The Thai Grill

*** The Thai Grill has closed

In the mood for Thai food we decided to forgo a visit to  one of our favorite Thai restaurants, and instead went to a new restaurant we saw a few days ago. The Thai Grill, located in Hillcrest, is very, very small, with only 4 tables in the restaurant, and 2 outside, one of which holds up the menu. Our waitress said that they've only been open 7 months.

Not being very hungry we ordered two dishes:

The first was, the top item on the Chef's specials part of the menu. Crab Fried Rice ($10.95). The dish arrived steaming hot with flakes of real crab, peas, carrots, and bean sprouts. The good; rice was cooked perfectly, there was real crab in this, and the plate looked reasonably appealing. The bad; this dish tasted only of fish sauce, not that there was too much, it's just that the combination of fish sauce and crab, with no other real flavor to balance the fishiness, made this dish very boring. Other Thai fried rice dishes that I've had have always had some flavoring other than fish sauce to add some depth of flavor to the dish, be it garlic, tamarind, sugar, etc.... This was a singularly uninteresting dish. I didn't even finish this, which for anyone who knows me is an amazing thing, I usually easily finish anything I order.

The second dish was Rice Noodles with Hot Basil and chicken. The good; again this dish was cooked perfectly, the texture of the noodles was perfect, just enough chewiness. The chicken was also cooked very well. The flavoring of this dish was Superior to the fried rice, with nice heat and a nice tomato-ey taste. The bad; as you can see, only about 5 Thai Basil leaves, that means only 5 really "good bites" in the whole dish. I may have a big mouth, but there's no way I can eat this dish in 5 bites. The heat was easily identified, Thai chili paste, and which adds nice heat, but is usually combined with other flavors to create a better taste profile. Again the dish lacked real depth, very one dimensional, and not enough to really keep you interested.

It could be that we didn't order the dishes that Thai Grill does well. But I would think that the #1 item under Chef's Specials would probably be the best the kitchen produces. In my opinion$10.95 is really steep for mediocre fried rice. Try it out and let me know if I'm wrong, or what I may have missed......

The Thai Grill
420 Robinson Ave. Suite E
San Diego, CA 92103
619-683-7725

View Larger Map

Comments

[Reid]

Hi Kirk,

YIKES! $10.95 for fried rice? And it wasn't even good. *sheesh* When you come home, I'll definitely take you to some of my favorite Thai places.

[KirkK]

Reid - Thanks for stopping by again! Yes, this was a bit of a disappointment - but that's the way it goes...

[Sackda]

I went there and those dishes mentioned above were a twist with good taste and culinary talent it was cooked pretty well and had a great taste!

[Kirk]

Hi Sackda - Welsome and thanks for commenting. So you went to Thai Grill just to check out the dishes I ate? I'm flattered.....though I have no idea what you mean by a "twist", other than perhaps having only a few basil leaves in a dish named Rice Noodles with Hot Basil. I'm glad you enjoyed your meal though. So let's see..... perhaps..... just maybe, I should check it out again, though I'm afraid how expensive that fried rice will be now.

[Lena]

Hey, I would like to thank you for trying out The Thai Grill. Im the owner's daughter. Your review on the
dishes really does help us try to improve ourselves. Now that we have a new chef it would be great if you check us out again. I swear we improved and no we did not jack up the prices. =] thanks again.