When Blue Elephant opened in Hyde Park in 2010, local food bloggers questioned whether it made sense to open another Thai restaurant in a part of town already loaded with at least four others featuring that cuisine. The owners built a spiffy new building on Wasson Road for a restaurant that featured Thai food and a short but surprisingly tasty selection of Italian pasta dishes; the chef/owner had experience at a prominent Italian restaurant in Los Angeles.
But earlier this year the family decided to retire and move back to Thailand, selling the business to a young woman, Ronnakorn Thonawan, who reopened the restaurant this summer as Singha.
In addition to being the name of the most widely known Thai beer, Singha translates as “guardian lion,” a national symbol common throughout Southeast Asia and China. Thonawan, who goes by her nickname, Mint, says she called her restaurant Singha (the “a” is silent in Thai) in part because her son was born in a Year of the Lion.
At lunch recently, my friend Melissa and I ordered as many menu items as we could in one sitting, and then I went back another day to sample a couple more. Both times I asked Mint to suggest what she considers either especially authentic Thai dishes or preparations that make Singha stand out from all the competition.
Mint, who had worked at Blue Elephant as a server and hostess, told me later that while many neighborhood patrons were excited to see the newly constructed restaurant, they were disappointed that the Blue Elephant menu looked just like the ones at Lemongrass, Wild Ginger and the other Thai places in the area.
When she revamped and simplified the menu for Singha, she took those comments to heart and tried to go in a few new directions. She added a section of Thai noodle soups, which she says are not prominent in other local restaurants, as well as sushi rolls made with black rice — instead of sticky white rice — and several dishes in a menu section called Singha’s Special Entrée.
Among those entrées, we tried the pan-fried lobster ($20.95; $14.95 lunch portion) and Luau Shrimp and Chips ($16.95). The small lobster tail came with a garlic-lime sauce, fried rice and plenty of fresh, colorful vegetables. I was pleased with the tenderness of the meat, cooked just right and not at all dry, but Melissa thought it didn’t have enough lobster flavor. The shrimp and chips were fun and unusual: garlicky, peppery stir-fried shrimp served with a handful of potato chips and a sweet pineapple guacamole along with rice and veggies. It was more fusion — of what exactly, I’m not sure — than Thai, but the salty crunch of the chips actually worked well with the sweet avocado/pineapple side and the succulent shrimp.
We also sampled a shrimp cake appetizer, listed on the menu as Shrimp Cake Slider ($8.95). Mint served us the dish without the buns, which of course was more authentically Thai since the addition of bread is a nod to American tastes. In general, indigenous Thai food is spicier with more chilies and peppers and less salt and sugar than Thai-American cuisine, she told me.
I liked the crunchiness of the warm shrimp cakes with the accompanying sweet/spicy sauce, but Melissa found them bland. We both enjoyed the Panang Curry with chicken ($11.95), a somewhat peppery coconut broth with a deep curry flavor.
A few days later I dropped in on my own and tried a noodle soup and one of Mint’s tweaks on a sushi roll. The Bamee Nudang soup ($12.95) is a large bowl of thin noodles in a long-simmered pork broth with a generous amount of sliced barbecued pork. Baby bok choy, scallions and chopped cilantro give it some extra flavor, and accompanying sauces and chilies allow the diner to select his or her level of heat.
I asked Mint for guidance in selecting from the sushi menu, and she suggested Black Pearl ($13.95), which has a highly unorthodox ingredient: mozzarella cheese. It sounds weird but totally works. The roll is based on salmon tempura with avocado and a sweet brown sauce called unagi, along with a small piece of the mild cheese, wrapped in sticky rice.
The roll is then baked for just a short while to slightly melt the cheese, sprinkled with panko crumbs and sliced. I was surprised by how the cheese didn’t add flavor so much as a creamy layer of texture. This sushi roll was my favorite of everything we tried.
The restaurant offers wine and beer, including a dozen bottled beers ($4-$7), mostly Asian, and 10 wines by the glass ($7-$9) along with sake by the glass or bottle ($6-$30).
Mint said that she is “not in competition” with other Thai restaurants in Hyde Park.
“It’s a small community with family-run places and we all know each other,” she says. (At Singha, her husband is the chef and her brother is the sushi chef.)
Mint is hoping to make her place stand out by offering pleasant dining rooms, including a few patio tables, and by applying creativity with somewhat unorthodox additions to a standard Thai/sushi menu.
Singha
GO: 2912 Wasson Road, Hyde Park; CALL: 513-351-0123; INTERNET: singhacincinnati.com; HOURS: 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m. Friday; noon-10:30 p.m. Saturday; noon-9:30 p.m. Sunday.
This article appears in Jul 13-20, 2016.
