Managing Expectations for the Peep Show (aka Peep Soho)

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Remember the first time you went to a strip club (ok...we're girls - but we've all gone ONCE), you had these somewhat glamorous preconceived notions and images in your mind of what your experience would be like …but then you walk inside the “joint” and come to find out that its nothing like you imagined – kinda greasy, a little dirty, with some highlights (read: alcohol), but all around awkward. That’s kind of how I felt at Food Club’s first Thai restaurant, Peep…

This subtly lit, Lady Gaga-Gothic style restaurant is tucked away in the Village on Prince Street. After you walk past the rubber-band bar stools (that Anne swore her ass would get stuck in) you get a feel for a trendy nightclubish VIP scene before you hit the restaurant area. "Subtly lit" being the key words, some of us wished we had our Owl Lites to read the 12 menus that were on our table (one for specials, one for drinks, one massive one for all the food stuffs). I’m not complaining about the selection but c’mon, if you’re going to use size 4 font with Pantone color PMS-1485 (aka light peach), then turn the lights up a tad!

But I digress, the “highlights” of the evening were the fact that it was DD’s bday and we had some delicious cocktails! With names like Split, Faint, and Flirt they were the perfect after-work de-stress mixtures and went down a little too fast! After the drinks we were feeling saucy and asked our waiter if he could wipe down our table which was really sticky…he proceeded to bring us a dry napkin – guess you have to work for it at Peep ;)

On the main event, the food - we opted for curry chicken puffs, a teriyaki-like crispy duck salad, delectable beef rolls in a super thin outer shell and an old-time fav, Thai spring rolls. For our second plate, we put Peep’s Thai-ness to the test and went with a traditional Pad Thai with chicken, shrimp, peanut and egg. It was the piece de resistance – spicy, sweet, sour, delish!

I should probably just stop my review there because the main plates were nothing to write home about and honestly, pretty disappointing – a braised half duck that was too gamey for our taste and a five-spice pork chop that was super fatty and a little bland (we think they only used about two spices!). Surprisingly, we were too full for dessert so just downed the rest of our Pinot Noir (which was V. average) and called it a night. But before we end this adventure, one interesting characteristic about the restaurant to call out was the bathrooms that we found out you can kind of see into. When you are inside (we had to try them out!) you can see everything that is going on outside, but from the outside you can see in a little (again, this fact was tested) contributing some awkwardness to the evening. Overall, it was a good experience, but similar to how I felt after my first strip club, I do NOT have the desire to ever go back...