Must Be Thai — Restaurant in Santa Clara

We've now been to this restaurant twice. I believe the menu changed significantly between both visits. I can't for the life of me remember what the menu was like or what we ate the first time. I know it must have been good because my wife had been asking to come back for some time. I think it was a fairly standard Thai menu.

On our second visit, the menu seemed much more modern and innovative. We have no cultural ties to Thailand or experience traveling there, so we aren't able to determine with any authority what constitutes authentic Thai cuisine, but the menu now has a bunch of trendy section and item names which suggest twists on classics you would find at other Thai restaurants. Even so, nothing we ordered tasted like fusion. It all felt authentically Thai. The menu sections were themed around different regions of Thailand. Again, I can't say from experience, but it really feels like they pulled off a very authentic, regionally diverse Thai menu in an otherwise familiar American Thai restaurant setting.

So how was the food? It was excellent, some of the best I've had in a while. A lot of ingredients are rather rare in American cuisine of any ethnic background. For example, the dish I ordered had young peppercorns, which blew me away. I'm so used to eating around the peppercorns in Chinese cuisine, but the young peppercorns were very mild in flavor and cooked quite nicely, to the point that I was able to eat them as part of the dish. My wife was making fun of me for enjoying them so much because she was convinced they were just there to flavor the sauces, but they really tasted quite nice, and I had never seen them used in any menu of any kind in my life. The dish also had crispy pork belly, and it was cooked to such perfection that it honestly matches the best restaurants I've ever been to. I've never been to a Michelin-starred restaurant, so it's hard for me to say what qualifies, but this is how I imagine those places tasting. Their new menu was that good.

The quality of the food makes the less-than-perfect parts of the experience that much more noticeable. We called in advance to check if they were open on Christmas Eve, and their automated menu was full of dead ends that didn't answer our questions or get us to a real person. Their Yelp waiting list didn't work from the app remotely, so we had to drive there just to verify they were open and get on the waiting list from their tablet. The wait service was good, but not outstanding. Sides of rice seem way too expensive, $4 for a small bowl. I don't even care that their main menu items are a bit pricey (it is post-pandemic Bay Area, after all, and the food is worth it), but to pay fairly high prices for something like curry and then to have to pay $4 just to add a small bowl of rice to mix with it feels a bit wrong. Most Thai restaurants either include rice or charge around $2 for it, making it a reasonable optional upcharge for those who want it, but $4 is enough that a lot of people are going to forego the rice they want and have a subpar experience with otherwise really delicious food. One last thing which is more of a tech flaw but still hurts the experience is that parties of 5+ are automatically charged gratuity, but then the checkout prompt asks for gratuity without clarifying that it has already been included in the price. You just have to be very cautious of not double-paying gratuity.

We will certainly be back, as there are so many interesting items on the new menu we want to try. But this restaurant just barely snatches greatness from the jaws of perfection, and I am really hoping they can smooth out the rough edges because the food and atmosphere really are...

I have lived in thailand for 25 years of my life from 8 months to the age of 26. I am familiar with Thai food from every single region from northern chiang mai to southern food near malaysian border and to the east in Isarn region. The ambience of the place is relaxing and easy going. They have almost like a restaurant/canteen like decoration with a modern touch. They have a combination of benches with tables and chairs. The owners are extremely friendly, a common trait in thai people, the land of smiles :). First time I went was last year when they were just 3 months into their opening. I also then just went 6 months later and there food quality was the same. The menu is not super long and complicated. Its one page, easy to follow and divided into a few dishes across various regions in Thailand. This is the only Thai restaurant I have eaten in Bay Area so far that I consider taking authentic ingredients to make the dishes from scratch. Lets see the path thai. They are not using some ready made sauce that is for sure which many places do. They are taking the fish sauce, palm sugar and tamarind and making the path thai base from scratch. They use fresh shrimps which takes the dish to new levels, don't use frozen frozen shrimp. There tofu were good, not too mushy nor too hard. What I liked the most is the variation in Papaya Salad. I believe the owners are from the Isarn region of thailand near Laos. So these folks know how to make good papaya salad. So I ate three different variety of papaya salad including the Som Tam Thai, Som Tam Puu and Som Tam Lao. The style was authentic and very good. With it they give you fresh hot sticky rice. The staff are extremely nice and always doing their best to be attentive to you. I did not try their Hat Yai Fried chicken but I have seen others eat it and from the looks and smell I am sure its is good as I have eaten thousands of hat yai fried chicken in the streets of bangkok and even in hat yai also :). So they have put that dish together very good also. My only humble request is if they could use kosher or halal meat which would grow their customer base a lot more. To sum it up. This place is a honest effort at Thai food. It is run by a family and they run it with a smile. The menu has a good balance while being simple. The end product that comes out of the kitchen is fresh, flavorful and matches closely to what you will get in Thailand. I feel this place has potential to do better , even the path thai can be improved instead of using spring onions use garlic chives, use some sweet radish, a bit of dried prawns and add some bean sprouts also, like the way it is made in the streets of thailand. What the foreigners die for to eat in kao sarn street in bangkok. There are places in LA thai town that make it authentic as I am describing and even NYC. Those basics elements are missing BUT what I appreciate is they didn't put ketchup :) like some restaurants to do to give it a tangy sweet and color. So they ingredients are authentic but they miss some elements. The Isarn food is very good also. I am judging this restaurant in comparison to other restaurants in US including LA, NYC, Dallas and Seattle. In comparison to those places I would give this place a 4/5. But they definitely have everything in place to be rated 5/5 if they just up their game a bit...

we went to this place on Friday afternoon. I don't know why the service was horrible. The sat at the table in the corner right next to the register where people were paying. We're reaching over us to pay. I ordered a fried rice with prawns or jumbo shrimp I'm not sure what it was either way the shrimp was dirty was not cleaned out right and then when we asked for to go boxes, I pack my leftovers cause I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't wanna really eat them. I guess leaving them. There would've sent it better message. Well, the waitress came and started wiping and cleaning up putting her arm in her elbow, right in my face because the table was against the wall, so my head was against the wall I was pinned against the wall and I had to tell her excuse me. I'm still here. I'm not done yet and she moved back and said oh I'm sorry like really you couldn't see that notice that anyways when we went to pay the automatically had a gratuity, I was not gonna pay them a tip. I normally tip, but I thought the service in the food was crap so they started saying that it's an automatic gratuity when there's a party six or more whatever I told her well I wasn't happy with the shrimp. It was dirty and all she did was excuse yourself and get defensive and argue instead of apologizing. I had to tell her can you please stop talking and let your customers talk for a minute and when I told her about the table, she cut me off again and said well you should've asked for another table. It's like you had another table. Why didn't you sit us there? I don't know if it's reserved. I'm not the one who works there. I just sat there because that's where you place is at again. Defensive argumentative disrespectful rude I don't know why we were treated like this in the food was not great especially the dirty prawns or shrimp. I wish I would've took a picture of it. It was gross. Then when I told her about it, she also grabbed my leftovers. The box where my food was opened it up to you not to inspect the shrimp, but to see how much of it I ate and her answer was well. You already ate some of it so I'm not gonna refund it to you. I never asked her for a refund. I just wanted her to know that her food was not my taste all in all. She knocked five dollars off my bill. Wow never going back there again can always trust these holes in the walls. I should've...