In “Thinking out Loud,” by Ed Sheeran, he sings about his love for a girl and says, “Cause honey your soul could never grow old, it’s evergreen.” This perfectly describes my love for Salween Thai. I definitely can’t put my love into song like Ed can, so i’ll put it in this blog post.
Salween Thai is a Creighton-favorite Thai restaurant located in Omaha, just off of Radial highway. I was first introduced to the restaurant by my friend Courtney, an Omaha-native and frequenter of Salween. We had yellow curry takeout in my freshman dorm on my birthday, and i’ve been in love with the food ever since ❤ Seeing as i’ve been to Salween approximately a million times since then, i’ll base this review off of my most recent visit as well as a collection of previous experiences. Let’s begin!
Salween is pretty much always a busy atmosphere, there’s always people around either waiting to be seated or waiting for their takeout. The level of traffic in this place really speaks to how much it is loved by the community. In fact, the owners and founders of Salween are Karen refugees, originally from Burma but came to Omaha from Thailand. They pledge that their food is authentic Thai cuisine and not Americanized.
The menu is pretty extensive, spanning curry dishes, noodle dishes, rice dishes, and various meat and vegetable dishes. Honestly, I mostly order the same two dishes. What can I say? I’m a purist. However, there is a huge variety to choose from, and everything is incredibly low priced. I can easily have two meals from one order all under 10$.
Last week, Denae, Maddie and I were starving from all our final exams and library time, so we opted for appetizers. I had the Thai Fish Cakes and Denae had the Fried Wontons (Crab Rangoon). The fish cakes are really unlike anything i’ve had before. The fish is shaped into this patty with kaffir lime and lemongrass and served with a sweet chili sauce. They’re pretty oily, but they didn’t feel heavy or greasy to me. The sauce on both of these dishes were the best part!
It was Maddie’s first time so she chose the Pad Thai with chicken, a classic. I have had this before (obviously) and its really great, actual rice noodles with egg, green onion, bean sprouts, peanuts, and the signature pad thai sauce. This dish will never disappoint. Don’t fall for fake versions of this at American restaurants like Kona Grill, this is real Pad Thai. Maddie loved it!
Denae had the Panang Curry, which is usually my go-to. Out of all the curries i’ve tried here, I think the Panang has the best sauce, a creamy variation of red curry with more of a coconut cream taste. It has fried eggplant, red and green peppers, along with the kaffir lime leaf and your choice of protein, for which I usually get fried tofu. The tofu and the eggplant soak up the flavors from the curry paste which makes the dish so much better. However, the curry to rice ratio is 2:1 for sure, I always save half my curry and make rice at home to finish the rest for lunch the next day. Denae loved the creamy taste but it was a little too spicy for her taste. All of the curries are amazing, and I recommend you try them out to find your favorite!
A note on the spice levels: don’t get too confident with this stuff! Thai chili peppers are really potent and very intense. Especially in a curry, order at least one level down from your usual spice tolerance because the chili is more concentrated in the curry. Salween runs on a 1-10 scale, so I go for a 4-5 on noodle dishes and a 3 on the curry.
Lastly, I had the Fried Drunken Noodles. These are wide flat rice noodles with broccoli, red and green peppers, eggs, carrots, basil and the best sauce ever. The sauce spicy and flavorful with a hint of sweet, I could eat this for days and days.
I have had Thai food in Omaha, Des Moines, and Washington, D.C. and Salween is still my #1 favorite. Everything at Salween is great. This is real food where you get the most bang for your buck in terms of flavor and quantity, and the quality is consistently great! The only reason it doesn’t get a 5 from me is the wait time, on multiple occasions we haven’t been given our check or the process to pay was unclear. Either way, the food is amazing and oh so worth it.
The Bottom Line
My favorite Thai food for my favorite prices!
Cone Rating: 4.5 Cones
Location: Omaha, NE
Price Range: $ (Under 10$)
aditi eats 