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By Sasha Issenberg
Philadelphia Magazine
July 2003
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On West Chester Pike, Teikoku, a new Japanese-Thai restaurant, makes the best of roadside construction,
turning a sterile box that once housed Bobby's Seafood into one of the area's most majestic spaces.
From Win and Sutida Somboonsong, owners of Ardmore's Thai Pepper and Mikado, Teikoku, which
means "empire" in Japanese, effectively tears down the wall between Japanese and Thai cuisines.
There are separate menus for each, with sushi on one and curries on the other-which means eel
"flaming dragon rolls" might be followed by a spicy lime-dressed calamari salad, or even rack
of lamb.
The Thai touches belie an establishment whose ambitions clearly look farther East: The dining room,
by Jesse Gardner, who also designed Cuba Libre, is filled with blond-wood beams and braces that
evoke prewar Tokyo architecture. And the restaurant's detailed preoccupation with design, too,
seems quintessentially Japanese, all the way down to beautiful menus and business cards featuring
the restaurant's logo, gently studded with a chrysanthemum.
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