Each week in 'Knockers' we order from a different delivery restaurant, assessing their efficiency and keeping a running score.
Tuk Tuk Asian Cuisine
1520 Elm St., #115
214-749-1538
Promised delivery time: 30 minutes
Actual delivery time: 11 (!) minutes
The Score
Neighbor from the apartment upstairs brings food, and it's exactly what I want: 20
In an un-neighborly way, she still expects me to pay her for it: -15
Insanely fast delivery: 30
Food transportation, high degree of difficulty: 20
Spicy duck entree, in its good moments: 37
Spicy duck entree, in its moments of gristle, fat-chunk and goo: -30
Fried ice cream and rice, together at last: 20
Honest approach to their lack of curry: 9
Total Score: 91
Top Ten
New Big Wong 92
Tuk Tuk Asian Cuisine 91
Lover's Pizza and Pasta 91
Philly Connection 90
Piggie Pies Pizzas & Pasta 90
See complete 2009 standings here
After almost two months in an apartment downtown, it'll be hard to call this my "new place" much longer, but to look at the barren brown walls, you wouldn't know it. After a furious day of unpacking and putting things away, the framed posters and prints haven't moved from their stack against the wall under a window. The only thing on a wall here is a hand-drawn sign advertising "Tuk Tuk Rides... To Town," the only souvenir I'm glad to have picked up on the streets of Bangkok, and the inspiration for my latest delivery food choice, Tuk Tuk Asian Cuisine around the corner.
Tuk Tuk is on Elm Street near Akard, and only delivers within walking distance downtown. At less than a block away, I figured I'd be well within delivery range, and as it happened, my place couldn't have been much more convenient for them.
I'd already ordered, and liked, both their green curry and pad Thai in past phone-a-meal nights, so I didn't mind too much when the first words I heard over the phone, before I could start to order, were "Out of curry, still want to order?"
Since this was a delivery order of record, I figured I'd try something completely different, and "Dante's Spicy Duck Basil with Steamed Rice" jumped out. Nothing else on the menu was named for anyone, and I figured they might be trying to play up just how hot this thing was going to be. That sounded alright to me.
After a week of fried butter jokes and thoughts of the state fair, the fried ice cream on their dessert menu was another easy call -- especially because I had no idea how they'd handle packing that up for travel.
Half an hour, the woman told me, was the delivery window for the night. At 7:03 I checked the clock and made a note of the time, then put on a movie and settled into the unforgiving Ikea couch I'd put together a couple days before. At 7:14 the knock came on my door, and the young delivery woman was outside with my dinner in a bag looped around her index finger.
I was pretty amazed, even knowing the place was just a short walk away. How'd she get it here so fast? "I live here," she told me, which I took ore generally to mean this apartment building, not the hallway outside my front door. Not bad. Though this was the first time I'd ever signed a credit card receipt for a neighbor bringing me food.
As for the food itself, the duck was (to be continued)
