Sen Thai Noodle Bar — Restaurant in Irvine

What a delightful surprise this place was. It was a rainy day and I wanted a hot soup dish. I was craving a bowl of my favorite Thai dish, Beef Boat Noodle, and I found this spot on Google. If you folks have never tried Beef Boat Noodle, have you even eaten Thai food? Yes Pad Thai is great, but there are so many other yummy dishes. (BTW I'm a Thai guy). Try these noodles and the Khao Soi (I didn't get that here, but they offer it. Imagine mixing yellow curry and red curry broth and adding noodles to it. That's Khao Soi! It's so yummy).

Going back to the review, I was surprised to see my all-time favorite dish on the menu. Hainan Chicken or Khao Mun Gai, as I called it growing up, is a killer yet simple chicken and rice bowl. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of its looks though. There isn't much color in the dish but the taste is bonkers. First you perfectly boil chicken with some seasoning. That broth then gets used to cook the rice giving it loads of flavor. You take the boiled chicken with the skin on and slice it up fanning it out on top of that delicious rice. Throw in a garnish of cucumber and cilantro and you're almost done. The only thing missing are the two sauces that traditionally come with this dish. There is a black bean soy sauce type thing that is so yummy yummy you will drink it on its own. But the way it melds the chicken and rice together is like destiny and fate had a baby and called it providence. I know I just sold you on that sauce but it takes second place for me. At Sen Thai Noodle Bar they will also give you the ginger-scallion sauce as well. This is my all time favorite way to eat Hainan Chicken but some places charge extra for this one. Go give this dish a try and make sure to grab both sauces and let me know which one is your favorite! I was craving the boat noodles but once i saw this on the menu I definitely knew I was going to get both. 😅

But let's go back to the boat noodles. I chose to get the beef boat noodles because that was my original craving. And this version did not disappoint. The portion size matched the price and they loaded that bowl with three types of beef, vermicelli noodles, and bean sprouts. The broth on its own should be illegal but they pour that over the top of everything anyways just to seduce your taste buds. I can't tell you enough how much I love this dish and at STNB, they crushed it. I am a happy traveler and I will come back for both dishes again.

But I'm not done friends. They also have that ever famous mango and sticky rice on the menu. I splurged and grabbed an order of that as well. Just like everything else I ate, I was surprised that this little food court establishment was delivering on the flavors and goodness of this sweet dessert. The mangoes were perfectly ripe and so easy to cut, even with a plastic fork. The rice was a bluish purple color and so pretty. It was also warm, sticky, and cooked how I liked it. The coconut sauce that you can pour over the top or binge drink it if you prefer, wasn't overly sweet and made the end if my meal a happy ever after.

And I can't leave this review without mentioning the Thai Coffee. People, forget the tea, go for Thai coffee instead. You will LOVE it!

"Oh" is the friendly and adorable Thai cashier. She picked up on my accent while ordering and began speaking Thai to me. I don't actually know the mother tongue but I can order dishes and sound like a native. Oh was so gracious and made sure I liked everything I ordered. I told her I would be back in the near future. Want to join me?

Sen Thai Noodle Bar brought a smile to my face and it stayed with me the rest of the day. Please go support these amazing people. They are creating traditional Thai dishes with fabulous flavors. They have won this...

For a quick albeit late Tuesday lunch, I stopped by Sen Thai. Since it was already past 2 PM, the food court wasn't packed, though it was far from empty.

I ordered the House Special Beef Boat Noodle ($18) with wide rice noodles at the counter, received a pager, and picked up my food - all within five minutes.

The noodle soup came generously loaded with sliced beef, braised beef, beef meatballs, tendon, and tripe. The wide rice noodles were thin but held up well without falling apart. The broth was also...

THE SOUP IS VERY GOOD. that aside, I've eaten my food "here" which is in a food hall and i'vce also picked up and had delivery. The experience when taking food to go is bad - it ends up being essentially a $30 bowl of soup which you have to reheat and they almost never give you condiments to add to your soup (even when requested) also the wantons/fried items are ALWAYS soggy -i'm not sure they vent the containers. I recommend going in for your...