A Heated Exchange at the Royal Thai Cuisine

Spicy food brings out a macho streak in some people. I know one married couple who would rather plead guilty to multiple counts of tax evasion than admit a dish had too much chili in it.

Last week, I brought these two to a Thai restaurant in Newport Beach, and were they ever looking for trouble. You see, when it comes to authentic, down-home Thai cooking, even lining your palate with Gore-Tex won’t stop the pain. At its most merciless, this cuisine is probably the world’s hottest. Hollywood Boulevard, for instance, has dozens of little storefronts specializing in dishes that will blow the roof off your mouth.

But here in Orange County, it works differently. Thai restaurants in these parts tone their food down but good, disappointing heat-seekers with a rather bland, sweet product. This style, apparently, is what people around here like. At least, that’s what the local restaurant owners tell you.

Newport Beach’s Royal Thai Cuisine, part of a chain of Thai restaurants that stretches from La Jolla to Sacramento, is just such a restaurant. But the place has just completed an impressive face lift, so we were game to try it.

Initially, we were quite impressed. The restaurant has been given a truly regal bearing, from the sloping, wood-beamed ceiling to the dark, forest-green walls. A menagerie of hand-carved statuary, teak elephants and the like, add a touch of class. Luxurious linen tablecloths and fresh orchids sit on every table, and the Thai waitresses wear royal purple uniforms to match. There is even soft, sensuous lighting, contradicting the notion that Asian restaurants tend to be overly bright.

True to form, however, Royal Thai Cuisine serves a large, somewhat generic menu, full of preparations that tread lightly with traditional Thai ingredients. Basil, mint, lemon grass and fagara pepper are the chief victims of this syndrome, employed minimally or practically drowned out altogether by dark soy, coconut milk or sugar. This is all good and well if you like sweet foods, but problematic if you don’t. My friend’s wife, however, had a plan.

Normally, it doesn’t work to simply ask for hot food in one of these places; the chefs just sprinkle a little extra chili into the wok, which doesn’t have much effect. So this time, when the friendly Thai waitress approached, we asked if the kitchen would cook for us as if they were cooking for themselves. “We want the employee meal,” my friend’s wife said, “and we don’t care how hot it is.” The waitress, looking very concerned, said she would talk to the chef.

A short time later, another waitress approached, this time speaking near-perfect American English, to ask us if we were sure we really wanted what we’d asked for. Yes, we said, we’re sure. “Just a minute,” she said, looking even more concerned.

Finally came a chef in whites, addressing us in flawless English. “Sometimes our food is too hot for Americans,” he said in a most self-effacing manner. “And we’re afraid you won’t like it.” Faced with this logic, we decided to negotiate.

“How about cooking two or three of the dishes Thai style,” I said, “and preparing the others as you would normally.” He nodded approval. And then, just to make it easy, we requested for true Thai preparation two of the most rustic dishes on the menu, som tam , the raw papaya salad eaten as a side dish, and larb gai , ground chicken with chili and onions eaten in lettuce leaves.

This strategy worked like a charm. The som tam was particularly provoking, full of tiny dried shrimp, chili that burned right on schedule and fine shreds of crunchy papaya. And the larb was its equal on the thermometer, red hot with onion and pepper and not a bit sweet.

As predicted, the rest of our order left the chili-lovers among us, well, cold.

Kathong thong, was a wonderful conceit, tiny, fluted pastry cups filled with chicken, onion and curry powder, and one of the few dishes here without any sugar. I thought they made a most ephemeral snack, though my friends found them bland.

We ordered a dish from the menu called “sovereign sausage,” thinking we’d get one of the crumbly, garlicky sausages Thais often make, but this kitchen resorted to lob cheung , the fatty, reddish-colored Cantonese sausage that you find in any Chinese market.

Yum yai is a complex Thai salad, chicken, shrimp, pork, glass noodles, cucumber, onion, mint and hard-boiled eggs on lettuce leaves, and really very tasty. Yum nuah substitutes lean, nicely marinated charcoal-grilled beef for the meats and noodles, and this time the sweetness of the marinade works well. There’s a slightly piquant lime dressing on the greens, which balances the flavors nicely.

Thais generally eat seafoods and curries as main courses to go with their wonderfully fragrant rice. Patpong shrimp, alleged to be spicy, is basically a Chinese saute, with good, plump prawns, cashew nuts and a microscopic amount of chili. Beef mussamun is like a Thai beef stew, with potatoes and coconut milk adding body to an otherwise one-dimensional dish.

And then there are the mouth-watering noodle dishes--which aren’t supposed to be spicy. Royal Thai Cuisine does a good job with these classics. Pad Thai are flat noodles pan-fried with shrimp, peanuts, pork and bean sprouts. And pad see ew are Chinese-style stir-fried rice noodles prepared with broccoli and a choice of meat toppings.

Royal Thai Cuisine is moderately priced. Appetizers are $5.50 to $6.95. Salads are $3.50 to $6.95. Main dishes are $6.95 to $14.95.

* ROYAL THAI CUISINE

* 4001 W. Pacific Coast Highway, Newport Beach. (With additional locations in Laguna Beach and Dana Point.)

* (714) 645-THAI.

* Open daily for lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; for dinner, 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, Friday and Saturday till 11 p.m.

* All major cards accepted.