Sun & Moon Thai Restaurant

Ah, Thai cuisine in San Francisco.  I'm still on a neverending quest to find somewhere as good as the places in Sydney.

My recent adventures kept me local, finally trying out a newer, higher end Thai restaurant in the neighborhood that I've been eying for a while: Sun & Moon.  I knew that reviews were solid for the food, but, people complained about prices.  I knew it would be expensive, but, I also knew they take pride in the quality of the produces they use, and I wanted a seafood item, so this mattered to me.  Plus, it was in COVID-19 days, and staying nearby to get takeout was ideal.

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 ...

• Door Dash ($15 off, $5 each of your first 3 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Caviar ($20 off, $10 off your first 2 orders) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Ritual ($6 off) [ Pickup only ]
• Delivery.com ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]
• Grub Hub ($10 off) [ Delivery or pickup ]

I haven't visited the restaurant to dine in.

Setting

Sun & Moon is located on Brannan Street, just a block away from South Park.

Not much signage!

The first time I went to Sun & Moon I wasn't sure where it was ... there was no big dominant sign with the restaurant name that I saw, just a small open sign, with a paper notice of the takeout/delivery service options.

Pick Up Area.

Since this was in the pickup only days, entering the restaurant was not possible, and they had a makeshift counter blocking the front door inside.  To alert the staff that you are there, you just ring the bell and then they call out "yes?!"

The first time I ordered from Sun & Moon a few weeks ago was really early on in the process, and my order actually was not ready when I arrived.  In fact, they didn't even know about it, as the internet had disconnected, and they weren't getting any orders.  Doh.  They did make it quickly once that was resolved.  I didn't write up that experience though.

I returned a few weeks later, and again placed my order via mobile (Caviar, although they are on Doordash and others as well, plus you can call in to order directly).  This time it was ready right as I arrived, I saw it brought out from kitchen.

Food

The menu is upscale Thai, classic cuisine, some with a slight twist.  Appetizers include chicken satay, simple things like steamed edamame, and always popular corn crab cakes, the salad lineup of course includes papaya salad and larb, soups include tom yum, and yup, there are a few classic main dishes (pad thai and pad see ew, green and yellow curry, a few rice dishes).  They also have ... ramen, which seems a bit out of place, but popular with the lunch crowd.

My first visit was just to get some sticky rice (to use with my own Thai food I had made), and I didn't take a photo, nor review it, but it was pretty standard sticky rice, warm, glutinous, and exactly what I was looking for.  The next visit was to try an appetizer, the most creative thing on the menu ...

Salmon Rolls. $16.

"Seaweed wrapped marinated salmon (medium-done) in fried spring rolls topped with ikura. Side of mild spicy cilantro sauce."

I loved the sound of these.  I saw sooo many photos of them online, and they looked fabulous, right up my alley.

High end salmon, cooked medium, in a fascinating wrapper of regular spring roll and seaweed layers?  It sounded great.  I love crispy spring rolls, I adore nori, and although I like my salmon mid-rare, I was pleased to see that they intentionally cook it medium, not more than that.  I had been going through a tempura nori snacks fad too, and this appealed to that side of me too.

And then, um, the crispy sweet potato strings I knew it was served over (yes!), another snack addiction of mine I picked up in Sydney where I'd get bags of this freshly made from the Thai hawker stand, and munch on them by the handful, throw onto salads, and top all sorts of curry bowls with them.

Add in ikura (why not?), and, well, I was quite excited.  I asked for the ikura on the side though, as I didn't want it to get hot inside the container with the hot salmon rolls.

My only slight hesitation was the dipping sauce cilantro sauce?  eh ...

As I mentioned, it was ready right as I arrived, and I wasted no time in diving in right on the sidewalk - I wanted piping hot, fresh, crispy spring rolls!  I was slightly disappointed to see the ikura inside the takeout container - it was on the side, but not quite as I intended to heat separate it ... but this wasn't really a problem as the rolls weren't hot.  Lukewarm ... maybe, but really not.  Sadness.

I also was sad to see the portion.  I knew it was an appetizer size, and would be 4 pieces, but in other photos I saw, they were substantially larger.  Or at least looked it.  At $16, this turned out to be very pricy - $4 a bite!  But if the bites were that good, I wouldn't care.  Sadly, they weren't.

The sweet potato strings turned out to be kinda the best part, and they weren't great - since inside the container with what was warm-ish rolls initially, they were soft, not as crispy as I wanted.  But they were still tasty, sweet, and such a fun component.  A unique plating, which looks much better when served on their dishes of course, far more fun than standard lettuce as the base!

The ikura portion was small, but it was intended to just be a garnish, and I enjoyed it - fresh (not fishy or off tasting), and fun little pops of flavor.  Another fun creative touch to the dish.

The dipping sauce, as I mentioned, wasn't a big draw for me, given that I'm not cilantro averse but I'm not a cilantro lover either, so I brought my own other sauces just in case - I brought a soy sauce with lemon juice added that I thought would go nicely (soy sauce to bring out the asian style, lemon to enhance the salmon), I brought an aioli in case I was craving creamy and rich - but of course I tried their sauce first.  It was light and very herb forward, as you'd expect.  It was spicy, but not too spicy, "mild spicy" really was accurate.  I wasn't into it with the spring rolls, but, I later used it on a salad, and thought it went well there.

So enough about the garnish.  Let's talk about those rolls.  Besides not being hot, and small, how were they?

Salmon Roll: Close Up.

Disappointing, on so many levels.  Yes, the lack of heat and small size were initial strikes against them, but there were many more things that just didn't go well.

They weren't crispy, you can kinda see here, there was a very thin slightly golden outer layer that was flaking off, and the rest of the wrapper was ... soft.  Pale.  These were not the crispy creations I was hoping for.  The nori wasn't really fried either, so that was additional softness.  The result was *chewy* rolls, not crispy rolls, which, uh, is just not very enjoyable.

But the salmon!  High end quality beautiful medium salmon!  Well, it wasn't medium, definitely fully cooked.  And how did it taste?  Honestly, this is hard to evaluate.  I barely tasted it.  Each roll had ... one bite.  One tiny bite.  Really.  The tails of the rolls were empty, just a tiny chunk of salmon right in the middle.

So, lukewarm, soft, chewy, not golden brown, not crispy, and lacking any real substantial salmon.  $16 for 4 little pieces like this, $4 each, plus some soft sweet potato strings and a couple pops of ikura.

I was extremely disappointed.

Mini Ikura Hand Roll & Asian Salad?

So ... I repurposed the last roll.

I made a mini hand roll with some nori and the ikura.  Sushi time!

I unrolled the spring roll, and toasted up the wrapper to make it crispy.  I extracted the single bite of salmon.  I made an Asian style salad, and used the crispy spring roll wrapper as a topping.  I enjoyed it all much more this way and was glad to not waste.