Social Thai Kitchen — ‘One of the Best Restaurants in OB’

By Judi Curry

Social Thai Kitchen
1830 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
619-228-9928

Several years ago, when Social Thai opened, I was amazed when I had my first meal there.  The restaurant was spotless; the food was delicious; the menu had a fantastic selection of items available – including vegetarian and vegan and the prices were reasonable.

The service was fantastic; and we could not find anything wrong with Social Thai Kitchen. Several months later I went there with a different group of people and we ended up with basically the same take-away thoughts as the first group had.

Due to some medical problems, I had not been there again until March 31, and brought with me Michelle – a foreign student I had 13 years ago and her niece Emily, who had just turned 13 years old. Michelle was in her thirties when she was my student.

I had been raving about the restaurant to Michelle and Emily and wasn’t sure they would want to attend because they are from a relatively near-by city to where the big earthquake was a few days ago, but they wanted to go, and so we did.

We decided to go for lunch, and arrived shortly after noon.  I could not believe my eyes (eye in this case because I’ve lost vision in one eye).  The place was EMPTY!  And remained that way until almost 1:00 pm when two ladies came in for lunch. The place was still immaculate; the numbers of offerings were mind-boggling; and we were told we could sit anywhere we wanted to sit.  I thought to myself that they must have really gone “downhill” because there wasn’t any other diner in the room, but we were already there and I decided to try it out.

I’m glad we did not leave because the food was excellent! And Michelle said…”there is so much of it!”  Emily had steamed dumplings.  There were many of them and  came with a sauce that she added into and onto the dumplings.  Michelle ordered Mango Chicken with white rice and cashew nut, also with white rice.  I ordered Avocado Curry with brown rice, and both Michelle and I ordered Hot peppermint tea.  We all enjoyed Mango Sticky Rice, but the rice was Coconut rice and it was delicious.

We all participated in everyone’s order.

The meal was one of the best I have ever had.  Even Michelle was surprised at how tasty everything was, particularly since the menu was very similar to those at home.  We took home lots of food because there was so much of it left.  And the price? $93.  Absolutely amazing.

But I am very concerned.  How can a restaurant as good as this one is, as reasonable as this one is, as clean as this one is not have any customers at lunch time?  Restaurants are closing all over San Diego but usually because the food is average; the price is high; etc.  This one is fantastic and so much better than some of the other restaurants in the general area. I hope that the lack of patronage is not a message to those of us living in the area.  And, really, not just us. If people from San Diego want an excellent Thai restaurant this is the place to go.  I doubt that you would not come again after the first try.

Give it a try. I do not think you would be unhappy.