So here I was faced with the problem once again. Hiding down the list is this raw shrimp salad at Ayada, which is a new favorite Thai restaurant in the eclectic neighborhood of Elmhurst. Why couldn’t they have given us pad thai or panang curry?
As hesitant as I was when the gray slimy raw shrimp arrived, I was also very excited. I love these opportunities to try unusual and slightly scary dishes. I learned this is not a Thai dish at all, but rather a Japanese dish that the chefs of Ayada discovered while cooking in Japan.
I was amazed at how spicy the dish was. Any bacteria that might have been lurking there must have been killed by the intense raw garlic, chili sauce, and lime juice. The bacteria wasn’t the only thing killed – you should have smelled my breath.
It cracks me up that every single salad on the menu had a pepper next to it indicating spicy. Spicy salads don’t make sense in American cuisine. Salads are supposed to be cold and refreshing. But this isn’t a Thai restaurant for the American palate.
I enjoyed the textures and flavors, even though the heat really made it difficult to finish. I think the rush of the experience was more pleasurable than the actual flavor. The shrimp itself was briny but rather bland and it was also gussied up by all the intense flavors. Did I mention it was spicy? It was a unique experience that left my taste buds crying for a bit – in a good way. The other Thai dishes we ordered were a bit less adventurous (steamed dumplings and drunken noodles), but quite delicious and flavorful. Call me a weak American, but after all the heat, I needed a good old caesar salad or something to cool me down.
Would Ayada’s raw shrimp salad make my Top 100 of the year? It was more fun than pleasing to eat this unique dish. It gets a 6 out of 10
