Ruen Thai, I'm sorry to say, I really liked your restaurant.
Why am I sorry? It's simple. Every Thai restaurant in town that I like ends up going out of business. It's a curse.
My favorite place in town used to be Muang Thai restaurant, which was hilariously located in something that looked like a converted Pizza Hut. The owners were Thai and loved joking around with me about just how horrible my Thai was. The husband ran the front of the house and his wife ran the kitchen.
This restaurant will always have a special place in my heart because it was the place that convinced Actual that she actually liked Thai food. I didn't know this when I met her, but Actual hated Thai food. She had tried a Thai restaurant in Davis and hated it, then tried a Thai restaurant in Hawaii and hated it more. The first time I met her family, we ate at a restaurant called Thai Basil in downtown Sacramento. It was downright disgusting. My curry tasted like vomit.
We wandered into Muang Thai on a whim, and I knew after talking to the owner that Muang Thai was the real deal. Actual discovered that she really loved Thai food. We ate there maybe 40 times over the next year, even having Actual's birthday party there. It was my favorite Thai restaurant in America.
One really funny thing happened one day at lunch. We were having a quiet meal when a white lady in scrubs came in and sat down. The owner went to go take her order.
"I want meatball curry."
The man just shot her a blank stare.
"You have meatballs right? You have curry right? Make me a meatball curry!"
The man took a deep breath. "You want meatball... and curry?"
"Yes."
The man looked around the dining room, then back at the woman. He nodded. "Yes, we can make." He walked back into the kitchen.
He yelled out the order to his wife.
[in Thai] "Lunch special... yellow curry, add meatball."
Two long seconds of silence. The sounds of cooking coming from the kitchen had stopped completely.
[female voice, in Thai, loosely translated] "WHO THE F*CK ORDERED THAT?!?"
[male voice, in Thai] "Some white lady."
[in Thai] "Figures. I assumed as much."
The woman at the table did get her meatball curry and she seemed to like it.
A couple weeks later we went there for lunch and it was permanently closed.
When Muang Thai closed, we discovered a new Thai restaurant right around the corner from our place named Tara Thai. The owners here were Thai too. And the food was stupendous. We ate there lots of times. We even had Actual's birthday party there.
Are you sensing a pattern yet?
We got takeout one night from Tara Thai and the food was disgustingly bad. A couple weeks later we went in there for dinner and it was equally bad. We noticed that the owners were no longer Thai. Too bad. We stopped going.
About a year later, Actual needed a venue so she could hold a meeting for her group. Out of options, she decided to have it at Tara Thai. It turned out that the third set of owners were from the Isaan area between Thailand and Laos. If you know Isaan people, you know these people can cook some fiercely delicious food. They even had a special menu on the wall of Thai and Isaan delicacies. We ate there all the time.
Then we went back and it was now Dara Thai. New owners. And the food was back to blah.
So, Ruen Thai, I very much like your restaurant. Please stay in business. Thanks.
Originally, tonight we were going to go downtown for mama's pupusas. But a few days ago, Designer Girlfriend mentioned that she had never had Thai food with us, so we decided to go to Ruen Thai instead. Actual and Designer were happy with our dinner choice.
The ambiance at Ruen Thai is great. Unlike many Asian restaurants, the tables are far enough apart to be comfortable. The restaurant is super clean. And the part that made me really happy: they have the requisite "Thai Restaurant Hut".
Designer started out with a Thai iced coffee. It was cold and delicious and had a flavor that Designer will still remember as she lays in bed awake at 3AM from all the caffeine.
Appetizer course! We got the usual Angel Wings. Chicken wings stuffed with noodles, pork, and mushrooms, then deep fried. Amazingly good.
It's written into her employment contract that I'm not allowed to eat with Actual at a Thai restaurant unless she gets her bowl of tom kha gai. This version was exceptional. Unlike the sickly sweet versions that Thai restaurants seem to be very fond of, their version has the perfect blend of coconut and lemongrass. So very good.
Som tum, or green papaya salad. With carrots, fish sauce, and a crazy amount of pepper. Because of the way it's prepared, the dish starts out pretty mild and gets spicier as time goes on. At about 10 minutes you're dealing with serious heat. Past that, it can get dangerous if you're not into spicy food. The som tum at Ruen Thai is fresh and crispy and had just the right amount of heat. For me at least :)
Pork kra pow. Basically a stir fry with Thai Basil.
Designer initially refused to eat it because she said she hated the texture of bamboo shoots. I had to convince her to try this dish with the promise that these were good bamboo shoots and not the tree bark variety that seems to be favored by Chinese restaurants. She tried the dish and loved it. Woohoo!
Panang curry with beef. Like the soup, perfectly balanced and not turned into some sort of candied dish like other places. I appreciated that it tasted like curry and not the inside of a Reese's peanut butter cup. Tasted super great on rice.
Finally, dessert time. You know what's coming: mango with sticky rice! Well, not really. Mangoes aren't in season. Some lower quality Thai restaurants will serve it to you anyway. The good ones like Ruen Thai will tell you that mangoes are out of season and they won't serve it until they can get the good stuff. So they substituted mango ice cream for the mangoes. The ice cream was phenomenally good. Actual and Designer inhaled this entire plate in 90 seconds flat.
Congratulates, Ruen Thai. For better or for worse, you're the only Thai restaurant in town that I actually like! Please stay open!
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