San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Thai one on at these 3 great places
Yummy curries, dumplings, noodles & more
Note: The Express-News is suspending traditional restaurant reviews until restaurant dining rooms fully reopen.
Two things figure prominently in a new trio of Thai restaurant openings in San Antonio. One, of course, is our inherent love of Thai food. The other is the pandemic, which has driven the shape, scope and timing of those openings.
At a time when bars without food face the mercy of shifting COVID-19 restrictions, Jeret Peña and his Boulevardier Group have fostered a symbiotic relationship between a tiki-inspired bar aesthetic and a short, smart Thai menu at Hello Paradise near the Pearl.
In the Five Points area, Jerry Gonzales and Siwaporn Archariya added a Thai restaurant to their coffee-roasting business without the fuss of a full-scale restaurant. The pandemic-driven model for Hew by Akhanay Coffee Roasters is called a ghost kitchen, doing business exclusively by curbside pickup and delivery. For a couple who dreamed of opening a restaurant, call it a dream redefined.
And finally, there’s the oldfashioned drive to thrive — pandemic be damned! — that inspired Kin Thai & Sushi to expand from its Northwest Side perch at Dominion Ridge to a former Mama Fu’s Asian House location on Bulverde Road on the Northeast Side. For Alan Shaw, the co-owner of the new Kin, the decision was driven in part by the lack of demand for his former life spinning party music as DJ Wet Li.
Each has taken a different path, but all three have arrived at the same place: great Thai for a city hungry for more.
Hello Paradise
To get a sense of where the Thai food at Hello Paradise comes from, all you have to do is look up. From your courtyard perch at Hello Paradise, you can just make out the construction site where Still Golden Social House used to stand at Broadway and Grayson Street, the same place the food truck Yai’s Mobile Kitchen made regular appearances.
Yai’s and Still Golden have concurrently evolved into Hello Paradise, where tiki and Thai share the spotlight in the former home of Jason Dady’s Shuck Shack. The tiki part comes from the bar, where a Painkiller cocktail ($10) takes you away with a frothy blend of rum, pineapple, orange and coconut cream, and A Kauai Place ($9) balances the beach and the boardroom with a punchy Negroni-style blend of Campari, sweet vermouth and rum.
On a covered courtyard patio beside a fire pit, Thai food takes on a beachfront campfire vibe with Thai wings ($10) fried in a sharp-tongued soy garlic batter and dumplings wrapped like silk purses overflowing with pork seasoned with black pepper and sesame oil ($7).
The kitchen flexes its full-plate muscles with a rich red panang curry with tender sliced beef ($10) and an energizing bowl of tom yum noodles flavored by peanuts and chile paste ($11), fortified with pork three ways: braised, ground and in meatballs. Served in paper boats and disposable bowls, it’s an indispensable and innovative Thai food experience.
520 E. Grayson St., 210-338-5114, helloparadisesa.com. Open noon to 2 a.m. daily, with the kitchen open until midnight, weather permitting. Patio dining and curbside available.
Hew by Akhanay Coffee Roasters
Hew might be a ghost kitchen, but its Thai bona fides are real. Archariya is a Thailand native, and Gonzales trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park before working for a wholesale coffee roaster in Thailand.
Order online from Hew and choose pickup or delivery, then get ready for Thai that sounds new but tastes comforting and familiar. You might not know ba mee moo daeng moo grob, but you’ll recognize the satisfying flavors of egg noodles, barbecue pork, crispy pork belly, and soft dumplings with pork and shrimp ($12). Khao mun gai ($12) delivers the one-two punch of fried and boiled chicken over aromatic rice, served with rich chicken broth, and sweet and tangy sauces.
Noodles get their shining moment with ba mee moo daeng haeng ($11), which checks all the boxes with barbecue pork, porkand-shrimp dumplings and resilient chicken meatballs, energized with fried garlic and roasted peanuts. For something simpler, there’s a street snack called Wing Zaap ($8), which gives chicken wings a character by turns spicy and sweet.
Remember that Hew is run by people who roast coffee for a living, and their twangy coconut nitro cold brew coffee ($4.25) and deep, smoky-sweet Thai iced coffee ($4.25) are some of the best coffee drinks in the city.
1430 N. Flores St., Suite 110, 210-606-4540, hew-by-akhanay. square.site. Open 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Friday through Sunday, with food service starting at noon. Curbside and third-party delivery only.
Kin Thai & Sushi
Prawpan Shaw co-founded the first Kin Thai & Sushi at Dominion Ridge. She stepped aside to let her son Alan Shaw take the coownership reins at the new Kin Thai on the Northeast Side. But that doesn’t mean she left him on his own, and her steady hand helping out in the kitchen means the new Kin is already on a solid path.
Duck panang curry ($18) showcases crispy and tender bone-in duck in a rich, red sauce, while Tipsy Noodles ($14) go full flavor bomb with wide rice noodles, beef and a bouquet of vegetables thrown together in an almost impolite tangle. Kin Spring Rolls ($8) arrive in a little golden fryer basket, standing like the spikes of a crown, appropriate to their role as some of the city’s best.
From the sushi bar, the Kin House Roll ($16) weaves together tuna, soft-shell crab, yellowtail, fish eggs, salmon and eel sauce for a complex but focused experience. The fresh salmon ($5), red snapper ($4) and octopus ($5) made for a bright, fresh plate of nigiri.
Judging from the early crowds, the Northeast Side is ready for another bite of Thai.
17306 Bulverde Road, Suite 105, 210-314-7827, Facebook: @kinon bulverde. Open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; noon to 9 p.m. Saturday; noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Dine-in and curbside available, with thirdparty delivery coming soon.