House of Thai

As you may recall, I've never been thrilled with the Thai food options in San Francisco, particularly after spending significant time in Sydney, where the Thai food is amazing, but ... the Shelter in Place due to Covid-19 changed many things.  And one of them was my willingness to get takeout.

House of Thai has been on my list for a while, as Yelp reviews are strong, and they have two locations (one on Haight, one on Larkin), so they must be doing something right.

I only had one dish, but, I was not particularly pleased, and will not return.

Side note: Stuck doing a lot of pickup and delivery these days? Want to try some free food and new pickup or delivery services?  Here are some codes for free money!

• Door Dash ($15 off, $5 each of your first 3 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
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• Ritual ($6 off) [ Pickup only ]
• Delivery.com ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Grub Hub ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

I ordered pickup via delivery.com, and that part of the experience was fine - my order was ready right after I arrived, no issues acknowledging the order quickly, and a fork was provided in the bag.  House of Thai is listed on several of the other platforms as well.

Larkin Location.

I visited the Larkin Street location, right on the corner of Larkin & Geary, deep in the Tenderloin.  

Clearly not the best neighborhood, but in the area of many Thai restaurants (including Lapats which I actually liked - fried taro! durian sticky rice!, and Modern Thai, which I tried many times and never really liked,  and SF darling Lers Ros Thai where I had a mediocre experience).

Shelter In Plate Times: Takeout only!

Since my visit was during the shelter in place, the only option was takeout (or delivery), and orders were being taken/picked up at a makeshift little window on the sidewalk, no customers were allowed inside the restaurant (which had all the tables totally removed).

Pickup was easy, I just approached, rang the bell as instructed, and my order was handed over soon after.

I went to House of Thai with one goal: to get a fried catfish salad.  Yup, not a curry, and ... catfish?  This was a super random craving on my part, but House of Thai gets great reviews for their fried catfish salads, and their larb in general.  I've actually never had larb before (!), given that it is usually chicken or minced pork, and just not my thing, but House of Thai offered both a duck and catfish version.  For some reason, this just sounded great to me.  

I was also tempted by the "Crispy Catfish Salad", with the same crispy fried minced catfish, with ice berg, green apple, cashews, onion, and spicy lime cilantro dressing, but the larb really called out.

Crispy Catfish Larb. $15. "Spicy"

"Prepared with lime dressing, chili flakes, onion, parched rice powder and mints.  Choice of minced chicken, pork, roasted duck or crystal."

Even though I've never had larb before (or at least, not from a real Thai restaurant), I still knew what to expect: minced meat, a huge wedge of cabbage or lettuce to wrap the meat in, and a complex flavor profile of salty, sour, spicy and sweet.

The dish *looked* pretty much as expected (although the portion much smaller!), but ... it certainly didn't taste how I expected.

I'll cut right to the chase: it was sweet.  *Really* sweet.  It wasn't just not Thai spicy, it was sweet.  Just sweet.  Way too sweet.  I tasted zero heat, again, not just not the expected Thai spicy heat, but, none.  I saw no chilis nor the mentioned chili flakes.  There was nothing to balance the sweet.  Not only the missing spice, but also, no sourness - where was the lime dressing?  Where was the balance that Thai cuisine is all about?  Sadness.

More sad because the fried catfish was actually quite good.  Coated in cornmeal, fried, crispy, all different size chunks, not murky or fishy.  I liked it quite a bit.  But ... super sweet catfish with nothing to balance it was just not great - I wanted spice, or I even wanted some aioli or something.  Just ... something.

I tried desperately to get some good flavors going on, and sought out the red onion hoping for some acidity, harshness, and bite, but even the red onion was mild.  I dislike red bell peppers, so they offered nothing, and also, um, they were sweet bells.  The sliced green onion at least had a bit of flavor to it, and I guess the parsley tasted like parsley (and there was tons of it), but neither were enough to really save this.  I found no mint either.

The larb was on top of a leaf of green lettuce that soaked up all the sweet juices, and a fairly small wedge of green cabbage was on the side.  The cabbage was crisp and fresh, but still wasn't enough to balance the sweet.

Overall, this just ... well, wasn't good.  Unbalanced sweetness, and fairly difficult to eat given how cloying that sweetness was.  It honestly seemed like they forgot to add the lime juice, and certainly didn't add chilis.  I ordered it spicy (choices were mild, medium, spicy, very spicy).  Sad, as that catfish really had potential.

I saved some, since I really just couldn't stomach it, and used it the next day - I grilled up the catfish in my Griddler, served it on top of a cabbage based salad, and added, well, SPICE, and soy, and lime aioli.  The result was actually quite delicious - again, that catfish had potential, but I needed to transform it entirely.

The basic proteins (chicken/pork/beef) versions of the larb are $13, premium ingredients like roasted duck or catfish ('crystal?') were $2 more, $15.  Taste aside, the portion was really quite meager for the price, and not worth it at all (the takeout container was quite shallow, and not particularly full).