11401 Carson St, Unit A
Lakewood, CA 90715
When you have to name a restaurant, you come across a great challenge — how to make it as distinctive as the food you serve. Many companies struggles with finding the right name for anything they serves. Grey Goose was the result of careful thinking on how to find the right name for an ultra-premium vodka.
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the name of this restaurant belittles the type of food they serve. Nested in a corner of a small plaza opposing the ever-presence of Walmart, this restaurant quietly sit there competing with a large number of restaurants in a nearby larger plazas. Sparsely attended tonight may present a mood of a restaurant that is simply not good. Heck, even its crude website does not present any impressive image.
Please, ignore all of those negative signs. Because whomever the chef was behind that kitchen stand, the food was good. Not just good, but absolutely incredible. Perhaps it was the art of lowering a person’s expectation to the point where a solid meal would bring bliss to your heart. Whatever the reasoning may be, this is definitely a place I will go back to, repeatingly.
We started out with the Summer Rolls — a traditional appetizer dish from South-East Asia. Also known as Spring Rolls, Fresh Rolls, and the like, this minty shrimp roll is an absolute delightful simple dish anywhere. This restaurant served it in a beautiful layout surrounded by a sea of slightly sweet and wickedly spicy sauce that brings a new dimension to this excellent dish. Not only that, it was clearly obvious that this roll was made to order, unlike most places that would have it made in advanced — the shrimp was freshly cooked, and carefully wrapped among mint, sprouts, and noodles for a complete mixture of sweet, spicy, crunchy, fresh delight.
Let me emphasize the little fact in the previous paragraph — freshly made. Everything was so clearly freshly made that it is absolutely a delight to eat there. The wonton soup I had were clearly a prepared broth, with fresh ingredients added just before serving. The chicken tasted like a freshly steamed chicken, not a soggy mess as soups would tend to make them. Wontons were all just steamed, along with cabbage, and other additions to make this a delightful fare.
The main courses we had, the least favorite was the Pad Thai, but only due to having a strong personal preference for the style served in a small hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant at University of Pittsburgh in Oakland, PA. The second dish, Pad Kee Mao is chicken on top of noodles, mixed with delightful ingredients, and spiced just enough to give a kick. It is definitely an excellent addition to the Thai palette that I would know.
The star of the show would be the special, Kao Mun Kai. Think of freshly cooked chicken, steamed just right. Slice it up and lay it on a bed of steamed rice. Only the rice was steamed with chicken broth, not regular water. Garnish the dish with sliced cucumbers, and serve it with a ginger sauce with a devilish punch of spice. It is a traditional dish served in Thailand, and does not sound like much to our varied palettes. But with the right chef, as it is clear here in this story, everything was prepared just right, and the meal was just perfect.
Everything was portioned just right, instead of oversized as most Asian restaurants are victims of. Everything was prepared to order, and gave the right tinge of freshness. I was tempted to have more, but with this and the Thai Iced Tea, I had enough for the night. As for Thai Iced Tea – think of hot tea just iced, with just enough sweet cream doused on top. Overdo the cream, and the drink is too sweet. Underdo it, and the strong tea fight through to your brain. Just right, and it’s liquid dessert.
As noted above, I will go back. I do hope the readers here will someday join me there.
