Keep Calm and Curry On at Chiang Rai

Edwin Goei
Sep 22, 2025
6 min read

REVIEW: Chiang Rai, Long Beach’s Michelin-mentioned Thai restaurant, opened a Tustin branch that replaced my local Indonesian spot – but I’m not mad about it.

The neon sign that says "Chiang Rai" in Thai over vintage posters is displayed inside Chiang Rai in Tustin. Photo by Edwin Goei, Culture OC

When the new Chiang Rai opened in Tustin, I had a chip on my shoulder. Let me explain.

It replaced another Thai eatery I liked called Rice & Noodle, which occupied the spot since 2021. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Rice & Noodle wasn’t very good. The space was decorated on-the-cheap with giant stock photos of Thailand’s floating markets and better-looking dishes of food than you’d ever see come out of its own kitchen.

If any of it was meant to evoke the exotic beauty of Thailand, it was at odds with the Christian rock soundtrack blasting from the speakers. Then there was Rice & Noodle’s staff, who never seemed to try very hard. The cooks moved at a snail’s pace, and the lone server at the front of the house had an attitude I can only charitably describe as “aloof at best.”

One night, as I waited for a DoorDash order I placed a good half hour before I arrived, I saw a family of four lingering by the entrance hoping to be seated. Save for two tables, the restaurant was empty, but the server ignored them. After 10 minutes, the family left in a huff, presumably to eat a better Thai meal elsewhere.

At this point you might be asking why I’d even miss such a place. Dear reader, it’s because Rice & Noodle wasn’t just a Thai restaurant; it was also an Indonesian one – the only such spot in Tustin. The owner was from Semarang (the town in which I was born), and he had hired a chef from Jakarta who produced authentic Javanese dishes, such as nasi bungkus (a combination plate of spicy meats and curried veggies heaped atop white rice, the whole thing packed in a banana leaf parcel that also functions as its serving platter) that was the closest I could get to the food of my childhood without visiting my mom. The Thai side of the menu? I never touched it. I knew it only existed because the owner was hedging his bets against a customer base that was largely unfamiliar with Indonesian cuisine. So if you ordered anything Thai at Rice & Noodle, you were missing the point.

The restaurant closed late last year. It followed the shuttering of Orange County’s two other Indonesian eateries – Uncle Fung in Buena Park and Indo Ranch in Lake Forest – leaving our region bereft of any Indonesian spots.

I still hadn’t gotten over it when I saw that Chiang Rai opened on Valentine’s Day this year. But what I knew about Chiang Rai did manage to whittle away my wistfulness: Its original Long Beach location was mentioned in the Michelin Guide, which in today’s short-attention-span world practically meant it was on the same level as The French Laundry. I thought if anything should try to supplant my memories of Rice & Noodle’s nasi bungkus, it might as well be something like this. And boy, was it something.

The interior of Chiang Rai in Tustin. PHOTO 1: The banquette. PHOTO 2: An artful inset wall display. PHOTO 3: The bar.

PHOTO 4: Condiment tray baskets of chile paste, pickled chiles and chile powder. PHOTOS 5 & 6: The dining room.

Photos by Edwin Goei, Culture OC

Outside, a mob crowded around an iPad waitlist. Inside, customers were packed shoulder-to-shoulder as jaunty, synth-heavy Thai pop music spilled into the street. And then there was the space itself. What was once drab and dreary under Rice & Noodle was now saturated in Technicolor. It was transformed into an elaborate set piece – a life-sized diorama of a vibrant Thai street scene. Buzzing neon signs glowed against vintage Thai ad posters. Chile paste jars sat in bright green plastic baskets, the kind you might encounter at a Bangkok night market. The enamelware plates were Rabbit Brand, a venerated Thai classic. But the theming went beyond the cosmetic. Accordion gates, corrugated sheet metal, backlit marquees, and an ornate matrix of wood shelving floating above the bar all indicated the work of a highly paid architect.

But was the food worth all the trouble? After all, this part of Tustin is particularly dense with great Thai restaurants, the inimitable Manaao Thai Comfort Food among them.

On my first trip, I came in with high expectations and the show-me-what-you-got chip on my shoulder. And it was then that I realized what being mentioned in the Michelin Guide does to pricing. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t make it cheaper.

Chiang Rai's Thai-style yakitori is served with tamarind sauce and spicy lime sauce. Photo by Edwin Goei, Culture OC

Maybe I was just a sucker for the wrong dish. I ended up dropping $30 for the Thai-style yakitori sampler where every skewer – whether it was the okra, the sous-vide beef tongue or the single giant shrimp – cost $5 each. It was a huge mistake. Not only did it prove impossible to share among the four friends I brought, the only thing that was particularly Thai about them was the tamarind dipping sauce, which I had already tasted on the Moo Sahm Chan Tod, slabs of batter-fried pork belly thicker and fattier than a Wagyu ribeye.

The pork belly wasn’t just great, it was the better deal at $18.95 and so compelling I would instinctively order it again on my second visit without realizing I’d already tried it, my triglyceride-levels be damned.

But during that first meal, I also ordered the Khao Soi, Chiang Rai’s signature dish of egg noodle doused in a rich, thick curry. And instead of just having it with chicken at $18.95, I opted to top it with the deep-fried soft shell crab, which upped the cost to $25.95. In retrospect, the price wasn’t out of line. It’s actually $2 cheaper than what Manaao charged for the same dish. And since it’s just as complex and virtually identical, Chiang Rai is where you should get it.

PHOTO 1: Moo Sahm Chan Tod, marinated deep fried pork belly which comes with a homemade tamarind sauce. PHOTO 2: Chiang Rai's specialty, a curry noodle called "Khao Soi," here with soft shell crab. Photos by Edwin Goei, Culture OC

Chiang Rai should also be the place you should focus on Northern Thai specialties, dishes that inherit the funk and soulfulness of Burmese and Laotian cooking. It should be said that Northern Thai food isn’t new to Southern California. Renu Nakorn in Norwalk has been lauded for decades, even by the late, great Jonathan Gold. But I can admit that I’ve never had a dish quite like what was labeled here as “Chiang Rai Larb.” I ate it on my second visit and it was less a salad than a pad-kra-pao-esque stir-fry of ground chicken, pork or beef. Where I expected the acidity of lime juice of a typical larb, I got the umami sweetness of soy sauce and protein seared together in a wok. Did wrapping the meat inside lettuce cups like I was at P.F. Chang’s make it more or less intriguing? I’m not sure. Would I have liked it better if it wasn’t called “larb”? Probably.

Still, Chiang Rai shines in renditions of the tried-and-true, proving that staples like pad thai and mango with sticky rice can always exceed expectations in the right hands. That mango with sticky rice, in particular, is what you want right now because out of the seven desserts on offer, it’s the only one that’s seasonal. And just like any legit Thai restaurant worth its fish sauce, they’ll refuse to serve it unless they can secure the ripest, juiciest and sweetest mangoes money can buy.

PHOTO 1: The "Chiang Rai Larb" is a Northern Thai-style dish served with a basket of raw veggies. PHOTO 2: Mango with sticky rice is one of seven dessert choices. Photos by Edwin Goei, Culture OC

When it comes to beverages, Tustin’s Chiang Rai is still incomplete as it awaits a beer and wine license. So instead of an ice-cold bottle of Singha, you’ll have to settle for chilled coconut juice served in, well, an actual coconut. Or maybe the Thai tea slushy, a drink so milky rich and sweet it has to be counted as a dessert, too.

But what finally warmed me to this restaurant was, not surprisingly, a dish that I enjoyed as a kid in Indonesia: a crab meat, shrimp and minced pork mousse bundled tightly inside bean curd sheets that’s cut into rounds and deep-fried. You’ll find it on the menu as “Jor Pu,” and not only was it spot on to the Indonesian version (imagine a siu mai at dim sum but deep-fried), it’s a dish that I’ve not seen on the menus of any of Southern California’s Indonesian spots – not even Rice & Noodle, God rest its soul.