Thai Delights: Get Delighted Here
205 Mountain Drive, Destin, 650-3945
Open M-Fri 11am to 10pm,


By Bruce Collier February 8, 2007 Issue

Thai Delights is a prime example of an excellent Thai restaurant, one that works equally well for lunch or dinner, dine-in or takeout. Located just off of a very busy stretch of Hwy 98 in the heart of “old Destin,” the restaurant is ideally located to serve as a lunch spot for the many nearby businesses, and also as a stop-off for takeout on the way home from work. It has literally been years since the first review of this restaurant, early in the days of this publication, so a return trip to check on continued quality was in order.

We ate at Thai Delights on a chilly weeknight – of which there have been many of late — and at first were about the only people there. By the time we left, the kitchen had fed and sent off a small crowd of regulars, both couples and families, including some takeout business. Everyone seemed to be a return customer, happy to be back for more.

The restaurant is quiet, fairly spacious for its location, and tastefully furnished with comfortable chairs, table linen, and glassware. Wine and beer are available, as well as the rich and luxurious Thai coffee, which could pass as a dessert. The walls sport mirrors and assorted pretty decorations. It’s a good spot for an intimate dinner.

The menu offers appetizers, “house” appetizers, soups, salads, noodles, fried rice, stir-fried specials, seafood and “turf delights.” Thai custom is to order a little of everything serve it once, and share. One can do this, or order in courses. The kitchen and staff are all very accommodating.

We ordered starters, consisting of crispy spring rolls, chicken satay, and a hot and spicy chicken soup with lemon grass. All came at once, which was fine with us. The soup was just spicy enough, and loaded with chicken, mushrooms, ginger and lemon grass. It was just the thing to start with on a cold and hungry night.

The spring rolls and satay were likewise welcome. The crisp, meaty rolls paired well with the sweet chili dipping sauce. The chicken was especially tender and juicy, and the peanut dipping sauce required spooning up after the chicken was gone. A crisp mini-salad of cucumber and onions came on the side to cool things down.

Other starters were wonton, lumpia, wings, fried tofu, calamari, mussels with sweet basil, spare ribs, soft spring rolls, shrimp in a blanket, and a combo. Soups included hot and spicy shrimp or seafood, tofu, beef and meatball noodle, and chicken and coconut milk soup. Thai soups have the remarkable ability of being welcome and appropriate on both hot and cold nights.

For our main course, my friend ordered noodles stir-fried with shrimp, I got beef with sweet basil, and we split an order of fried rice. We expected to be taking much of it home, but ate all but a bit of the rice, which went home anyway.

Pairing beef with lots of basil does credit to both ingredients, and I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much of either. I ate every bite of the tender beef and herbs, which were just hot enough to keep me from eating too fast. Thai Delights has a star rating system for heat, ranging from 0 to 4, the latter being “Thai hot.” We both settled on the middle, which is comfortable. My friend’s noodles and shrimp were similarly heated, and the kitchen obligingly left out the broccoli for her. The fried rice was lighter and far less oily than this substantial dish can sometimes be, and was full of vegetables and meat.

Other choices include dinner-sized salads of chicken, beef, shrimp and other seafood, fried rice combinations, phad-thai (the national noodle dish of Thailand), endless stir-fry combinations, and some house specials. The latter include curries, skewered shrimp, grouper and snapper, pork tenderloin, and a filet mignon with mushrooms and basil. All of the above dishes come with noodles or rice, vegetables and herbs are liberally used, and heat can be turned up or down at your request.

There were three desserts listed, one of which was not available, so we decided to split a batter-fried banana, served with vanilla ice cream and sticky rice. The banana, hot and crisp, cools down nicely with the rice and the ice cream, and the dessert is plenty for two to share.

As I have written before, this area is blessed with an abundance of excellent Thai restaurants. Once you have committed to eating Thai, it’s almost impossible to choose wrong. It’s just a question of how far you want to drive. Wherever you are coming from, it’s worth a drive to Mountain Drive for an evening of delights.

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