.m.