Who'd have thought it? Thai and Italian cuisine are served up together in an equally eclectic atmosphere at Jow's Garden. This West Philly BYO may suffer from a bit of an identity crisis, but hey, where else can you get your favorite curry dish served with a side of gnocchis? A word of caution: stick to the Thai if you can help it. Those were the weirdest damn gnocchis I've ever tasted. Not bad, just weird. Inexplicably so. The Thai food, by contrast, was right on. With a wide variety of dishes, most of which are prepared as spicy or as mild as you'd want, you might not even want to look at the Italian menu. Unless, of course, you want to see what scampi and curry taste like simultaneously. (But you don't -- it's gross.)
Step into Jow's Garden and you immediately feel tired. Tired mostly because the walk out to 47th Street is kind of a bitch. You're immediately and enthusiastically greeted by the maŒtre d', a flamboyant middle-aged Thai guy whose European get-up seems consistent with the restaurant's bi-national theme. However, his tight black pants are eerily reminiscent of, well, exactly what it is that you were trying to escape from, if only for an hour or two.
You're shown to a table right away -- if there was no wait on Saturday night at seven, I doubt there will ever be. En route to your table, you pass a shrine to a succession of Thai kings with unpronounceable names, a pair of pink Easter bunnies perched on a bar right next to two gold-colored, Buddha-esque statues. Yes, you heard me correctly -- you pass a bar. But don't get too excited, alcohol is not served in the garden of Jow. Which instantly makes me wonder -- are they simply taunting me? And, would anyone notice if I snuck behind the bar and pilfered a few swigs of SoCo?
So tote along your 40-ounce or your jug of Carlo Rossi, or whatever it is you crazy kids are drinking these days. You'll save a few bucks on the liquor front, and with most entr‚es ringing up at about $10, the experience won't cost that much. Just don't eat the mints on the way out. They're stale.
