Nicky's opens at 11:30 am. We got there at 11:25 and were waiting outside with 2 other groups. It must be a good feeling to open the doors to your restaurant and have 3 tables waiting to come in. The IT guys tell me it gets very busy at lunch. There's no obvious business area to pull from -- it could be people from Allegheny Center or the North Shore, I suppose, but there were also a lot of young people, too. Maybe they walked a few blocks over from CCAC.
Nicky's is in a row house on Western Avenue, so you feel like you're walking in for lunch (or dinner) at someone's house and sitting in their dining room. There's about 12 tables in the dining area, but the guys told me that during warm weather they have outdoor seating of about 12 more tables.
The menu has the full array of standard Thai cuisine -- pad thai, curries, noodle dishes, and the like -- but I wasn't in the mood for something heavy and spicy. I chose a mango curry with pork as my protein. One of the other guys ordered a jalapeno chicken dish with peanuts, which was an exercise in language barriers between he and our Thai server. The server didn't understand "jalapeno", so he pointed to it on the menu. He nodded approvingly and said, "Jah-lop-e-no" chicken. With a quizzical look on his face, Brian said "Jalapeno?" and the server said "Jah-lop-e-no". It was like a rejected sketch from Saturday Night Live.
Here's the Mango Curry with Pork:
The flavors in the curry were fantastic and the mango slices were a nice treat to go with the generous pork portions. The dish came with some white rice, which I periodically mixed in to the curry to thicken it up. My only semi-complaint with the pork was that it was a touch chewy and a little overcooked. But overall it was fantastic. The highlight of the whole meal was this little blossom stuffed with cream cheese and crab served on the side. I think they have a whole appetizer portion of those things (Crab Rangoons) that I might get next time. And check out the artistry on that carrot, too!
The only other complaint, nothing that Nicky's could control, was the fact that 2 women went to lunch and one brought their infant. The baby would periodically let out huge shrieks and squeals that really took away from the experience.
I will absolutely be taking DB~ back to Nicky's, as she is a big pad thai fan. I just hope there aren't any screaming kids this time.
