This week ...

Place: Thai Restaurant in Fife

Type of food served: Thai

Language spoken: Thai

Orders written in: Thai

Country the employees are all from: Thailand

What they're not: Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Hungarian

Not on the menu: Spaghetti, burgers, hummus

Most popular dish: House Fried Rice

Across the street: BJ's Bingo

What I immediately wanted to go do: Play bingo

Amount of immature "BJ" jokes that came to mind: Four

You'd never guess what type of establishment Thai Restaurant in Fife is by looking at the name, but I will save you the trouble of googling it: Thai Restaurant in Fife is (get this) a Thai restaurant located in Fife. 

Thai Restaurant in Fife challenges the virtually irresistible dishes of Le-Le Restaurant in Tacoma and Gig Harbor. From the fried tofu to the Tom Yum soup, Thai Restaurant in Fife (let's just call it TRF) satisfies your Thai cravings with its own very authentic tribute to Thailand's culinary heritage.

Any good Thai restaurant's menu (located in Fife or otherwise) should carry family flavors passed down through generations, instilled into the recipes - thus making the experience different from restaurant to restaurant. Although words may look similar on most Thai menus - pad thai, green curry, spring rolls - tastes usually vary depending on "how mama used to make it." 

TRF's matriarch, Achara Tipphayaporn, operates the cash register and fills in wherever help is needed on the back line. She tells me the entire staff is family ... literally. I ask if any boys work in the restaurant and Tipphayaporn informs me all the men are vacationing in Thailand. I then wondered how to say "lazy bums" in Thai.

Being family members, I ask if everyone gets along at work. "I think so," responds Oat, one of Achara's beloved nieces. Or maybe it was her cousin. Or sister. Crap, I'm just guessing. I didn't ask her how they were related.

After paying for my fried tofu and chatting with one of my neighbors (Hi, Denise!), I squeezed out the door and past two potted poinsettias obviously trying desperately to hang onto the glory days of their brief Christmastime spotlight ...  not so different from the glory days the blue-hairs playing bingo across the street were trying to hang onto. Only difference is the poinsettias would never gave me crap for borrowing their Gold Bond Medicated Powder. Hags.

[Thai Restaurant in Fife, 4420 Pacific Highway E., Fife, 253.896.4777]