Urban Thai

Urban Thai
2795 Cabot Dr., #170
Corona, CA 92883

If you’re looking for authentic Thai food, imported straight from Thailand and guaranteed to scorch your taste buds, then you might be disappointed. Of course, if owner Amy Lam and her seven sibling partners—who also run an additional eight Asian-inspired restaurants up and down California—wanted a traditional Thai restaurant, they wouldn’t have named the place Urban Thai, a moniker that suggests a Thailand-oriented fare for an urban California environment.

There is a lot to be said for small restaurant owners, as their attention to detail and personality is unmatched by the larger chain restaurants in almost every way. Amy Lam was very personable and disarming the moment I walked in to the 15-table sparsely decorated but warmly inviting dining room. On the main wall is a textured wall reminiscent of a wind-swept sandy dune that gives the environment a contemporary feel. The staff is small, three servers and four in the kitchen, but the service was quick and efficient. Though open since October, former bio-chemist-turned restaurateur Lam says of Urban Thai, “Business is good but it can always be better,” which has been a motif to the other shops and stores in the Dos Lagos Promenade area: Word of its charm and spender is slowly catching on, but the crowds have been somewhat reluctant to arrive en masse like they do at Crossroads or down south at Elsinore’s outlets.

To be fair, my only exposure to Thai food had been from a completely traditional restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, and although it was a series of very interesting experiences, it is rough to admit that I enjoyed what I ate. In retrospect, my menu choice was unguided and my inexperience as a novice Thai food eater was equally shameful, so much so, that I ordered the spiciest of foods, thinking Thai spices equate to more familiar and tolerable Mexican spices. At Urban Thai, the exact opposite occurred. I left everything up to Lam and she brought to my table selections that have become popular among her more regular patrons. As far as the traditional Thai spice is concerned, that’s what makes Urban Thai unorthodox: They use less fish-based sauces and much less of the fiery spices that tend to turn people away from this soon-to-be trendy ethnic food. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that Urban Thai’s cuisines are bland as Midwestern meatloaf; thanks to their hospitality learned from the catering side of the business, each plate can be tailored to an individual’s specific needs. You want to burn your mouth and drink a lot of water? Ask for a 10. But if you like Midwestern meatloaf, ask for a one and breath easy. Me? I went the middle of the road, which is how each dish is prepared unless otherwise requested.

I started with a drink, as I always like to have a Diet Coke handy as a benchmark between selections, but Amy suggested I try something different. I’m always ready for something different, but much to my surprise, a coconut soon arrived at my table, an entire coconut, with the top carved open and a straw sticking out. Young coconut juice isn’t sweet like we would expect from processed coconut, but slightly on the sour side and unexpectedly refreshing. The little paper umbrella helped give it that toes-in-the-sand aire you would expect from having a whole coconut in your hand 40 miles from the ocean.

A two-tiered tower of Urban Thai’s Samplers appeared next. On the top tier were spring rolls and summer rolls with gold bags. The spring rolls were crispy and light, especially when dipped in the plum sauce. The summer rolls seemed to be too much lettuce and not enough cilantro, bean sprouts and shrimp, so it tasted more like a salad wrapped in thin soy paper than anything else. On the bottom level, the skewered chicken and beef satays in a bed of lettuce were a delicious appetizer, especially when dipped in the peanut and hoisin sauce… which I completely confused which appetizer goes with which dipping sauce, so I tried them all, with mixed results. The samplers serves two.

Also known as Yum Nuea (which literally means “tossed beef”, the Thaiger Beef Salad is a mix of onions, cucumber and lime chili dressing with large chunks of beef scattered on top. It was difficult not to simply pick off all the beef and leave the cucumber in the plate, especially after just having the satays, but you’d be missing out on the combination of flavors—the sour of the lime chili, the slight sweetness of the cucumbers and the kick of the onions—if you did that.

I’m not a soup eater, as it is always too much work with very little reward, but the Tom Yum Gai, characterized by its hot and sour flavors, is made from lemon grass, soy beans, ginger, straw mushrooms and baby corn and offers a hot and medium spiced grouping of zest.

If I had known that three main dishes were being prepared in the kitchen by Bill Chen and Huyo Gonzalez (from recipes perfected by Tong Ing at the Aliso Viejo restaurant) that would soon fill the table to capacity, I wouldn’t have eaten so much of the salad, soup and satays. However, when each of them arrived in quick succession, there was very little stopping me from enjoying what each unique plate had to offer.

Probably my favorite of the three was the one that was least Thai (while my least favorite was the one that was most Thai), ironically, as the Black Pepper Steak is a French-Vietnamese dish served with mushrooms, red onions and lettuce. The peppers didn’t overpower the meat, while the onions and mushrooms were a familiar addition to an otherwise interesting take on recognizable dish.

Spicy Halibuts Filets were most filling and tasted most like sweet and sour chicken you would find at a Chinese take-out, but elevating well above the rudimentary buckets of food slopped out at a typical take-out joint was the combination of the pineapple, bell peppers and onions. The halibut was lightly deep fried in a simple flour-based batter and drizzled with a sweet sauce brought out by the pineapple flavors.

The traditional Pad Thai is, no doubt, a favorite among Thai food purists, and I’m not going to say that I didn’t like it, because I did, but what I didn’t like was the traditional way of eating Pad Thai. It consists of noodles, shrimp, chicken, peanuts and bean sprouts, and the customary way of eating it is to get a little bit of each item into every bite. It all went well until I included the peanuts and that became the dominating theme. After abandoning them and sticking to just the noodles and shrimp and/or chicken, it earned that melt-in-my mouth sensation I do so enjoy.

As if I couldn’t eat another bite of anything, slid in front of me was the dessert, an overflowing plate of mango and coconut ice cream slowly melting over fried banana slices and drizzled with honey . The coconut ice cream had actual coconut shavings in it, but I felt that it clashed with the semi-tartness of the banana; whereas the mango was most certainly more agreeable. And honey just goes with everything.

There’s no question that the popularity of Thai food is on the rise, soon to replace sushi as the new and trendy place to hang out and refine your culinary culture skills. Trust me, you’ll want to be the first on your block to visit Urban Thai before it becomes too popular!

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