My Thai friend Bee has become friends with the owners of
Thai Taste in
Oak Hill. There's a Thai restaurant in Oak Hill, you say? Yeah, that was
my initial reaction too, especially after learning they've been there
for over 4 years! (They're in the same shopping center as the HEB.) Bee
stops by Thai Taste when she doesn't feel like cooking certain Thai
dishes, and began noticing there were never that many customers in the
restaurant. So she mentioned to the owners that she has a food blogger
friend (me!), and would they be interested in having me come out, try
the food, and provide my honest feedback. And that's how we ended up at
Thai Taste for dinner on a recent Saturday night. Disclosure: the food
was comped by Thai Taste, but I was not compensated for my opinions
which are my own.
The short version: Thai Taste is quite good, and deserves your attention.
The long version: keep reading!
We chatted with manager Som, and discussed some dishes to try. I think because we were there specifically for a tasting/sampling of the dishes, the portion size was not always representative of what's typically served.
Mixed appetizer plate, the pu pu platter of Thai food. Not a trace of grease on the egg roll or crab rangoon; spring roll nice and fresh; good flavor to the peanut sauce (and I am picky about peanut sauce because I make my own and I think it's the best of course); the chicken satay had nice grilled flavor and wasn't over-cooked; chicken wing was standard. The dumpling was the pleasant surprise on this plate as it had a bit of cumin in the ground pork, and it was very moist.
Fish cakes. Bee really likes these and I can see why! These tasted fresh, had a good firm (but not rubbery) consistency, and were especially nice with the sweetish cucumber sauce.
Moo ping with pork and tamarind sauce. I've had moo ping before at
Sap's and always enjoyed it. This one I thought the meat was too tough, and I told them so. Like the satay, it had nice grill flavor, but had probably been left on the grill for too long. The twangy tamarind sauce had some heat to it, and was good also with the fish cakes and the other appetizers.
Som tum (green papaya salad). Surprisingly decent, though the addition of a bit of their house-made fish sauce mixture (fish sauce, lime juice, bit of chile, maybe a bit of palm sugar or other sweetener) really brought the flavors out and tampered the sweetness. I know this dish isn't for everyone, but I love the juxtaposition of the cooling papaya shreds with a spicy fish sauce dressing, along with a bit of crunch from the peanuts. A bit sweet up front, but then a late heat hits you.
Pad Thai. A bit sweet, but had nice flavor to it; good sized pieces of chicken. I found out talking to Bee and Som that this dish can take on many regionalisms, depending on where the chef is from. {Som is from Bangkok, Gib the chef, is from south Thailand; they have both worked at a number of Thai restaurants in different parts of Austin.} A little bit of the fish sauce balanced the sweetness out; I also liked this dish because it wasn't too dry. Certainly one of the better pad Thai dishes I've had in Austin. But can they be consistent with it? I have loved the pad Thai at
Thai Fresh, but they are very inconsistent.
Green curry with beef. Whenever you see curries on a Thai menu, green curry is always going to be the hottest because it uses fresh green chiles. This was spicy, but had very good flavor, although the beef was on the tough side.
Pad see you. (Can also be spelled pad see
ew.) This is typically one of my favorite Thai noodle dishes because of the wide rice noodles and the lightly sweet sauce made from black soy sauce (fermented and sweetened, so it's a different flavor that your typical soy). This was very very good, but that little bit of fish sauce really elevated it. I would SO eat this again! Bee says this is how the dish would be if you ate it in Thailand.
Larb, made with ground pork. A bit salty, but did the chef over-compensate a bit because we had already discussed the sweetness of the som tum and pad Thai? Still quite good though, and larb is always a dish I enjoy. Reasonably spicy too, and the leftovers I ate the next day for lunch seemed even spicier.
As I wrote this post up, I've realized that some of the things Thai Taste does exceptionally well are their sauces: the fish sauce mixture, the tamarind, the peanut, the fish cake dipping sauce. All were very well balanced. What disappointed me though was seeing a bottle of soy sauce on every table. Soy is not a typical Thai ingredient, or I should say it's not a mainstay like in Chinese or Japanese food. When I asked Som about it, she said, well, that's what customers want. I told her then and I say it again now, she's not giving her customers enough credit. Why isn't the fish sauce and chile condiments on every table? She says they, the servers, ask every table if they like their food spicy, and if so, they bring the tray.
My point to them was that not all customers will speak up or speak truthfully when asked. If it's there on the the table, they can be left to their own devices in enhancing their dishes with some umami (fish sauce) or spice. One of the places Som used to work was
Thai Passion downtown (though they are now relocating to NW Austin); she said the clients downtown wanted their food much spicier than the clients she sees in the southwest Austin suburban area they're now in. But don't discount that because they aren't asking for it spicy doesn't mean they're not willing to dabble with the condiment tray.
We talked also about their website and social media presence. They do have a
website, and I think just a few tweaks to it would really improve its look and functionality. (And website designers out there??) At least their menu IS online. As for social media presence, they have none. They have a
Facebook page, which hasn't been updated since 2011. Ask any food blogger, and we'd say that having a decent social media presence is crucial for driving your business, particularly for mom + pop places, food trailers, etc. It would take just a little bit of work, and some good photographs of their dishes to get it up to modern-day standards, but it's free marketing. Som said she's hesitant with Facebook because she feels her English isn't strong enough, but I say go for it!
The exterior sign was on the building facade was not lit up when we left at dark-thirty. Hopefully this is just a very temporary thing, but the very first comment on my
Instagram post on my food there was "oh, I thought this place was closed". They got to look open to expect customers to come in. I will say for the roughly two hours we were there, there were very few other customers dining at the restaurant, but there was a VERY steady stream of people picking up their to-go orders, so people do know about the place. And to the trolls on Yelp who complained about their floor: get over it. While it may not look ideal, did it occur to you that this might be a landlord issue and something that a small business can't afford to fix themselves? Otherwise, it was very clean and comfortable.
I hope this post/critique/feedback with help Thai Taste, and I hope it will encourage some of YOU reading this to go and try them. And to my knowledge, they are the only Thai place in that part of town for quite a ways. Their food is really as good as any Thai food I've had in Austin.
