Thai Restaurants in Irvine
Thai Specialty
$10 for $20 Worth of Thai Food and Drinks at Thai Specialty
Family-owned and family-friendly eatery serves up classic Thai cuisine, including soups and pan-fired noodles
Brea
$20 $10
Select Local Merchants
Cuisine Type: Thai Food
Established: 1994
Reservations: Optional
Handicap Accessible: Yes
Number of Tables: 25?50
Parking: Parking lot
Most popular offering: Pad Thai Noodles, Curry, BBQ and Vegetarian
Kid-friendly: Yes
Alcohol: None
Delivery / Take-out Available: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Pro Tip: We offer gourmet Thai food prepared fresh to order, fast, at a clean and casual dining place
Q&A with the Owner / Manager
What is one of your most popular offerings? How is it prepared?
Pad Thai is our most popular noodle dish. Stir-fried rice noodles with chicken, shrimp, egg, green onions, bean sprouts and our special blend of spices, then sprinkled with ground peanuts.
In your own words, how would you describe your menu?
The most popular dishes of Thai food are selected in our menu with variety of flavors. Many beneficial herbs, spices ,and seasonings such as ginger, basil, galangal, garlic, fresh chili, [and] lemon grass ... are used in our dishes.
Is there anything else you want to add that we didn't cover?
The taste of Thai dishes mainly depends on the freshness of ingredients, the harmonious blending of poignant flavors, and the method of cooking that has been handed down for generations. We cook the way we eat at home and take spice very seriously. For our cooked to order menu, the customer can specify a spicy level as No Spice, Mild, Medium, Spicy or Fire.
When the queen and princess of Thailand craved a taste of their homeland while visiting the United States, they didn't look any further than the Pacific Coast Highway, home of Royal Thai Cuisine. The duo stopped by the 31-year-old eatery to try Chef Sam Tila's specialties, which include calamari tossed with sweet red curry sauce, medleys of eggplant and tofu, and duck steamed in herbs and honey and deep fried. Tila sources prawns directly from the Chao Praya River, which he then grills and douses in a garlic oyster sauce. Rather than guard his culinary secrets as jealously as the Pentagon guards its recipe for the president's barbecue sauce, Tila teaches them to aspiring chefs during classes that cover Thai classics such as massaman curry.
Black-and-white photographs provide a stark contrast to Tasty Thai's bright fuchsia walls. The chefs strive to strike this same balance between bold flavors and delicate accents in their traditional Thai dishes. Accents of pineapple, lemongrass, and coconut milk appear in pan-fried noodles and fried rice. For many dishes, guests can choose from a host of proteins, such as chicken, shrimp, and tofu, then select a spice level, which, like lists of your favorite fingers, is on a scale of 1 to 10.
Crispy tofu marinated in a spicy, sweet, and tangy sauce. Red curry with pineapple, basil, bell peppers, and tomatoes. Crab-fried rice. Deep-fried jalape?os stuffed with spicy tuna and cream cheese. At White Elephant Thai Fusion, traditional Thai cuisine shares menu space with more creative takes on the classics. After a flavor-packed meal, guests can cool down their taste buds with coconut ice cream, sweet sticky rice with mango, or fried bananas with ice cream.
Thai Dishes Restaurant utilizes authentic cuisine to load bellies with a balanced blend of exotic ingredients and spices. Arouse appetites with starters including spicy, deep-fried fish cakes ($6.95) while titillating eyes with one of the eatery’s four LCD TVs. From 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., patrons can climb over midday humps with lunch specials, such as Thai-style barbecue chicken served with steamed rice, fried wontons, and salad ($6.95).
When the family behind L5 Thai Restaurant & Lounge immigrated to the United States from Thailand, they brought along a deep love for their native cuisine. The menu aims to capture the region's complex and distinctive blend of flavors and spices. However, truly re-creating these flavors requires a more personal touch, and the chefs acknowledge this by making some noodles in-house and by giving nicknames to every single peanut. This commitment lends even more authenticity to the selection of familiar Thai staples, including fragrant curries, stir-fries with spicy chili sauces, and Thai-style barbecued spare ribs.
The dining room's white tablecloths appear crisp and minimalist, but the red walls, ceiling-mounted surfboard, and chrome-laden bar seating area imbue the ambiance with some casualness and whimsy. Leafy plants sit in the corner, adding a verdant splash to contrast the reds, golds, and ambers defining the majority of the space.