YaYa Thai & Sushi

I love Thai food. I don't know a thing about it, except that it's really, really tasty stuff. But one of the drawbacks of being enamored with it has always been that there are no Thai restaurants, good or otherwise, close to home for me. The nearest has always been Tong's, on Austin Highway, which isn't terribly far as the crow flies, but navigating the obstacle-course of blue-hair Broadway through Alamo Heights has always sent a slight shiver up my spine. It's not quite as off-putting as having to drive through Houston to get to New Orleans, but it's that same sort of thing.

So I was very excited to find a new Thai place in the restaurant listings on Urbanspoon.com, quite close to home for me: Yaya's, on McCullough, in Olmos Park. We went there tonight to try it out.

The decor is a mix of the elegant and mundane. The interior finishing was very nicely done, the tables and chairs were from the "Asian restaurant decor" page of some industry catalog, and some of the details looked like they'd been bought at a coffee-shop's going-out-of-business sale. The two interior dining rooms were spacious, with a long bar (a sushi bar? I don't know, I didn't look closely) and a few tastefully distributed plants. (There is also a patio out front, which was unused; surprising, given how nice the weather's been.)  On arrival, a gentlemen at the front counter seemed confused: should he seat us? He asked how many we were, took the appropriate number of menus from a stack, came out from the counter ... and stood there, looking for all the world like he had forgotten where he was. He seemed, then, to be communicating telepathically with someone in another room, and finally decided to seat us at the very first table. I wasn't thrilled with that, but didn't complain. I think it might have sent him off the deep end. In any case, the tables are placed far enough apart that the man at the next table, who seemed determined to talk his date to death, didn't bother me too much; I could see him talking, talking, talking, but only now and then could I hear him at all. 

Someone came by with water. Someone else came by with water. Someone paused by our table and asked if we needed more time, which we did. Someone else came and refilled our water. We finally settled on two commonplace Thai dishes --- pad wun sen with chicken, and Thai basil with pork --- plus shrimp fresh-rolls. (I always think it's best to order something you're familiar with the first time you visit a restaurant you expect to go back to; that way, you'll be able to make a direct comparison with what you're used to getting elsewhere.)

What does that mean?

Then someone came by with water.

The shrimp rolls were tasty, but were loosely packed, so that the innards kept coming out when you tried to eat it. The peanut sauce was no better nor worse than any other I've had; I've about decided there's only one manufacturer of this sauce in the whole world, and he supplies every Thai restaurant there is. 

The Thai basil was good, with a soy-based sauce that seems to be a little heavy on salt, or possibly MSG. The vegetables were cooked to perfection, crispy-chewy, and the pork was thoroughly cooked. Served with plain ol' white rice, it made a good meal by itself.

The pad wun sen, which is my favourite Thai dish, disappointed a little. It seems to lack a certain sharpness of flavour. Not that it's under-seasoned: it's not; it just seems that all the flavours of vegetables, chicken, and broth lacked definition. I would say, too, that the noodles were overcooked, but given how quickly rice noodles passes from "done" to "overdone," that seems unduly harsh. 

Fresh rolls and two entrees were about $30 with tax and tip; that, I think, compares very favourably with the other good Thai places I've found in town, and it may be that, for me, the shortcomings of the food are offset by the shortness of the drive to get there. We'll have to see.