Dale Rice

By Dale Rice
American-Statesman Restaurant Critic
Web posted: July 27, 2005

There's a growing trend among Asian restaurants: reaching across the regional borders to incorporate more than one nation's fare on the menu. One of the best in the area is Ka-Prow, a Pan-Asian bistro dominated by Thai cuisine in Northeast Austin.

In its dominant cuisine, the Thai lettuce wraps ($7.99) featured minced chicken stir-fried with onion, bell peppers and mushrooms, along with Thai chili and Ka-Prow (a pungent basil) leaf, which gave it a two-pepper designation on the restaurant's spice scale. The chicken was served with leaves of iceberg lettuce for rolling the spicy mixture.

A Chinese offering, the steamed dumplings ($5.99) were filled with pork and mushroom in a delicate marriage of flavors.

The Burmese chicken ($8.99), an outstanding dish, combined stir-fried white meat with cabbage and bell pepper topped with fried shallots in a zesty sauce. It was served with brown rice (the other choice was jasmine rice).

The Pad Kee Mao ($8.99), made just lightly spicy at my companion's request (it typically is a highly spicy dish), brought together wide rice noodles, onion, tomato, chili, Ka-Prow leaf and tender bites of beef in a brown sauce.

For dessert, the rice pudding with coconut ice cream ($4.25) -- one of several homemade desserts, something not often found at Asian restaurants in the area -- produced a large scoop of ice cream over a black rice pudding served in a martini glass.

It was a delicious and sophisticated way to wrap up a thoroughly enjoyable dining experience and underscores how good Ka-Prow is.