college cravings: GNO: Star Anise

After rewarding myself with an hour Thai massage after work yesterday, I continued the Thai theme with a girl's night out at Star Anise. We received a 4th anniversary deal on our door that granted us a free appetizer and dessert with the purchase of two dinner entrees. It was nice for Angie & I to catch up with Rosario and Jasmine. We may live a couple minutes away but only food can bring us together (:

Environment
The restaurant was tucked away in a little plaza that was extremely close yet I had no idea existed. It was nicely decorated and details such as seat pillows and elephant themed booklets that held our checks made it quaint.

Service
Our waitress was friendly and attentive though she lacked that pizazz that would merit 5 star service. The waiter who brought our food and cleaned our table did not show one inkling of a smile all night.

Food
For appetizers we got the calamari steak and fried tofu. Both items were nothing special but had a nice crunch. We ordered the Thai fried rice, crab fried rice, pad see ew (not a very inviting name huh?) with tofu, and pad woonsen with chicken. The crab fried rice was exactly like the Thai fried rice but $4 more and had a sprinkle of crab and egg on top. The food appeared to be prepared in more of a Chinese style, none of the dishes felt authentically Thai. I am glad I got to sample my friends' dishes because I felt like the excessive amount of sauce in my noodles would be overwhelming if I was stuck eating it all night. We ended the night with a big scoop of red bean ice cream and fried bananas. Compared to the picture on the menu, the presentation of the desserts looked lackluster.
Overall, the food was filling but I would not return if I had to pay full price. Everything was just okay. We did get cute Chinese takeout boxes for out leftovers though ^^