I’ve been a few times now, and pleased with each meal.
They tag themselves as Southern Thai (as Chalong nearby does), but also seem to have a Chinese-leaning bent in a section of the menu (which I haven’t tried yet).
Reporting two separate meals here.
At the first, my favorite was the grilled pork jowl, juicy and tender, and perfectly seasoned, perhaps tied with the fish curry custard / hor mok (@DaveCook@Dean@KayZ).
At the second, I reordered the jowl and pad see ew (from my very first visit), and tried a classic green curry to benchmark. The noodles were even better than the first time – still saucy, but with more char. The curry was pegged as medium heat, but I would call it SPICY! Everything was delicious.
(One of my friends at the second meal had previously tried the yellow curry and the wings too, which he said were very good but he wanted to try some new things, so I will try those on another visit.)
What we ate the first (my second) time:
Ma Ta ba / Curry pancake
Grilled Pork Jowl
Duck with Spicy Tamarind Sauce
Hor Mok / Steamed fish curry / custard
Fried Whole Red Snapper with Pad Ped sauce
Great report and nice to see certain dishes becoming more mainstream at good US thai restaurants. If you can handle the heat, try the Kua Kling next time.
Southern Thailand has large populations of Thai-Chinese communities from immigration pre 20th century. A lot of classic southern dishes reflect this. Seems to also be the case as Saithong based on a quick perusal of the menu.
Hor Mok is one of my favorite dishes and I’m seeing it more and more on thai menus in the US. At Lao or Cambodian restaurants its worth trying their versions (Mok and Amok respectively) which are more herbal and less coconut custard-like but well worth trying. Let us know how your home cooked version turns out. Malay-style Otak-Otak is somewhat similar but worth trying as well if you see it on a menu at a malaysian place.
Normally pineapple in any dish is a red light as it’s not commonly eaten in savory dishes but the mussel curry is a big execption and a true dish of the “upper south” area. The tumeric fish is also a classic southern thai dish you could try. The Nakorn fish salad and the crab “lon” (crabnu meat dipping) on the menu also seem to have southern roots. I’d also try the pork hock soup but I can’t tell how southern that is. some of their dishes are from central or NE thailand.
The home version turned out very well. I used salmon and scallops because that’s what I had, and will add shrimp or crab next time. I might have gone heavier on the curry paste than intended, but o ate it with rice so that worked out.
The restaurant versions are generally chunky with pieces of seafood, whereas most recipes I looked at were a simple mousseline / fish purée (from reading up on it, if the original was made from fish scrapings, somewhere in between is probably accurate).
