Takeout chronicles: Salween Thai

Editor’s note: Welcome to our new series. We can’t dine out right now, but we can order in. I’ll share my chronicles of getting to-go meals, curbside takeout or delivery from various Omaha restaurants a few times a week.

How to order

Salween Thai has been a pro at the Omaha takeout and delivery game for a long time. You can find the restaurant on Grubhub and UberEats if you prefer delivery, or you can get takeout from one of its four Omaha locations. The original is at 1102 Northwest Radial Highway, and the rest are at 6553 Ames Ave., 7425 Pacific St., and 14450 Eagle Run Dr. Find the full menu (which does vary slightly between locations, I’ve found) and all the contact information here.

What we got

We just went with the classic: pad Thai. I generally get mine with tofu at level four spicy; Matthew generally goes with chicken and the slightly hotter level five spicy. I also added an order of tofu spring rolls.

How long it took

We ordered via Grubhub, and our food came from the Ames location. We had our dinner in under an hour.

Critic’s take

Salween has long been one of our go-to takeout orders, often one we get after busy days at work or when the contents of our refrigerator look particularly grim. The reason? It’s reliable. But we’ve been ordering long enough to have a couple bits of knowledge.

Here’s the first: If you’re new to Salween, their spice scale runs from 1 to 10 and, in my experiences, which are many, errs toward hot. It really does depend on the day in terms of how much heat you get in your dish. Sometimes my level four is perfect, other days, it tastes more like a 7. If you’re sensitive to spice, go low.

And here’s the second: I think the food that comes out of the original kitchen, on Northwest Radial Highway, is the best. Our delivery orders most often come from the Ames location now, and while I still enjoyed my order (and got enough food for both dinner and lunch the following day) I always feel like when we get a to-go order from the original location, it’s just that much better.

If you want to go away from pad Thai, I have a couple other Salween picks: Drunken noodles are fantastic. I also took a gamble a few months back and ordered something entirely new to me: the coconut chicken noodle soup. Get it if you’re feeling like something fresh.

2 Comments

The Salween Fish is also excellent. We would strictly stick to a noodle dish and a curry but recently gave the fish a try and it is outstanding.

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