After a nice morning at June Lake we headed north to our next stop; the town of Tahoma on the western shores of Lake Tahoe. We had never been in this area before, driving up the 395 into Nevada, then onto the 756 and then the 207, onto the 50, passing familiar names like Bally's and Harrah's, Casino's right before crossing back into California. It's quite busy, strangely reminding me of a shoreside "downtown Vegas". With all the chains; well, I won't complain too much as we did stop at Whole Foods for a few things, before heading back out. Right before the split of highways called "the Y", where the 50 will split to the 89 was our lunch destination. After dealing with the burgers and such, I had selected a Thai Restaurant named My Thai. To be perfectly honest, based on what I had seen driving thru South Lake Tahoe, I wasn't very confident about lunch.
The place opens at 11am for lunch and we had arrived and found parking in the small lot just after 11. We had made good time from June Lake; just 2-1/2 hours!
We walked in and were warmly greeted and taken to a table.
The place was decorated in what I would call a very stereotypical Thai way. The location and decor set off all those internal "alarms" and we were worried about how our lunch would turn out. In the end, we had nothing to worry about. The items on the menu had a wide range; everything from Cream Cheese Rangoon to Orange Chicken to Crying Tiger to a Kobe Beef version of Crying Tiger priced at $155! One of those places that seems to be trying to please everyone?
It seems that this was going to be an interesting meal……
We started off with the "Sunny Beef" ($16.95), which I figured would be a version of Neua Dad Deow. This was actually pretty good.
The beef was chewy, but not hard, not overly salty, nice savory fish sauce tones; the dipping sauce was slightly spicy, acidic, with some sweetness. This was decent; and even better the next day!
The weakest dish of the meal was the Larb ($16.95). Yet this still featured a generous amount of roasted rice powder, which added a nice nuttiness.
A bit more mealy then we like, but it wasn't bland by any means. We had gotten everything at a heat level of "7" and I have to say, this had a good amount of spice. Nothing amazing, but still better than what I thought I'd get.
The flavor of the Basil Duck ($22.95) was quite good.
Even though the portion size wasn't especially generous; the spice, anise tones, savory dish sauce, and sweet tones came thru clearly. The duck was basically skin and fat, which worked just fine for us. This went well with rice.
We had ordered the Lao Style Papaya Salad ($19.95) just out of curiosity, and it was indeed legit.
From the funky, savory salted crab, to the deeply fermented savory tones, to the pretty hot chilies, this was very spicy and refreshing. Even better than versions we've had here in San Diego! To make things even more fun, this was served with pork rinds!
Overall, a satisfying meal, very friendly and warm service. A nice surprise for us!
My Thai Cuisine
2108 Lake Tahoe Blvd.
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
Good lord. The fish was supposedly mahi mahi, overfried, not seasoned, and dry as heck. The tortillas were like cardboard. The purple cabbage slaw was flavored with ginger and the other had mango "salsa" which really needed some spice. It was all accompanied by a pool of pasty black beans, which at least was seasoned adequately.
With not too much of anything, I could try the biscuits and gravy. The gravy wasn't too salty or greasy, the texture was on the lighter side of things, but it wasn't bad. The egg was perfectly easy over, the yolk having no off flavors. The breakfast potatoes nice and crisp on the exterior, the breakfast sausage routine. This was good enough to bring back memories of old school – diner breakfasts I'd had in my younger days.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Marbled Rye was used, which added an interesting yeasty-tangy-sourness to the sandwich. As a whole, a routine sandwich, basic mass produced sliced turkey; we enjoyed the cucumber and sprouts the most. It was enough for our lunch and we walked thru this western theme town to our car and headed off.
Instead of heading straight down Avenida Juarez, the main drag, we strolled down Calle José MarÃa Morelos and of course we passed a couple of churches. This one caught our attention because it was open for visitors, so we decided to take a look.
Looking at my Google Maps, I identified this as the 
Guadalajara, at least what we saw of it seemed like a nice family friendly city. This is the 
What to say about this? The meat was on the toothsome side, but the goat was oh so gamy; flavor of the pasture indeed. There was a nice goaty-smokiness to the broth which had a lightly rich tongue feel without being greasy at all. For some reason, those pickled onions were just amazing with this. The freshly made tortillas were hardy and up to the task. By far the best birria de chivo we've ever had.
Let's take a look at that chicken. It's a huge piece but does it look "crispy" to you? Also, it was fairly tender, but quite dry for confit, making it somewhat bland; the supposed nuoc cham edged to the sweeter side of the scale. The fried garlic was fine; but the garlic rice was super hard and dry. It was like trying to eat barely cooked rice. Now come on, how can you mess up rice?
Again the greens and tomato was outstanding. But take a look at that rice, it's the same as the "confit chicken" and the photo shows more clearly how hard and dry it was. Speaking of dry; you can add the ahi belly as well. It was dry, lacking in that rich, fatty, texture. It was also strangely fishy in flavor; the Missus had one bite and was done.