SF 2k8, Day One: Snack – King of Thai Noodle House, Union Square

After ice cream, we drove around for a little bit before we finally decided enough time had passed.  It was time to check into a hotel, any hotel, we wanted to shower and grab a quick bite, maybe shop a bit, before our 9 pm dinner reservations.  I looked in my memory and found there a nugget of brilliance: the first time I’d ever been to San Francisco – a whole 9 years ago now, also in September – I’d stayed at the Hotel Diva.  I cannot emphasize enough how much I like this hotel overall; it’s sleek, modern, chic… we stayed in what they had available (apparently, Nancy Pelosi was in town, which meant all the hotels were booked – uhhh, okay?), which was a junior suite of some sort, as it boasted a separate sitting room with its own flat screen TV.  I didn’t photograph our room, but two flat screen TVs, a giant squishy bed, gorgeously laid out bathroom with amenities from H2O?  All for just over $230 a night?  Sounds good to me.  Plus they had valet parking with in & out privileges.  Done!

Finally showered, relaxed, a bit more at ease – well, for me, I hate feeling dirty, and sitting on an airplane for 6 hours will do that to me – we wandered around the Union Square area.  Gorgeous stepped park with grassy bits and plenty of room for people to loll about and do the things you’d want to on a cool late summer day – right next to all the high end, luxe shopping from which you might be recovering on said grass – Union Square SF is nothing like Union Square NY, which contains hipsters, skaters, dirt, drugs, more dirt, the Farmer’s Market…  I’m not hating on my beloved city.  I’m just saying that though the two share a name, they couldn’t be more different.  Think of Union Square SF like some really lush grass, plopped down in the center of 5th Avenue.  Now you get the picture: Ferragamo, Gucci, Nordstrom’s are all in the vicinity (and a lot of other high end stores whose names escape me right now and I don’t want to lead you astray by just listing out my sister’s children’s names [Gucci, Fendi, Prada, and Ferragamo] which may or may not be there).

B was hungrier than I, so I let him lead the way.  Nothing seemed to tickle his fancy, the reason for which quickly became apparent when we spied this place:

B: “King of Thai Noodle House?”
Me: “I don’t care (what I’d been saying about every place he’d pointed out so far).”
B: “Ok, we’re going here.”
Me: “Haha ok.”
B: “Your face lit up and you started smiling when I pointed at this place.”
Me: “Ahhh I was smirking because I’ve had so much Thai lately it’s been coming out my ears!”
B: “Well I’m hungry, let’s go here, I can’t just wait until 9 for food.”  (It was around 4 at the time.)

Honestly, just by looking at the outside, I didn’t have high hopes for the place.  Going inside, my gut feeling warned me, but I wasn’t the hungry one, and B didn’t seem deterred by the appearance.

The place was actually almost trendy looking, clean, polished, lots of granite (or granite appearance) tabletops, an open kitchen.  It was filled with people despite the off time we were there, and the crowd was a good mix of Asian people and non-Asian people, which to me, was a good sign.  Then again, it’s San Francisco, and there are Asian people everywhere omg seriously everywhere.  But on the tabletops appeared the napkin dispensers, rotating tray of various sauces, Asian-style soup spoons, bucket of chopsticks that are generally ubiquitous to Chinatown restaurants, Vietnamese places, and… non-Asian/American owned Asian-style-food places trying to be “chic”.  Uh oh.  Prices, however, did not reflect this attempt to be trendy, so I was pretty confused.  Maybe my New York skepticism needed to take a backseat.  Maybe the food would be really good.

BF chose to order the Thai fried rice, which included pineapple, shrimp, egg, and… raisins.  Which we both peered at, a bit disturbed to find it in our fried rice.  The rice itself was super bland, and could have used some soy sauce or salt or something to punch it up.  Bleh.

Because I wasn’t that hungry, I opted to order satay.  Unfortunately, there was only one option on the menu: chicken.  I don’t like chicken satay much… and if you’ll notice, the accompanying peanut sauce was super red, making BF hesitate and wonder if it was spicy (it was not).  The cucumber salad was super tangy and bright, refreshing even, but overall, the dish was super meh.  The chicken was just a shade overcooked, though infused with a wood grilled smell and taste, but also bland, needing to be drenched in peanut sauce to even boast a little flavor.

Yvo says: Meh.  I’d pass.  It wasn’t expensive – with a generous tip, it came out to $25 – but it also wasn’t something I’d seek out to consume.  It sufficed for a quick snack, but neither of us was wow’d and would have preferred to get our calories elsewhere.  Its location near Union Square might make it a bit of a tourist trap as well.

http://www.kingofthainoodle.net/
meh, not recommended one way or the other

Previously:
SF 2k8: Bi-Rite Creamery