Spicy – Page 10 – The Saboscrivner

Mee Thai

Happy holidays, folks! Sorry it has been a while since my last review, but I have written a few new ones I’m getting ready to stuff down your chimneys.

I rarely eat Thai food — I have to get that out of the way right away. Always a late bloomer, I only ever ate it ONCE before I left my parents’ home to go off to college. We had a jazz musician friend who was playing a gig at a Thai restaurant in Miami, and he invited us out. My parents really don’t like trying new foods or going to new places, but they were cool enough to step out of their comfort zones that evening. But none of us were prepared in the pre-Internet era of the mid-’90s to know what we might like, so we all very likely ordered the wrong things. I know my dad didn’t like his at all. It was a whole new world of spices and flavors, and he was not having it. He said his food made his bald spot tingle, and it made him ANGRY, like he was about to Hulk out. So that was it for Thai food for a few more years.

At least now, I’ve been to enough Thai restaurants over the years to generally know what I like and what I don’t. My favorite dish is pad kee mao, AKA drunken noodles: wide, flat, chewy rice noodles stir-fried with a protein, onions, bell peppers, basil, sometimes carrots, and some spices. It gets its name not because the recipe includes any alcohol, but because it’s great late-night drunk food. I believe it, but as a non-drinker, trust me when I say it’s perfectly fine no matter what state you’re in or when you enjoy it. It can be spicy, but I tend to go with medium heat. That’s my go-to dish whenever I try a new Thai restaurant, because even when it’s mediocre, it’s still pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, I also like pad Thai and some other dishes, but drunken noodles are where it’s at.

Well, I’ve been hearing great things about Mee Thai (https://mee-thairestaurant.business.site/) for a while, on Lee Road in Orlando, not far off I-4 exit 88. Mee Thai is ten minutes from Winter Park Village, and two minutes from another favorite of mine, LaSpada’s Cheesesteaks and Hoagies. It’s a small building with a green roof that makes it hard to miss in a relatively industrial stretch of road with a surprising amount of intriguing restaurants around. And Mee Thai, specializing in food from the Esan region of Thailand, was definitely intriguing.

When I arrived, the two ladies working were extremely friendly and welcoming, especially when I said I’ve been reading good reviews online and this was my first visit. I was ordering takeout to bring home for my wife, but they were so nice, I already couldn’t wait to come back with her to dine in. I ordered drunken noodles with chicken for myself, pad Thai with beef for my wife, a Thai iced coffee for her, and an order of Thai doughnuts to share for dessert. They didn’t have mi krop, my wife’s favorite Thai appetizer, but it was still a large menu with lots of selections. The menu had prices for lunch and dinner entree portions, I didn’t specify, and they didn’t ask, but it was lunchtime, so I assumed they gave me the lunch portions.

While I waited in the restaurant, the young lady was kind enough to bring me a small salad to enjoy. It was a simple salad with crispy iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots, but the dressing brought it to a whole other level. It was some kind of vinaigrette, a little sweet, kind of a creamy white color, and I feel like a boob because I’m not enough of a Thai food expert to describe it any better, but it was delicious. I would have bought a whole bottle of that salad dressing if they sold it. Anyway, here is the salad they packed for me to bring home for my wife. (She didn’t eat it today, so hopefully I’ll get to have it tomorrow!)

When I got the food home, we were both extremely impressed by the quality, freshness, and flavors of everything, plus the generous portion sizes (pretty huge if they were the lunch portions). The drunken noodles had that chewy consistency I love, and while I think I would have been happier with beef or pork, the white meat chicken was so flavorful, if a little dry. The medium heat had a pleasant kick, and next time I might be brave enough to try the hot, but maybe not “Thai hot.” I love what Thai basil brings to this dish, plus the onions and bell peppers, which were stir-fried to a very nice softness. It was such a large portion that I didn’t finish it all in one sitting, which is a good thing that I don’t do often enough.

My wife was a little surprised at first that her pad Thai didn’t have the orange hue she is used to, but if anything, that probably makes this version of the dish a little healthier and a little more authentic. It had everything — tender, juicy beef, chewy noodles, a little citrusy tang and sweetness in the aftertaste. I had to try it as well, and we both agreed it was one of the better versions of pad Thai we’ve had around here. Probably the best. Same goes for my drunken noodles. Very impressed.

The Thai doughnuts came with an order of six. They were light and fluffy, not greasy at all, and they came with a little dipping container of sweetened condensed milk. Now, I LOVE sweetened condensed milk. It’s so fantastic as a component in desserts, but I think I’d be perfectly content if dessert WAS sweetened condensed milk. Just bring me a can and a spoon, and I’ll go to town.

So that’s Mee Thai, a wonderful restaurant that has been open for about a year, that I highly recommend. I’ll give it my seal of approval over every other Thai restaurant we’ve been to in Orlando, which is at least six or seven of them, and I think these prices were cheaper than most of the others I’ve been to. They are open seven days a week, from 11 AM to 9:30 PM, they are incredibly nice, and the food is great. I intend to become more well-versed in Thai food in 2019, and I can promise I’ll go back to Mee Thai regularly to try new things and revisit my go-to favorite, drunken noodles.

Kai Asian Street Fare

It’s rare we get an exciting new restaurant in my neighborhood, but Kai Asian Street Fare (http://www.kaistreetfare.com/) started out strong when it opened earlier this year in a small, nondescript shopping strip on Semoran, just south of Howell Branch, and it has been improving exponentially since then.

My first trip was back in early April, and my wife and I ordered and shared several of Kai’s eclectic dishes:

The “Dude Where’s My Ca” fish taco was very different from my favorite Asian fusion fried cod taco at Tako Cheena, but it was nice and crispy, not greasy at all, and had a good blend of flavors going on.

They had three different varieties of Korean fried chicken wings, but since my wife doesn’t like spicy, we went with a safe soy-garlic flavor:

I appreciate clever names, especially puns, so “I’m in Love with the Pho Pho” earned bonus points from me right away. It wasn’t my favorite bowl of pho I’ve ever had, but it the broth was rich and fragrant, and it came with tender slices of beef and chewy meatballs. I just have a TENDON-cy to want beef tendon in my pho, and that wasn’t an option at Kai.

The “Legendary” garlic noodles with shrimp were one of the best noodle dishes I have ever tasted, and will surely make my list of favorite dishes of 2018.

Finally, the “On Fleek” pork and shrimp wontons were as tasty as they were pretty, especially rolled around in the leftover garlic noodle drippings:

Well, life gets in the way, and I had a few really hectic and stressful months since then, so I didn’t make it back to Kai for a while, all while positive reviews kept rolling in. Two weeks ago, I finally returned on a weekend, just intending to get some takeout for lunch, when I ran into a friend from the Orlando Foodie Forum, who was there meeting another friend for lunch. They graciously allowed me to join them, so that was super-fun, and of course we ordered and shared even more wonderful food. Everything I tried on this second visit in October was even better than my first trip. Plus, they had some interesting weekend-only specials which we took advantage of, so I’m so glad I went.

Since my first visit, they have added a few more wing flavors, so each of us ordered a different one. One friend ordered mango habanero wings, which were succulently sticky, sweet, and spicy. I love mangoes in any shape and form, and I’m cool with spicy food, but habanero peppers are usually a little much for me, and I tend to avoid them. Not these — they had such a great flavor, instead of just doubling down on ass-kicking heat like a lot of lesser wings at terrible sports bars and other awful wing chains.

Another friend ordered the Szechuan dry-rub wings. I’m developing a palate for Szechuan cuisine, which has a different kind of heat, a tingling and numbing heat that can be weirdly addictive (and sometimes has a slight metallic aftertaste). These wings weren’t as strongly numbing as some Szechuan seasonings I’ve had at Orlando’s Chuan Lu Garden, and they seemed to be balanced by some sugar in the dry rub that cut the heat. Since I was on my way to work after this lunch, I wisely avoided the peppers themselves.

Those were both weekend specials, but I ordered the spicy tang wings off the regular menu, which I didn’t get to try on my first visit. They were the most like the Korean fried chicken wings at Hawkers, which have been my favorite and gold standard so far:

All of Kai’s wings are absolutely huge, meaty, and tender, with nice crispy breading that stays on, and never soaking in puddles of oil or grease. I don’t know how they do it! I am definitely a convert. Not to take away from Hawkers’ wonderful wings, but these are easily as good — just different, and well worth trying if you already like Hawkers (or anyone else’s, really).

That day, they also had two varieties of freshly-made ho fun noodles, which are wide, flat, chewy noodles that I love. I ordered the dan dan noodles with spicy ground chicken in chili oil, and my friend ordered the seafood ho fun noodles with shrimp, squid, beef, and rich XO sauce, a luxurious thick sauce from Hong Kong traditionally made with dried scallops, shrimp, ham, chilies, and spices. Well, I’m here to tell you that the only way Kai could have beaten its own Legendary garlic noodles was with these two ho fun noodle dishes. Wow. Two weeks later and I still smile and salivate, thinking about them. I don’t know if I’ve ever ordered other Asian noodle dishes this good. I implore my readers to try them on a weekend, but with any luck, Kai will add them to the regular daily menu.

This is my spicy chicken dan dan noodle bowl. It was outstanding, folks. It had an interesting visual flourish: the flakes on top are dehydrated bonito (fish) flakes, and when added to a steaming hot dish, they appear to dance or move! We were all a little surprised by that, but it was a cool effect. IT’S ALIVE! (Not really, though.) I didn’t get a picture of my friend’s seafood ho fun, but trust me, it looked almost as good as it tasted, which was really good.

We were all fanboying and fangirling out, chatting up the chef and our cool server throughout the meal, and the chef brought us one more thing to try, on the house: dry pho noodles, served with farm-raised chicken, crunchy chicharrones, and broth on the side. The chicken was chewier than most chicken I’m used to, I guess from the bird actually being able to walk around freely and build up muscles. The chicharrones weren’t like styrofoamy store-bought pork rinds, but actual crispy, crunchy chunks of rich, fatty pork. The noodles (which were probably also house-made) stood on their own when we mixed a good sauce into them, and then we only drizzled on as much broth as we wanted for our own portions. I love pho, but I have to be in the mood for it, and this was a nice alternative to wanting the flavors and textures but not sitting down to a steaming bowl of soup on a hot, humid day. It was definitely better than the traditional pho I tried back in April. I apologize for not having a photo of that either (although some patient, bleary-eyed Saboscrivner readers may be relieved!)

Well, I’m shocked and saddened it took me so many months to return to Kai Asian Street Fare and even longer to write a proper review, but I give it my highest recommendation. If you follow the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook, you will see it has emerged as a popular local favorite for good reason, and a godsend for those of us who don’t feel like schlepping down to Mills 50 for the city’s best Asian restaurants. Kai definitely belongs in that rarified group, so don’t hold its suburban location against it. I wish them the best of luck and all the success in the world, although they are already achieving it. I just beg them to make those ho fun noodles a daily thing! Also, as a music nerd, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention they were playing an incredible selection of ’90s hip hop and R&B the entire time, taking me right back to some of the more tolerable parts of high school. Mad props to our server, who took credit for the bangin’ playlist.

CLOSED: Jade Sushi & New Asian

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jade Sushi & New Asian closed for good on November 5th, 2022.

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For a guy who writes about food, I rarely leave work to go out to lunch, even though I work near some of our city’s best restaurants. Nope, I pack mostly-healthy lunches in a lunch box with baked chicken, sometimes cans of sardines, hard-boiled pickled eggs I pickle myself, big salads, vegetables, berries. Everyday stuff. Boring stuff. And I eat alone in our break room and usually choke it all down quickly so I can get back to work. Not festive, folks. Not blog-worthy. This Onion article hits really close to home for me: https://local.theonion.com/man-brings-lunch-from-home-to-cut-down-on-small-joys-1819577433

But today was a rarity, because not only did I go out to a nice lunch, but I met a lot of super-cool people from the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/orlandofoodieforum/), the community that keeps me in the loop and eating well in the first place. If I’m any kind of authority on local food (and I am, at least for friends, co-workers, and students), it’s thanks to that place.

Seven of us assembled at Jade Sushi & New Asian (http://jadenewasian.com/) in the College Park neighborhood near downtown Orlando: myself, Foodie Forum and Tasty Chomps food blog (http://tastychomps.com/) founder Ricky Ly (who I’ve known online for years but never met), and other super-cool people who probably don’t want me to list their full names: Krystle (another fellow blogger, of http://www.theorlandogirl.com/ fame), Monica, Mia and Aranya, and Lani (who I owe a debt of gratitude to, for welcoming me into the world of pie championship judging earlier this year). I always feel awkward in social situations, like I’m not going to belong, but this was a very friendly and welcoming group, and I like to think I clicked with them.*

*Speaking of “clicked,” I’m sure at least one careful Foodie Forum reader at this gathering was like “Really? This is the guy who elected to take the group picture?”

We ordered lots of food, and everyone was very generous and laid-back about sharing. We tried fried chicken wings in spicy-sweet Korean red sauce, pork belly bao, and they brought out thin slices of hamachi (a fish similar to amberjack) for us all to sample, which was really nice.

A few of us ordered spicy tan tan men, which is thin, ramen-like noodles served with ground beef in a spicy, oily red sauce. I love a similar dish at Chuan Lu Garden with ground pork, but this might have even been better because it also came with soft-boiled egg halves like “fancy” ramen (to me, that’s any non-instant ramen), beautiful chili threads as a garnish, and I opted for a bit of sliced cha shu pork with mine as well.

I’m pretty sure Ricky took this picture with my camera phone:

And here’s my terrible photography again!

Ricky has been promising to give me a food photography tutorial, so today was our chance. I felt extremely relieved and vindicated when he quickly concluded that my phone camera is just the worst, rather than my eye or my talent as a photographer. Hey, it’s not a fancy phone, but you would plotz if you knew how little it cost, and how little I pay for my plan per month. That allows me to go out to eat slightly more often and write about my experiences here. The downside, dear readers, is you have to look at my blurry-ass food photos from time to time.

Well, I can never resist a deal on sushi, and Jade has some great lunch specials, including two rolls for $11. I opted for two standards, intending to share them: a spicy tuna roll and a bagel roll with smoked salmon and cream cheese, because that is the food of my people. I haven’t had sushi in a long time, and they totally hit the spot.

Other people ordered some beautiful-looking bento boxes and ramen bowls. Jade Sushi & New Asian has a huge menu (http://jadenewasian.com/menu/), so take your time looking it over so you can make the best choices. Better yet, go with a bunch of friends (or friendly Internet strangers) and share everything!

I have been to Jade twice before, and from those prior visits, I strongly recommend the “sizzling evil ribs” (great name, even greater dish) and the Stormtrooper roll, with smoked salmon, asparagus, and fried jalapeno, wrapped with escolar, spicy mayo, and eel sauce.

So today was better than most days. I left work, ate a terrific lunch at a restaurant I love, and hung out with some friendly fellow foodies for the first time.