saneg thai house

so for round 9, it was off to saneg thai house.   they have two locations, strangely close to one another.  the original is on congress street, in the shadow of maine medical and the other is literally around the corner on st. john street.
seth and i had been urged some time ago to try this place out by our friends, mark and kate.  they had warned us that it could be hit or miss but we decided to try it out anyway.  this was way back before i was an expert on the thai restaurant scene in portland and in general we were very pleased.  the food was good and the service was ... um, entertaining.  
the old thai woman working the front of the house, who ends up to be the sister of the owner, seemed to not have the stamina to walk all the way over to our table so took our order from across the room.  at some point she warmed up quite a bit and decided to tell us in great detail about her mammogram and pap smear.  now this is something i'm pretty used to because once you tell people that you are a nurse practitioner they want to tell you all about their health.  but i didn't tell her i was a nurse practitioner.  it was also quite interesting to watch the numerous people coming in for take out, almost all ordering pad thai, and asking for no radishes.  they were repeatedly told, there are no radishes in the pad thai, but in fact the menu does say their are radishes in the pad thai.
but that was last time.  this time i also felt the food was good, though pretty standard.  at this point i have surrendered myself to average thai food.  the service was also not nearly as entertaining this time around.
for appetizers we got the basic pu pu platter, which was -- you guessed it -- standard, but still tastey with its fried chicken wing, and chicken satay and crispy cups of some sort of ground meat and lots of sweet dipping sauces.  
for entrees we got pad thai (no radishes please) and a duck red curry.  i was pretty pleased with the pad thai.  it was peanuty and light and citrusy (lack of citrus can be a big complaint of my fellow bloggers).  there was plenty of chicken and i think a few shrimp and it really satisfied that rare craving i get for pad thai.
the duck curry was also very good.  it was a rather mild creamy red curry with lots of big chunks of crispy, fatty duck.  there were so many vegetables they were practically spilling out of the bowl.  i especially liked the cherry tomatoes and the grapes, which when hot sort of burst open in your mouth (yeah i know, "that's what she said").  i don't imagine that grapes are especially authentic in thai cuisine, but i really did enjoy them.
in relation to all the standard thai in this town, i think its up towards top of the list.  but as my friend mark said, we may just be hitting it on the right night.  its also quite a deal with the pad thai costing like $6 or $7.  so at this price point and the two good meals we have had so far, i would visit saneg thai house again.