After being sick with bronchitis for more than a month, there comes a point where you just crave flavor, texture, anything other than chicken soup and whatever you can ravage from the refrigerator, or sweet jeebus, another fucking hot dog. (Hey, they're easy and they come in giant packages, sue me). A bell rang in my head tonight and wouldn't stop. I need some muthafuckin thai food. Right. damn. now. Yelp my self to my zip code and what do we find? Sutha Thai Food on Irvine Blvd and Elizabeth in Tustin. Orange county. Who knew? Apparently, some Yelpers knew.
Right, a strip mall Thai place. Average looking, small, few tables and ubiquitous owner on the phone with the help in the back. Fresh paint and simple elegant photos on the wall don't give you any clue about what you are delving into. And delve like paid food critics we did.
Spring rolls with delicate transparent pancake wrappers and light peanut sauce with just the right amount of vegetation and mint and shaved carrots for decoration. Did I mention delicate? Flavor, texture, sauce, simply melded and pretty to look at.
Everything else came at once, fine with me, since the soup came in a hot pot. If I could have licked the hot pot, I would have. I have never had Tom Ka Kai that was so finely flavored. Truly one of the best I have ever had. Soups aren't supposed to give you foodgasm, dammit! But this did, along with my husband who never even orders soup, much less finishes it.
Orange chicken has almost always been in my experience a color not found in nature. It's either greasy red brown with scary chilies lurking under what *might* be orange peels. Or DayGlo.
This orange chicken is actually a creamy orange without being milky, tender without being chewy, hot without being volcanic. I keep using 'delicate' as a an adjective because every dish we had *was* delicate. No heavy handed anything, either in spicy or textures.
Pad Thai. The white people's introductory dish into Thai cuisine. Never fails to be what *I* judge a Thai place by. The reason? If you fuck up Pad Thai, nothing else really tends to go right either.
A dish that didn't need anything. No Sriracha. No Soy Sauce. No anything. It was perfect all by itself. How often does that happen? Fine dining? Sure. 5 stars? Probably. Sushi, definitely, but strip mall Thai? No way. Not only way, but way the fuck out there Way.
After oohing and aahing our way through these courses and waxing nirvanic over the foodgasms, we asked after the mango and sticky rice. I know mango isn't top of the season now, but once in a while, you get lucky. Today, was not our day.......to have mango. Husband was not to be denied sticky rice so we ordered that by itself. Never a bad thing in our book.
Our waiter (A Fucking Genius!!!) Suggested that in his country, he would eat this with Coconut Ice Cream. Yes Please! And so it was:
Let it be known, I licked that bitch clean. In public. with both hands shoving that bowlplate in my mug and enjoyed/orgasmed every single lick. Srsly.
It may have just been a serendipitous day. I don't care. It was one of the best meals I have ever had out.
Sutha Thai Kitchen
11 am to 9pm M-T
11 am to 10pm F-S
Go! Eat! Live!
