Thai One On — Restaurant in Vista

It’s funny how when you want Thai food nothing else will do, not Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese. The reason I say that is a lot of people simply think “Asian” basically meaning a dish with rice and it’s really mostly the rice part that limits them from differentiating different cuisines and possibly cultures…

I loved the expansion to the beer/wine bar nextdoor. It’s a much more casual than the main restaurant which seats maybe 100 instead of 25. Nice tall bartop, smallish booths and tables both standard and tall. Well decorated with TV’s and subtle queues. The beer selection here is different from the main restaurant. Mostly craft beers and inexpensive to mid priced wines.

The menu is expansive and varied. Plenty of vegetarian dishes and some realy good mock meat offerings. Basically seitan. I’m a fan of the mock duck meat, tender, flavorful, plentiful. The papaya salad is bland, holds up to heat much better, go +1 or +2 from what you usually get a hot dish. I would prefer more tang and a heavier fish sauce flavor. PSE uses the right hints of dark soy sauce (yes there is a difference from the red and green bottles you normally see). The curries could use more galangal, garlic as they tend to not mix well in high spice offerings. The rice is well cooked. The tom yum is plentiful, but missing mushrooms. Kua Kai is another fat noodle dish I like that’s slightly less on the dark soy.

I’m not sure who Bill is, probably the owner, I’ve been here dozens of time, never met him, the staff doesn’t quite seem to be personable enough to really engage their guests at that level. The service is slow when busy and mediocre when not. Forget about bringing a large party. I find their fish dishes to be lacking the panache, the plating the flair of other Asian cuisines, though I know Thai to be on par, just not here. They seem to have a propensity for Duck, though I found their roast to be a bit dry and not crispy enough. Perhaps because I’m used to the air fluffed Chinese style. Larb was overpowered by the onions, I prefer a hint of curry powder to go on top so when the lime hits it, it’s more than just a separate acidity. Satay is good, but their peanut sauce is runny, I prefer a thicker sauce.

Prices are on par with most thai food around, Décor is actually quite nice, nothing overwhelming. Bathroom needs work, staff needs training, no purse hooks at the bar, parking is bad, and the valet doesn’t make it much better (yeah valet on weekends). Beer selection in the main menu is basic. I was surprised their beer wasn’t ice cold seeing as that style of serving is most common in Thailand (ice rocker barrels). I don’t like having to go to the bar every time I want a craft beer which is more often than not got a little...

Well, this establishment certainly looks nice, as everything from the lighting to the tablecloths are pleasing to look at. Unfortunately, I think we drew the server short straw seeing as how this restaurant had deceptively good reviews. First of all, my family and I came in a huge group, ready to splurge a bit as it was Christmas Eve, as well as my uncle's birthday. We started out our order by getting two Thai ice coffees with coconut milk instead of cream. We get this at every Thai place we have ever been to since I was a child. The waitress hands us two Thai ice teas meant for my cousins, which has cream in it (which my grandma and I are allergic to, and cannot take with our medications). We already drink some before we realize this isn't what we'd ordered. Eventually she comes out with our ice coffee which had the thinnest, most pitiable layer of "coconut cream" I have ever seen. Whatever, we think, perhaps it tastes better than it looks. It tastes like pure gasoline or some disgusting mix of chemicals. We ask the server very politely to please take them back. She practically yells at full volume for the entire place to hear, aggressively telling us we have only had it with real cream before, and that's why it's so awful. She starts interrogating my grandma, which really pisses me off. We tell her that we've had it before every single Thai place we've ever been and she acts like we're being ungrateful ingrates. I ask for some hot Jasmine tea instead. She proceeds to drop an ice cold teapot. Eventually, she finally comes back giving plates to everybody in my family except me, skipping me intentionally. I get my hot tofu soup and it's like a cruel joke. It clearly had been reheated in the microwave. It was a disgusting, slimy bowl in tasteless water, with a "flavor" like watered down packet ramen. The pieces of tofu that were in there were microscopic and broken. It was intentionally and completely insulting. I guess because of my unconventional appearance, I got "special treatment". Overpriced, downright horrible experience for less than sub-par food and service. Blows my mind that anybody actually enjoys this. Then again, perhaps if you're not someone like my family and i (especially me, though), your experience will...

UPDATE 6/16/24 The food quality has not declined since I was last here. It was so, so good. Today, our group had Crispy Rolls, Drunken Noodles, Pad Thai, Panang Curry, Chicken with Vegetables, and Thai Tea. Everything was super delicious with huge portions. This will be my dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

The staff is also lovely, and very accommodating. They even carefully packed up all of our leftovers in the kitchen so we didn't have to slop it into containers at the table, and topped up the rice while they were at it!

10/10 would recommend, and 10/10 I will be back!

I was very impressed with the quality of the food here. I have been looking for a closer Thai restaurant that can meet the very high standard set by my old standby, and I found it! We chose to pick up our food and bring it home, and everything was still hot and delicious when we got it home.

Spicy scale warning: Their spiciness scale ran a little hotter than I'm used to, so a 2 tasted like a 4 and an 8 tasted like a 10. This may be due to the increasing demand for authentic Thai food--including its intrinsic spiciness--but whatever the cause, be warned and adjust your spiciness request...