Introduction + Jasmine Thai

My name is Nithya Geereddy and I’m a freshman in Santa Clara University. I was born and raised in Hyderabad, India. I love taking photos and I’m passionate about photography. Although I’m majoring in computer engineering, I hope to pursue a career in photography. Like most people, I love music and I’m into Electronic Dance Music (EDM). I’m a huge fan of this band called Kodaline; they’re not like the typical boy band we see or hear about these days. I am a dog lover, and I have two adorable monsters - Max and Leo - living with me back home. Max is a Pug and Leo is a Labrador (he’s worse than Marley from the movie Marley and Me when it comes to behavior). One time, Leo locked my maid in the bathroom by accidentally closing the bolt from outside! This other time, he ran around with the maid’s clothes and ended up throwing them on the toilet seat. He’s notorious and full of energy all the time and it’s always fun having him around. You’re wondering why I am telling you all these random facts about me, right? Well, before you read this blog, I want you to know something about the person writing it – me.

Maxiee (Maximus the Gladiator) 

Leo (Leonardo)

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           Now that you know a couple of facts about me, we can proceed. Coming to my blog, I decided to make my theme restaurant reviewing. We all know college students have the most unique diet varying from person to person. For instance, I have a friend who eats M&Ms for breakfast and cereal for dinner on most days. I myself have a set routine when it comes to diet. For breakfast, which I skip half the time (it’s unhealthy, I know), I either drink a glass of milk or eat Quaker oats. This quarter, my classes end at two pm and The Bistro lunch special closes by then, so I end up either eating yogurt parfait or something unhealthy from The Bronco. And finally I get the special for dinner. After a few weeks I got tired of this routine and I started trying different restaurants and places to eat at around campus. That was when I realized I wasn’t aware of half the places around our campus and all the cuisines I am yet to try. Hence, I decided to seize this opportunity and try different places and write a short review on them. I plan on evaluating each place based on the food, ambience and cost. The main purpose of my blog project is to make students of Santa Clara University aware of their dining options around campus so that they do not skip meals, and instead, they get motivated to try different cuisines and places to eat at.  I’m interested on finding out the amount of time and money college students spend on eating off campus; and to do so, I plan on conducting a small survey and find out how many times a week college students go off campus to grab a bite. Aren’t you excited to know? Well, I am and I can’t wait for you guys to read my reviews and help me with the survey!

            For my first post I’m going to talk about my experience at Jasmine Thai. This restaurant is located 0.6 miles away from our campus. One evening, my friends and I decided to eat some exotic dinner. There are several different cuisines that one can find in the bay area so it was a very hard decision to make. We finally decided to go to Jasmine Thai and reminisce on the first time we met, which was at this fine restaurant. However, I never paid attention to the finer details until I was asked to write this review. I realized that there is much more to the restaurant than what meets the eye. A variety of groups of people dine here on a regular basis and it is fascinating to see an mélange of cultural backgrounds eating one cuisine. Even though, this occurs all over the world, it still mesmerizes me.

            The walk to Jasmine Thai is rather boring with nothing much going on in the area. However, there are a couple of restaurants like Subway, a Chinese restaurant and a mini-mart. In front of the restaurant, there is a small fountain with a couple of benches where people can sit and relax. The restaurant itself is interesting, with a number of tables and booths giving it a warm and comfortable atmosphere. One can find several different categories of people at Jasmine Thai: older couples, college students, families, and staff meetings. The ambience is beautiful inside with small statues of Buddha everywhere and the atmosphere is filled with the aroma of coconut milk.

Ambience 

            We were all eager to eat some warm curry after the fifteen-minute walk in the cold weather. We ordered a serving of Spicy Chicken Fried Rice, Penang curry, and to mix it up a bit, we went out of our comfort zone and ordered something new: Hor Mok Pla. It is a steamed fish with coconut milk and Napa cabbage wrapped in a banana leaf and garnished with some traditional Thai seasoning. Coming from the land of spices and chilly, I found the fried rice to be rather fiery. South India is known for spicy food and I felt as though I disappointed my people back home! Penang curry was delicious. The meat was rather rubbery but the curry was the savior of the dish. They made it with the right proportion of hotness and sweetness. Hor Mok Pla would be the winner of the day. I highly recommend it to the people who love fish. The meat is tender and melts away in one’s mouth.

Penang Curry 

The service is fast and the wait staff is wonderful and attentive. The pricing was decent and it cost thirteen dollars with tip for the three of us. A regular benson special is around fourteen to fifteen dollars and it’s always one dish. In Jasmine Thai, we got to taste three different dishes and we weren’t disappointed. Overall, I highly recommend this restaurant to college students, as it’s not placed too far away and moreover, it’s value for money. I rate Jasmine Thai a 7/10: Food – 8/10, Service – 8/10, Ambience – 9/10, Convenience – 8.5/10, Value for money – yes.

I hope this review was of some use and I’ll see you guys next week with another restaurant of possibly a different cuisine.

PS: My grading scale