We’ve been watching the transformation of the building that once housed El Conejo into Thai Cafe, which opened last weekend. It’s a standalone building between two strip malls that collectively act as Irvine’s defacto Chinatown. Like a Thai monkey in the middle, it offers a non-Chinese alternative to the many good restaurants on this intersection of Jeffrey and Walnut.

While the outside of the building is nothing to look at, the months spent gutting the inside have paid off. It’s a handsome room with a clean modern design that’s elegant enough for casual dining.

You can’t operate a Thai restaurant in America without the obligatory pad thai on the menu. We expect it, like chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant, or edamame at a Japanese one, as if these items are laser etched onto every menu in their native countries.  We received a restrained version, easy on the tamarind, and easier still on the palm sugar.

You’ll find horrible versions of pad thai out there. The worst offenders drown their noodles in a ketchup-red syrup, like pad thai a la Chef Boyardee. You’ll occasionally find really complex versions tasting of garlic, citrus, scallion and dried shrimp. [ed-before you ask me where, it’s at a place in New York that has long since closed] Thai Cafe hits a not-too-gringo, not-too-ethnofunk grounder down the middle, easily fielded by Irvine’s Asian American set.

Boat noodles are one of my favorite Thai dishes, when I can find them. It’s something of a specialist’s dish. It’s a beef noodle dish, like pho, but the rich brown soup is more heavily spiced with star anise, lightly sweeted, thicker, and murky. Boat noodles soup is traditionally thickened with beef or pork blood, which adds a minerally edge and a substantial body to the soup. Thai Cafe’s didn’t display forensic blood evidence, like the version at Sapp Coffee House in Hollywood, so if you didn’t already know, you might happily sip away at the five-spice scented soup, unaware of your vampirical tendencies.

I was offered a choice of noodles and spice level, but not a choice of meats. Mine came with several perfectly simmered cuts of beef, and for once, a meatball that I enjoyed. Usually, the little rubber golf balls that come with these kinds of soup dishes are an afterthought.

You don’t accidentally make a soup this good the first week a restaurant’s open. I asked where else they’ve cooked, and they own Thai Kitchen, also in Irvine. Where their first store is geared more for lower priced takeout lunches, this new location offers a more sophisticated menu and higher priced items. Entrees are $8.95 to $15.95, with the majority priced at $10.95.

I didn’t see any of really funky jungle dishes with Northern Thai or Cambodian influences. They’re not competing against Stanton’s Thai Nakorn, Norwalk’s Renu Nakorn, or the Thai Town holes in walls up in Hollywood. This is a solidly suburban menu, but one that’s worth exploring in more detail. It’s usually a good idea to give new restaurants a couple months to get their act together, but based on my first try,  it seems they already do.

Thai Cafe
14715 Jeffrey Rd.
Irvine, CA 92618
949 559 5382
Mon-Sun 11am - 10pm
(Hours may change. I was told they’re considering staying open until 12 midnight)

…  a great food country. Cooks from every other nation bring their proud food traditions, and submit them before the collective “eeeew, what’s that?” of a squeamish American public.

… a place where our most delicious native culinary tradition, slow smoked barbecue, is celebrated in backyards and contests from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

… a country where my rainbow coalition of a BBQ team was chosen to represent America’s other, other favorite national pastime (after baseball, and invading sovereign nations) for a short video documentary by the US State Department. Check it out here:

This was shot at the 2008 Stagecoach country music festival. If you didn’t know better, it looks like they held a  concert to play second fiddle to an enormous barbecue contest, instead of the other way around. Thanks to Big Country for joining forces with the Four Q team for this contest (hence “Four Q Country”), our friends Glen and Janette for their hard work at this event, Janine and Brian for a fantastic video production, and Thom Emery and Ben Lobenstein for their work to make this contest successful.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

There’s a showdown in the desert this Saturday.  When the smoke clears at high noon, only the best barbecuers will be left standing. In a part of the Wild West where Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lived, this first year event marks the opening of a brand new city park.

The public is invited to buy 2 dollar samples from participating teams for a 2 ounce portion of meat.  Not all teams are participating due to the equipment regulations required by the local Health Department. But it is a chance for those in the Apple Valley area to taste some real deal barbecue.

My team, Four Q, will be there, minus two. Even without the BBQ Junkie or me, Two-Fourths Q is still a force, and the reigning People’s Choice Award champion of Southern California.

If you want to see the contestants in action, show up well before the first judging turn-in at 11:30 am.  If you’re there just to eat, sales of samples happen at 2pm and not before. Come for the food. Stick around for nightfall and a fireworks show.

Saturday, June 28 2008
Hesperia Civic Plaza Park
15833 Smoke Tree Street
Hesperia, CA 92345

Brent and Kim Walton are the husband and wife pair whose QN4U BBQ team has won more barbecue contests than any other team in California. I recently had the chance to teach a BBQ class in Modesto with Brent. On my way home to So Cal, I stopped by their brand new restaurant in their home town of Clovis, on the outskirts of Fresno. As the dozens of trophies displayed throughout the room will attest, they know how to cook top tier barbecue.

Most barbecue restaurants can’t begin to cook at the level required at contests. I’m sorry to say this because the American public typically doesn’t have access to the really great stuff (some areas in the BBQ belt excepted). A handful of contest champions also own restaurants and actually work the line in their kitchens, demanding the same level of quality out of of their cooks as they personally execute in competition. Brent Walton is one of those picky few.

Their “BBQ house” has the wood slats, high raftered ceilings and down home charm of a drying barn that reminded me of the bar set from Road House, after the Swayze induced cleanup. I’m told that in the short time they’ve been open, the spacious room packs out and there’s a line out the door on weekends.

I ordered the brisket sandwich, and specified the “burnt ends” offered on the menu. Beef brisket is made up of two different muscles called the flat cut and the point cut. The point is the fattier more flavorful of the two, and is generally separated and put back in the smoker to cook until it’s crisp, its fat rendered out, and “burnt” so to speak. Most restaurants don’t offer the point separately, so whenever it’s offered, I jump on it.

The first taste of the cubed burnt ends revealed smoky beef cooked just long enough to crisp without getting dried out. A cooked-on light coating of QN4U’s sweet “Clovis style” sauce gave the meat enough of a finish to make additional sauce pointless.

What looks like a cup of mayo in that photo is a side serving of the mac and cheese. It started off promising, but ended in disappointment. Their white cheese sauce has a great sharp flavor of well aged cheddar, but it was only ladled on top of my serving. Were the sauce mixed throughout to coat all the noodles, it might also have warmed up the noodles at the bottom, which were still cold. I hope the cooks can work through the logistics of service to make the last bite of mac and cheese as delicious as the first.

My waitress recommended the mac and cheese as a replacement for the sweet potato fries I heard so much about from other friends that had eaten here. Ray Lampe told me that he usually dislikes sweet potatoes, but really liked QN4U’s crispy handcut version. Unfortunately, the lunch menu is different from dinner and sweet potato fries are not on it. I’d also heard about the pig candy (bacon coated with chili spiked brown sugar and smoked until crisp) also only available at dinner. Why, the inequity, Brent? Pig candy and sweet potato fries for lunch!

I ended this lunch with some of Kim’s bread pudding. Sweet, rich and flavored with raisins and peaches, there’s enough to share this portion among two or three people.

Although I make it a point to write restaurant reviews after I’ve had the chance to work through the menu on at least three occasions, honestly, Clovis is too far for me to get back there any time soon. Locals, though, have a great new option to fix the barbecue jones. Lucky, lucky locals.

For disclosure’s sake: I know both owners, but they were not in the restaurant during this visit and I ate anonymously. I said nothing to the staff to affect their usual service.

QN4U BBQ House
1414 Clovis Ave
Clovis, CA 93612
559 765 4078 telephone
Open 7 days a week from 11am to 10pm
There is no website yet, but photos of the lunch menu are on my Flickr archive.