Nittaya’s Secret Kitchen offers pleasant dining despite waiter’s hard sell

Sometimes, it's best not to oversell something.

As we were looking over the tapas menu (there's a nontapas menu as well) at Nittaya's Secret Kitchen on a recent evening, our waiter started raving -- and trust me, "raving" isn't too strong here -- about the restaurant's World Famous Spinach Salad ($11). It had, he said, been mentioned in five food-related publications, had won an award or two, he personally was crazy about it, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

Normally, "world famous" bugs me, because it should by definition be superfluous (Did anyone call Picasso a "world-famous" artist?), but in this case I figured it was tongue in cheek. And since we have, over the years, learned that servers usually have a pretty good idea of what their winners are, I bit. But as it turned out, the WFSS didn't live up to the hype.

Not that it wasn't a good salad, you understand; we might even consider it a great salad. It just wasn't the transformative experience our waiter had hinted at.

It was one of those deconstructed salads, which I typically like because they're a nice break from the norm. In this case, spinach leaves had been individually dipped in tempura batter and fried, then served in a paper-lined cone with a dish of "dressing" that was like a small salad in itself, chicken larb (a classic Thai ground-chicken salad) with shards of red onion and a lime-infused vinaigrette. But the spinach leaves tasted a little on the heavy side, as though maybe the oil wasn't as hot or as fresh as it could have been.

Which is not to say that we didn't love Nittaya's. This is a tiny, tiny place in a strip shopping center, but it's been transformed into an elegant, sophisticated, serene spot, complete with candlelight and orchids. And it certainly does the basics right -- the water, for instance. Our server didn't even attempt to sell us bottled, but brought over a decorative Thai-style pitcher and, before he poured, explained that the evening's water was infused with kiwi, red apples, orange and lemon. The flavors were subtle, the water wonderfully refreshing. And free!

Pork and vegetable egg rolls ($6) weren't what we think of as the old-fashioned kind, but they weren't the veggie-sawdust kind, either. There was indeed pork in there, and the vegetables had some texture, and the crunch of the wrappers provided contrast.

Cilantro steak skewers ($8) were probably our favorite of the evening. The beef was appealingly tender, but what made the dish such a success was the assertiveness of a goodly amount of cilantro, whose springlike notes played nicely off the beef's earthiness.

Grilled mango shrimp ($9), also recommended by our waiter, were lovely, wrapped in bacon and glazed with a mango mixture that was in the right place on the sweet-sour continuum.

Shrimp satay ($8) sounded more offbeat than they were, but the lightly spiced shrimp were just right with the accompanying peanut sauce. And we liked the fact that they were jabbed into a thick slice of pineapple.

And beef jerky ($8) was a fine rendition of a Thai classic, the marinated chunks of beef so much more flavorful, moist and tender than their American counterparts that it would seem they deserve a better name.

The room was so comfortable, the crowd so affable that we felt like lingering, and the fried bananas ($8) wrapped in pastry and served with coconut ice cream were perfect.

As we sipped our coffee, we heard, at a nearby table, our waiter ask, "So how was the spinach salad?"

"Uh, good," came the reply.

Just give it a rest, kid.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.