Category: Thai Restaurants

A couple weeks back, "Rik" sent me an email telling me that a new Thai Restaurant had opened in Chula Vista and was serving up Issan style dishes. Which sounded great to me. I finally found time in my schedule to head down to Broadway and check out Krua Thai.

The place is a tiny hole-in-the-wall that you'll miss if you blink while driving past Halsey Street.

The tiny place,  a couple of tables and a counter, with no A/C reminded me of Sab E Lee, circa 2008. And to my extreme surprise, when the cook came out front….we both stared at each other and laughed; it was one of the cooks from the later version of the Original Sab E Lee!

Sadly, looking over the menu, I noticed few Issan dishes; I was told that there's no customer base in the South Bay for Duck Larb, Koi Soi, Nam Tok and such. Still I ordered items that I thought would give a good indication of flavor, spice, and technique.

Starting with the Yum Nuea, the beef salad.

I ordered this at a heat level "7" and it did bring it on. The base flavors were there; mild sweetness, pungent fish sauce and garlic. Protein was pretty scarce and I didn't take to the iceberg lettuce, no cabbage and really tough beef makes this lean more on the "no bueno" side.

Issan Sausage (of course).

This was very dark and the casing a bit over-fried. Flavor the same as TOSEL, after all, it's the same sausage. No cabbage, ginger, chilies, and cucumber makes this kind of fall short. The wilted cilantro made the dish look sad….but the sausage was fine in spite of how dark the casing looked.

My usual test of the cooks wok skills, Pad See Ew (with shrimp).

This lacked the color and "wok hey" that I look for in Pad See Ew. I did appreciate that the noodles weren't over-cooked. The shrimp were also done right. The flavor was good, if a bit too sweet. This one just missed the mark.

The service was very friendly and mellow. I was told they'd make me anything from Sab E Lee's menu if I ordered ahead, so you might try and do that if you visit. This place has potential, the dishes are so close, just barely missing the mark. I'm sure I'll have a better meal next time. Nice folks here, I hope they do well.

Krua Thai Cuisine
686 Broadway
Chula Vista, CA 91910

So this meal got me thinking. I hadn't been to TOSEL in a while…..as much as I've written about the place, it seems that they've kind of "jumped the shark" over the last year or so. Many of the dishes I've gotten have been uneven and some of the young folks there seem to be somewhat blase' these days. Perhaps that's what success brings…..but I really do miss Koby and the tight ship he ran.

So I decided to drop by and order the Issan Sausage and the Yum Nuea.

You can see the difference, though the Beef Salad flavors were pretty close, the meat was more tender and there was just more of it. I will say, this is not the same as the version I enjoyed back in 2008. It seems like the flavors of some of the dishes here have been somewhat diluted, probably just as the talent pool of cooks is. Sad to say, TOSEL is just not on my rotation anymore……

The Original Sab E Lee
2405 Ulric St
San Diego, CA 92111

Though I haven't been to Sab E Lee Santee in ages…….

It seems like I do a post on Koon Thai at just about one year intervals…so I guess it's that time again! Before things got really busy around these parts, I managed to grab lunch with two of my co-workers, Stephanie and Lily, who are wonderful eating companions. Both of them have been to Sab E Lee before, so I thought it would be nice to drop by Koon Thai.

There have been a few changes since the last time I visited. There's some new specials and sadly, some items, though still on the menu, like the Nham Khao Tod are no longer served. On this day the Kha Pao Moo Krob and the Pad Cha Pla Tod were a no go as well.

Still, we managed to order more than enough food. Here's a round-up.

We started with the Nam Tok – Beef ($9.95):

I could tell by the color and the fragrance, or lack thereof, that this wasn't going to be a great dish. The beef was fairly tender, but the flavors were really lacking….not enough lime juice, not enough heat (at a 7), not enough fish sauce, just not enough……

I was never a fan of the Pad See Ew here, but thought I'd give it another try. So we ordered the chicken version ($8.95):

The was mediocre at best…to mushy and watery, not the best display of wok skills for this simple dish that is deceptively hard to execute well. Not enough heat, needed a bit more of the caramelized soy sauce-sugar flavor. The chicken was prepped decently.

Things began looking up when the Ka Na Moo Krob (Crispy pork belly with Gailan – $9) arrived.

The pork had a nice chewwy-crunchy texture, the flavors (mild garlic-sugar-soy-fish sauce) were nicely balanced, and the gailan were cooked perfectly.

The Pla Sahm Rod ($12) was even better.

I may complain about the wok technique, but these folks sure know how to fry. Crisp, light, and moist, along with what many would think of as classic Thai flavors.

Of course I had to order the Khao Karr Moo ($7.99).

For some reason, this dish always takes us back to a Hospital Food Court of all places in Thailand. This simmered pork shank dish, obviously Chinese influenced, is just plain hearty comfort food. Lily told me this reminded her of something her dad would make…….

In the end, thought not everything went over well; there were more good than bad dishes, making Koon my second favorite Thai restaurant in the area.

Koon Thai Kitchen
3860 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111