Panvimarn Thai Kitchen - Long Beach

It's just a random shopping center in Long Beach. A boutique, a specialty store, a pharmacy, but on a random Friday night, Panvimarn comes alive. 

There's so much going on everywhere you look. There's a line out the door, and people demanding tables all around. Inside every table is full, and every patron has something to smile about.

The busy-bee, trying-to-be-trendy vibe is everywhere, too. It's on the many-page menu, the range of food from noodles to sushi to soup, and it's apparent in every tricked-out dish.

The Appetizer Sampler, for example, is a crazy potpourri of all the things you could possible throw into a fryer. 

The Siam Spring Rolls, shipped straight from Siam. They're fried but they finish light, a lot going on, with silver noodles,cabbage, celery, and carrot squished like all the water in my tiny bladder because the bathroom is too far away. 

I didn't mind the Shrimp Blanket, despite having tired of all things fried. The tiger shrimp is incredibly fresh-tasting, and it shines through with a dab of sweet and sour despite being mummified in a thin wonton skin. 

They must use different skins because the Fried Wonton is thick. There's a generic gyoza filling of chicken and undetectable shrimp. 

Sometimes a house special can be right on the money...but the Money Bags are not. A hot mess of bland chicken and shrimp in yet another wonton skin; it's just a less salty version of the fried wonton except it's shaped like an airbag. Then again, this train wreck could use a good airbag.

Stick to the simple stuff. The best thing is a simple Chicken Sa-Te. The spices are right-on, and it finishes sweet under a curried dust. I love a good peanut sauce, and this one is close enough.

I need to take my own advice. Had I ordered my entrees after the appetizer, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near the Roasted Duck Curry. It's an indescribable crazy-soup, with expected ingredients like duck, pineapple, and basil leaves, but then they threw in grapes and lychee. The grapes are just strange, the way they cook into incongruent juice-bubbles, and the lychee has a preserved-in-a-can-aftertaste that permeates the rest of the curry.

The Soft Shell Crab Curry is better...kind of. It's just a heap of...stuff. Yellow-colored...stuff. Shreds of egg hang off like like cobwebs, a weeping-willow that covers the crab. The crab does taste reasonably fresh, and the yellow curry sauce suits it.

What a mess! Whatever frantic, stream-of-consciousness, grab-an-ingredient-off-the-counter-and-throw-it-in kind of innovative spirit is driving these people needs to be stopped! I love that you're trying to think, and I love that you're trying to be different, but there has to be some sort of filter, a tiger-mom to tell you when enough is enough. Panvimarn gets an A for effort, but they really need to reign it in.