A Restaurant Review of River Kwai in Totowa, NJ

River Kwai, located in Totowa NJ, is a Thai restaurant that offers an extremely wide selection of cuisine from soup to nuts. With a warmly lit environment and Thai memorabilia decorating the walls, this restaurant has a small and cozy setting, which is perfect for comfort dining.

Over the course of our meal, we, being me and my family, savored the following dishes: Ped Gaprow (crispy roast duck topped with spicy Thai sauce and Thai basil), Tom Yum Goong (hot and sour shrimp soup with lemon grass, mushrooms, and lime juice), Pad Thai (Fried noodles with shrimp, egg, tofu, turnips, and green onion with ground peanuts and bean sprouts), and Gang Panang (beef drenched in Panang curry with string beans, lime leaves, and coconut milk).

Overall, the Pad Thai was a delectable dish that had a perfect combination of firm texture (thanks to the bean sprouts, nuts, and noodles) and savory taste. The Gang Panang, being the only curry dish on our order, was fairly rich and, though not overwhelmingly spicy, had a wonderful curry taste that worked well with the strong coconut flavor that lingered from the beginning to the end of each mouthful. This dish, which has a very "clingy" aftertaste, goes especially well in combination with rice (which comes either in white or brown depending on your preference).

But out of all the dishes, the Ped Gaprow was a true winner, with its juicy morsels of perfectly seasoned duck meat that were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Out of all the dishes in the meal, this one truly impressed me. However, the Tom Yun Goong, which was the hot and sour soup, was overly sour for my taste and, unless you're a humongous fan of lemons, the sour Thai soups would not be the way to go for you.

After the meal, we enjoyed a dessert of fresh mango with sticky rice, which was an interesting combination of salty-sweet rice with a chewy texture and fresh mango slices that were deliciously fruity and soft on the teeth. Please note, this exotic dish might not be to everyone's liking, so for those of you who want to play it safe, in terms of dessert, the choice of ice cream on the menu never fails.

Overall, the prices of most of the dishes for the dinner serving was about $9, while some of the more elegant ones, such as those containing duck and seafood, go up to around $16, which still isn't bad.

One major thing that I would like to note, before presenting a run down on the merits and flaws of this restaurant is that, on a second visit to River Kwai (not too long after the first one), the food quality did change slightly for the worse and one could easily notice it. Though this is a factor in every restaurant as the cook is not always the same in every visit, but the difference here was so apparent that it was hard to ignore.

So, from all this, the following can be summarized:

Pros:

- Very tasty dishes that come in satisfying portions.

- Affordable pricing for the majority of the dishes.

- A wide selection of dishes that is not often found in many restaurants.

Cons:

- The hot and sour soups may be a little too sour for most people's taste.

- A few of the cuisines may require an acquired taste.

- Flavor and texture of dishes may vary noticeably from visit to visit.

Overall Rating: three and a half out of five stars.

In retrospect, River Kwai is definitely one of those restaurants to visit time and time again to sample all of the unique cuisines that it has to offer. Personally, despite the drawback of food quality change on the second visit, I definitely wouldn't mind visiting it again--because even though this bonfire doesn't burn brightly in every lighting, it still burns quite well.

River Kwai is located on Totowa Plaza, 400 Minnisink Road, Totowa, NJ 07512.