Popular Thai Restaurants in Southern California: Manaao and Rooster and Rice
- The Anonymous Hungry Hippopotamus
- Aug 31, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 4
Not every popular restaurant earns its popularity. This post covers two Southern California Thai restaurants that have devoted followings, critical recognition, and in one case a genuinely extraordinary origin story — and that I visited, ate at seriously, and left uncertain about. I am sharing both experiences honestly, with the acknowledgment that I could be wrong, that I may have ordered incorrectly, or that I may have visited on an off night. If you have eaten at either and disagree with my conclusions, I want to hear from you.
Rooster and Rice
I'll start with Rooster and Rice, a San Francisco-based, organic, Thai restaurant with numerous Bay Area locations. Recently, they expanded to Southern California as well as Texas. Many people in San Francisco have suggested the restaurant to me, so I decided to give it a try.
Khao Mun Gai
Rooster and Rice's speciality is the khao mun gai, a Thai dish made with poached chicken, served over chicken rice. The dish is garnished with cucumber and cilantro and a fresh chili, ginger, and garlic, soybean sauce.
The khao mun gai at Rooster and Rice features both breast meat and thigh meat. (My advice is to double down on the thigh meat for $1 extra and skip the white meat altogether, as I found it quite dry.) The chicken is meant to be dipped in the ginger, scallion sauce ...
... and dunked in the chicken broth.
Then you combine it with the chicken rice and enjoy.
As an aside, I find khao mun gai a fascinating dish because there are near identical versions in Malaysian, Singaporean and Vietnamese cuisine, as well as other iterations throughout Southeast Asia. All the dishes originated in Hainan, the southernmost province of China, and feature poached chicken with aromatic herbs, served with rice cooked in chicken stock (a.k.a. chicken rice).
Cơm Gà Hải Nam Chicken and Rice
The Vietnamese dish is called, cơm gà hải nam and if you are interested in trying it, I suggest visiting Phở Ao Sen restaurant, which has two Bay Area locations in Oakland and Albany. In my opinion, they serve the best version of this dish that I have had.
Phở Ao Sen's chicken is tender and juicy - yes, even the white meat. It comes topped with laksa leaves and served with a side of chicken broth and a rich, ginger dipping sauce, made with chicken fat.
Popcorn Chicken
Now, back to Rooster and Rice. The second dish I tried, was their popcorn chicken. I'm not sure how traditionally Thai this really is.
The chicken pieces were breaded and deep fried. The seasoning tasted lemony (honestly, too lemony), and a little spicy. The chicken was also very salty. On a positive note, though deep fried, I did not find it oily. It was also moist and had a great crunch.
The popcorn chicken is served with a creamy sauce. I preferred it without, but it's your call. Incidentally, I had plenty of leftovers, so I shared them with family. Everyone who tried Rooster and Rice's popcorn chicken, seemed to enjoy it. That said, when I told them it came from a Thai restaurant, they were universally as confused as I was.
Hat Yai Fried Chicken
The final dish I tried at Rooster and Rice was the hat yai fried chicken, which is a southern Thai preparation. The chicken is marinated in sugar, fish sauce and a variety of spices, fried, and then topped with crispy shallots.
Rooster and Rice did a great job achieving a crispy exterior and tender, interior. This was the best of the three dishes I tried at the restaurant, but nowhere close to the best versions of the dish I have eaten elsewhere.
I don't think I will return to Rooster and Rice, but I am glad I tried it and assessed that for myself. I was also glad to experience such a unique, Thai restaurant, in that it is the only one I know of with a casual, fast food vibe; great if you are craving some Thai flavor, not expecting too much, and are on the go.
Manaao Thai
I had been wanting to try Manaao Thai for a very long time, and for many reasons, including its rave reviews and its improbable beginnings. The restaurant, located in Tustin, was not started by professional chefs; rather, it was created by engineer and web developer, Kanate Ungkasrithongkul and his wife, Anita. See what I mean by "improbable?"
During the pandemic, Ungkasrithongkul began experimenting at home and trying to recreate the childhood dishes he loved from his small, hometown in Thailand. From there, he and his wife decided to open Manaao Thai and feature the dishes they had refined.
Everyone noticed, from locals who raved about the restaurant on Instagram, to the Los Angeles Times, who voted one of the restaurant's dishes, the "Best of 2023." The fanfare has not died down since then, as evidenced by the 40-minute wait that we experienced during lunch time, on a Wednesday, at 2 p.m.
Northern Plate
After hearing so much about Manaao, I wanted to try as many items as possible, and this combination plate, described on the menu as featuring the "iconic dishes of Northern Thailand," seemed like the best way to do it. The plate included house-made pork sausage, fried pork jowl, pork rinds, steamed vegetables, one boiled egg and a dip.
As the menu stated, the cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and carrots were steamed. That's all. There was no seasoning whatsoever. Not even salt. This applies to the boiled egg as well. Being that these flavorless items comprised about 50% of the plate, we were disappointed, but hopeful about the remaining items.
Sadly, it didn't get much better. The pork rinds were so tough that they were hard to bite through and chew, the sausage was dry and not particularly flavorful, and the dip was confusing (the menu said it was made with chilis, shallots, garlic and mushrooms, but in look, texture and flavor, it seemed to be eggplant based). That left the fried, pork jowl, which was simply deep-fried. It was fine.
Despite our chagrin, my spirits weren't dampened, because coming up next was a unique dish, a speciality of the house, and the reason I was most excited to visit Manaao -- the gaeng som pae-sa.
Gaeng Som Pae-Sa With Crispy Catfish
Per the menu at Manaao, this soup is "a household staple in Thailand but hard to find in the USA." I agree. This was the first time I had seen gaeng som pae-sa at any Thai restaurant in the U.S., and if it was offered at any of the places I ate in Thailand, I overlooked it.
Excited to try something new, we dove in. The flavors of the soup were primarily sour with a hint of spice. They didn't excite my palate, but I certainly found them unique. My dining companion (who is an adventurous eater) on the other hand, was very put off by both the taste and the smell.
Catfish
The very best part of the soup was the catfish, and it was indeed delicious. It was fried perfectly; not greasy and very crunchy and flavorful. In fact, in the video, you can actually hear the crunch, above all the ambient noise. The fish, apart from the soup, was unequivocally the best thing I ate at Manaao.
Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao)
Truth be told, we never intended to order a third dish. However, contrasting our experience with the popularity of the restaurant, we reasoned that maybe we just chose poorly with the first two dishes and really wanted to redeem the experience. We looked to nearby diners and decided to try the drunken noodles, which seemed to be on everyone's table. I mean, the third time's a charm, right?
Wrong (at least in this case). For drunken noodles, these noodles simply didn't drink enough -- of the sauce that is. Frankly, I wouldn't even deem them "buzzed" noodles, as both the noodles and the beef were strongly lacking in the amazing, herbaceous, spicy, salty, and sweet flavors that are the cornerstones of pad kee mao. On a positive note, I loved the addition of the green peppercorns. These tiny orbs literally burst in your mouth with spicy flavor.
With a lunch bill that exceeded $80, we left Manaao unfulfilled and confused, wondering if we missed something and/or simply got it wrong.
The honest verdict: Rooster and Rice is casual Thai fast food that does what it sets out to do, imperfectly but sincerely. If the khao mun gai is your goal, order the thigh meat, skip the breast. If Manaao's Northern Plate is what draws you, arrive knowing that the unseasoned vegetables are a feature of the regional tradition rather than an oversight — and order the gaeng som pae-sa for something genuinely unusual. I left both restaurants more puzzled than satisfied, which is itself a useful data point. Your mileage may vary. I hope it does, and I hope you'll tell me if it does.
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