New York Strip Steak Over Sticky Rice with Chili Sauce

When construction began on Malai Kitchen in 2010, I was filled with a mixture of excitement and skepticism. Excitement that I would be living within walking distance of a restaurant serving food from one of the most exciting culinary areas of Asia, but skepticism that they would put out an eatable version. The spot was already jinxed: The previous occupant, Tom Tom Noodle House,  did not make it.

As things turned out, I moved out of the area and did not get to try Malai’s food until the dinner this week. I am pleased to report that Malai Kitchen delivers some of the most carefully crafted and carefully executed Thai food in Dallas. But I must qualify that I was at one of their monthly Thai Me Up dinners (sign up to be contacted either on their web site or their Facebook page) and next to none of these dishes are (yet) on the regular menu.Other attendees at the dinner and restaurant regulars I chatted with all assured me that the menu staples are just as good.

Char Grilled Chicken Hearts and Livers in a Street Spice Rub

That said, below is a cavalcade of the one-of-a-kind specialties prepared by consulting chef Paul Singhapong in conjunction with execuchef Braden Wages and sous chef Ivan Nava. Owners Braden and Yasmin Wages (she runs the front-of-house) have put together a cozy place with a comfortable patio that makes you feel like you are in a backstreet in a cosmopolitan European city. The bar turns out respectable cocktails with a southeast Asian accent (we had a Thai Rum Shooter with the first course that quickly encouraged strangers at our family-style table to start talking to each other) and although I did not get a chance to look at the list, the wines the restaurant chose for our meal were respectable. A 2010 Domaine Weinbach Gewürztraminer from Alsace had body and sweetness to go with the broken fish curry (below). A 2008 Vinos Pinol Portal Blanc was light and crisp with fresh lemon citrus flavors that made it an admirable buttress to the powerful lemon grass and seafood flavors in the seafood soup.

It is good to see a place so adventurous thriving in Uptown, a location where most restaurants hew to the tried-and-true. It is also good to see adventurous Asian cuisine inside the city of Dallas. I usually stick the plentiful representation in the suburbs to the north, east, and west of Northwest Highway.

Street Salad Snack. Take these ingredients (ginger, dried shrimp, peanuts, lime, red onions, toasted coconut, chilies and fish sauce) and...

...place on a betel leaf. Eat with your hands using the leaf as a wrap.

Sour Tamarind Seafood Soup with Prawns, Mussels and Chilean Seabass

Broken Fish Curry with Redfish, Wild Ginger, Water Spinach, Noodles and Rice Three Ways with Spicy Nam Prik

Back Of House Team: Ivan Nava (sous), Paul Singhapong (consulting) and Braden Wages (execuchef)

Praram with shrimp

Thai-rrific was a North Dallas favorite until it moved to Oak Lawn last year. And since I live around there, I am sure glad it did.

Despite the Cedar Springs address, the restaurant fronts Throckmorton Street. Big windows provide a view of the well-lit dining room and its diners: concrete floor, tables topped with white paper over white clothes and black banquettes, two-tops and four-tops of boys from the hood drinking bottles of wine they brought in themselves.

We were seated at a half banquette/half table set up in a cozy corner and proceeded to fill our bellies.

We started with the pik gai yut, or stuffed wings. Our waitress said it was the house specialty. Essentially it was two large chicken sausages shaped like wings. What I mean by that is that ground chicken was mixed with cilantro, onions, rice, and lemongrass and kind of formed into wing shapes before being roasted and sliced and presented in a brown sauce. Lip-smacking good.

Pik gai yut with cilantro, onions, and lemongrass [left

Six fat shrimp sat atop our praram, lightly sauteed red and white cabbage and broccoli in a curry-peanut sauce. Of our three entrees, this was the one we ate the most of. There were no leftovers to take home.

There was also no coconut curry to choose from, so we went with a yellow curry dish called gang karee. Big hunks of white potato, thin-sliced carrots, and slivers of chicken swam in a flavorful yellow curry. Though we ordered all three entrees “medium heat,” this one seemed to have more heat than the others – enough to create a temporary ring of fire around my mouth.

Service was friendly and efficient, though our waitress kept stepping on my dining partner’s feet. Apparently they both wear giant shoes.

Various brightly colored cakes fill a dessert case by the door. And one many-layered cake, each layer a different color for a rainbow nod to the neighborhood, sat under a glass dome. We skipped the sweets, but that chocolate frosting sure did look good.

4000 Cedar Springs Road
Dallas, TX 75219
972-241-2412
Sun-Thu, 11 am-10 pm
Fri & Sat, 11 am-4 am

This dude is crazy!

Good lord have mercy on my wicked soul. Chef Matthew “Fingers of TIE Flurry” Antonovich blew back into Dallas a few months ago with a long load of bull. In particular, a stream of wordy releases boasting his 12,000-square-foot Thai Steakhouse and club located “just a drive by the Arts, the American Airlines Event Center, Dallas World Trade Center and Dallas Market.”

First he claimed his concept would be in the most exciting neighborhood in Dallas. Then he hinted it would be near Highland Ranch. WHOOPSIE, he meant Highland Park.

Then POOF! He disappeared. The guy who boasted “God bless the recession I have found great deals on equipment, designers and food service experts hungry to put Dallas back on the map of best restaurants in America” just went away. His Twitter feed went dark. My inquisitive e-mails? Unanswered.

Hark! I found him. According to Louisvillemojo.com:

A new restaurant to be named Antonovich’s Tuscan Grille could open in the old Ferd Grisanti’s restaurant (12112 Taylorsville Road) as early as Derby Eve. If Matthew Antonovich and building owners Greg and Vince Grisanti can seal a deal, the “upscale casual” restaurant would serve freshly prepared Tuscan fare for lunch, dinner and private parties. Its Enoteca Wine Bar, complete with a wood-burning pizza oven, would also serve a social hub for the later-night 40 to 55 year-old crowd. To imagine it properly, Antonovich said to consider an amalgam of Jack’s Lounge, Mama Grisanti and Casa Grisanti.

More, could be here. Oh, what a lunatic.

Papaya salad

On Tuesday night, Laura Kostelny and I attended the media dinner for Naga Thai Kitchen & Bar in Victory Park. According to co-owner Jeffrey Yarbrough, he had Nancy to thank for spilling the beans about the restaurant’s opening; people showed up when the staff wasn’t quite ready to serve, but no one was turned away. So much for a soft opening, right?

But things are rocking and rolling these days at Naga, where Yarbrough and partners Tom Chawana (founder of Nandina), Lam Promwanrat (partner in Jasmine), and Kitti Lirtpanaruk (New York restaurateur with 20+ Thai restaurants) are serving some old favorites from the gone-but-definitely-not-forgotten Liberty, such as Annie Wong’s coconut chicken soup and spicy noodles.

Naga could be the thing that gives Victory Park a much-needed shot in the arm. Or at least its Victory Park location won’t deter diners who want excellent Thai food for around 10 bucks a plate. The wine list, put together by Yarbrough, features wines by the glass for $9 or less–including an excellent La Vielle Ferme Rose for $6 a glass and $23 a bottle–and bottles are generally less than $40. Only seven bottles on the list are more than $50.

Our dinner comprised seven courses, but really there were more like 14, because each round had more than one dish to taste. In the words of my dinner companion, we ate everything that wasn’t nailed down. Self-control didn’t enter the equation.

Noodle-less pad Thai

The first course was an appetizer plate: Four Season roll, which had a veggie-minty-crunchy thing going on; crab rangoon with cream cheese, crab, and spicy curry; steamed chicken and shrimp dumpling; and a crispy and light curry puff filled with chicken and potato stir-fried in curry paste. I’ll take 100, please. Other highlights included heat-packed papaya salad with crunchy strings of papaya and carrot tossed with peanuts, red chilies, and shrimp. If memory serves, that’s a $7 dish, one that I would walk 10 miles to eat. Pretty much every plate had a spicy, peanut-y thing going on, including King Rama with chicken, which also had a bounty of bok choy, lotus root, and broccoli. Yarbrough had to tell the chefs to turn up the heat because the Texans could take it. They’re nailing it now.

Other can’t miss dishes: dreamy sweet-and-spicy coconut chicken soup with chunks of pineapple and another Annie Wong recipe, spicy noodle with chicken, which was loaded wide noodles, shredded chicken, and red and green peppers. And here’s an interesting twist: you can order pad Thai without noodles; instead it comes with shredded carrot. I might have had more pictures to share if I hadn’t stuck my fork in the food before it occurred to me to use the camera. Yes, it’s that good.