Thai Express is a Thai restaurant on Broadway Avenue in Fitzherbert, Palmerston North, where diners have it rated 4.5 on Google. Good Thai cooking is a balancing act: fish sauce for salt, lime for sourness, palm sugar for sweetness and chilli for heat, all held in check within a single dish. Heat is usually adjustable, so it pays to tell the kitchen your tolerance, as Thai spicy tends to mean it. The food also rewards looking past the familiar favourites — green papaya salad, larb or a well-made curry with morning glory on the side will tell you more about a kitchen than any amount of pad thai. Ordering several dishes to share, with plenty of jasmine rice, is how most regulars eat. Here on the Fitzherbert stretch of Broadway Avenue, Thai Express gives Palmerston North a handy answer when the craving for that balance of chilli, lime and lemongrass strikes.