From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published May 2, 2007 #46 Equator 2$ Metairie: 2920 Severn Ave. 888-4772 Lunch Mon.-Fri. Dinner seven nights. AE, DC, DS, MC, V. Thai. Most of the Thai restaurants around New Orleans--even the very good ones--have interchangeable menus. Equator breaks out, at least a bit. About a quarter of its dishes (and about half the dish names) are unique to that restaurant. Which makes the place interesting, even after you discover that there are no major departures from the standard Thai flavor palette. The restaurant has a cool, sophisticated look, with dark colors and big windows. In some ways, it almost feels like a bar. The menu provides about three minutes of interesting reading, in which you'll find some intriguing names ("Karee pup," "Beef lava," "Savage fish," and "Something in the jungle" are my favorites). The plates these represent are as offbeat as the names. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that they're better than the standard Thai dishes, which is a little disappointing. For example, the karee pup is a chicken-and-potato-stuffed wonton that reminds me a bit of an Indian samosa. Interesting, but not as good as the standard fried rolls. On the other hand, the chicken dumplings (pot stickers) are peppery and moist. The steamed pork or shrimp shumai are made Japanese style, and pretty well at that. Good soups: Thai shrimp and lemongrass soup and chicken and coconut milk soup with galangal and mushrooms are the classics, and here's something called woon zen soup--glass noodles and crabstick in a clear broth. That's very mild, almost Japanese. Speaking of woon zen (probably for the last time today), an entree called pad woon zen is a very interesting variation on the universal Thai noodle dish, pad Thai. It's made with mushrooms and yellow squash, and isn't as spicy as pad Thai. But that's good too--especially a variant called pad thai supreme: same general idea (rice noodles, peanuts, green onions, sprouts, red pepper) but with more shrimp, scallops, and a fried soft shell crab. That's the most adventuresome and best dish on the menu. The aforementioned "Something in the jungle" is the finest work at the very high pepper levels for which Thai cooking is celebrated. It's a stir-fry of chicken (or beef, if you prefer) with eggplant and bamboo shoots. The sauce is hot to the threshold of pain (something about which the menu warns you in no uncertain terms), but a little sweet, too. That, paired with the faint fruity flavor of bamboo shoots, makes this fascinating dish. On the other hand, two other originals with odd neames--Beef lava and Savage fish--make less on impression. (The fish is made with tilapia, whose flavor is as far from savage as it could be. My test dish for Thai restaurants, the green curry with chicken and eggplant--was not as good as many others I've had around town. That aside, the familiar Thai curries (which, I feel I need to add every time they come up, are very different from Indian curries) are generally good, with first-class ingredients and decent sauces. Service is as bright as the premises are dark. Prices are in line with those of other Thai restaurants around town. Equator has many regular customers who wax very enthusiastic about the food, which is indeed distinctive. This was a restaurant in the 2007 Top Sixty Ethnic Restaurant Countdown. To view the entire list, click here. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.