All Thai'd Up

About five years ago I had some cousins visiting and we arranged to bring home Thai food for everbody.
As it happened, Diane and I both had to work later than expected that day, and a communication mix up occured. I called in a large to go order from Royal Orchid, which Diane was going to pick up. But she thought I'd called in the order to JapanThai (now Bella Napoli), and stopped there to pick up the order. They quickly put the order togethe.r Diane called me to tell me that JapanThai didn't have the food ready when she got there but put it together quickly. At that point I told her the order was from Royal Orchid, so she picked that up too and we had a "Betty Crocker Thai Cook Off."
The orders were identical, so we had direct comparisons, and both were extremely good.
We had four entrees and a soup from each place. In each of the four entrees it was unanimously decided that JapanThai was slightly better, but that Royal Orchid's soup was superior,and both places were very,very good.
JapanThai is now gone, and Renton doesn't have a lot of other great Thai places.
Skyway has a mediocre Thai place, "The Best Pho and Thai" is near Wal-Mart and pretty good, there's a pretty good place near Ikea, but none come close to matching Royal Orchid or the late Japan Thai.
Except for Thai onHighlands, 2808 NE Sunset Blvd, 425-793-6278.
They've been around at least five years, and would've been part of the contest back then if they were a little closer.
The place is a well kept up, charming , artsy Thai place.
They tend to incorporate more vegetables into entrees than other Thai places, and service is always friendly and prompt. Prices are low, and they have curry salmon on the menu. A lot of Thai places don't serve curry salmon. I don't think salmon exists in Thailand, nonetheless that marriage of Northwest and Thai is a particularly tasty one.
Tonight we had a seafood curry, which had prawns, scallops, fish, and squid, with a coconut curry and broccoli, cabbage, basil, etc.
We also had the spinach dish with peanut sauce, something Rama?, and it was served atop fried tofu. Yum!
Over the years I've eaten at Thai on Highlands numerous times. It's always good. It's a little farther than the always good and very close by Royal Orchid. But it's also a little bit less expensive. I'm not sure which one is better, but Thai on Highlands is a place where you just go gaga over the deliciousness of the food.