Thai Ocha, Houston TX

Kendall G. Clark

I cringe whenever I hear people talk about the efficient Germans, the rude French, or the passionate Italians. I'm wary of nationalistic stereotypes. In the case of the beautiful Thai people, however, I may be willing to make an exception, for I have yet to meet a Thai who wasn't hospitable, kind, and gracious. A tip for travelers in a strange city: if you can possibly find a Thai restaurant, you're almost certainly assured of good food and warm hospitality. I recently dined at Thai Ocha, a small, but beautifully-decorated, restaurant in far north Houston, with my wife and my parents. Houston is one of the best dining cities in the country; and it's particularly good for Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian cuisines, owing to the large and vibrant Viet community. Hope and I eat a lot of Asian food, and Thai is one of our favorites. My landlord in college was a Thai man, a close friend of Hope's family. He and his wife taught us the wonderful cuisine of Thailand. Hope's parents eat homemade Thai food about 80% of the time.

We started with Thai Spring Rolls ($3.95) and Fresh Spring Rolls ($4.95). In my personal lexicon of Asian cuisine, "Thai Spring Roll" usually means an unfried roll served in a rice wrapper, sometimes called a "salad roll". But at Thai Ocha they distinguish the fried from the unfried versions with "Thai Spring Roll" and "Fresh Spring Roll". It's rather confusing: in Vietnamese restaurants "spring roll" usually means the unfried variety. I prefer fried Vietnamese spring rolls, wrapped in lettuce and with lots of basil and mint, to almost any other food on earth, and I'm not generally a fan of fried rolls at Thai restaurants. I found Thai Ocha's fried rolls to be representative of the genre: uninspiring, served with a insipid sauce and a bit too cool, and so too greasy. The unfried rolls, however, were fantastic. They were loaded with fresh Thai basil, which, unlike Italian basil, has a strong licorice flavor that's perfect with the saltiness of the raw rice wrapper. Green onion dominated the cucumber, which is another personal favorite. I'll return to Thai Ocha on the strength of the unfried rolls alone.

We ordered several dishes, all of which were good, with a few standouts. I had Tom Kha Khai ($6.95 for a generous serving), which is a spicy coconut, chicken soup. I typically have Tom Kha Khai (sometimes transliterated as "Tom Ka Gai" and variations) whenever I visit a new Thai restaurant. It's a classic Thai dish, like Pad Thai, and usually indicates what one can expect from the rest of the menu. A well-made Tom Kha Khai -- and it's not a difficult dish, but it can be expensive to do properly, hence, sometime you'll find it watery or bland -- is one of the best soups known to man or beast. It's got all the same kind of restorative mojo that a great Matzoh or chicken noodle soup has. The Tom Kha Khai at Thai Ocha was thick, rich and very flavorful, evidence that they don't skimp on coconut milk, lemon grass (genus Cymbopogon), galangal root (aromatic rhizome of genus Alpinia or Kaempferia), or Kafir lime leaves, which are the four key ingredients. One thing Thai restaurants rarely get right is the texture of the chicken, and though I often eat it vegetarian, the chicken is typically anywhere from slightly to severely overcooked. When I make it at home, I treat it like the Japanese dish, Shabu Shabu, and slice the chicken razor thin, and then only cook it for the last 2 minutes before service, just long enough to cook it through. The chicken in the soup at Thai Ocha was slightly overcooked for my tastes, though I suspect most people would find it perfectly acceptable.

One complaint I have about the Tom Kha Khai (and the variations like Tom Yum Goong [shrimp] and Tom Yum Khai [chicken sans the coconut milk]) is a trick that's easily stolen from the French: the bouquet garni. The Kafir lime leaves, lemon grass and galangal root, and ginger when it's used, are essentially inedible in the soup but are key to its flavor. You can't leave them out and serve a proper Tom Kha Khai, but leaving them floating free in the soup puts the burden of dealing with inedible, often finely chopped, fibrous material up to the diner, and that's not ideal. When I make the soup at home, I enclose the Kafir lime leaves, lemon grass and cilantro stalks, and galangal in a bit of muslin, tie it all up with butcher's twine, and toss it into the pot. More restaurants should take the extra effort.

My mom and Hope both enjoyed chicken Garee Gai ($7.95), which is a yellow curry, coconut milk dish with chicken, onions and potatoes. Hope orders "chicken yellow curry with potatoes" at every Thai restaurant, and though it's rarely called the same thing on the menu, they all serve it. This is also a dish we make frequently, and it consistently has a problem in restaurants: the chicken will be slightly to severely overcooked, but the potatoes will often be undercooked. Hope reports that Thai Ocha's was better than average, and she enjoyed the dish very much. (This is also a dish we make at home frequently, though I always add Shitake mushrooms; drop me a line if you want our recipe.).

All things considered, Thai Ocha is a better-than-average Thai restaurant, with a good menu and tasty food, excellent value, and wonderful service. Recommended.

Thai Ocha
421 Sawdust Road
Spring TX
281-419-7619