Trusting chef proves wise at Haleiwa’s Opal Thai

Beginning at the end, I left Opal Thai laughing, and that was a good sign.

The days leading up to the blessed event were another story. I did a lot of fretting over what owner Opel Sirichandhra’s omakase-style Thai experience might be like, and had to consider multiple backup plans should the experience go awry.

It’s an experience diners seem to love or hate, and that’s understandable. No food establishment will appeal to everyone. Some find culinary artistry pretentious and off-putting. Some find street food too aggressive and mysterious for their comfort. But no matter where diners go, they want to be deciders, in control of what goes into their mouths.

Even at omakase sushi restaurants, in which diners relinquish decision-making to the chef, they know they’re going to get multiple forms of rice and some sort of fish or shellfish, and that’s fine as a way of exploring seafood. It’s different with Thai food, where cravings can be very specific, whether one wants a particular type of curry or protein.

In my civilian life I’m game to try any sort of food, but in my work life I’m more of a control freak. I want to be in charge of what I’m eating because I want to be sure I have something to write about. But the big tease at Opal Thai is receiving menus and making a checklist in your head of things you might want to try, only to feel helpless as the menus are snatched away and Sirichandhra begins his interrogations.

“Do you like Thai food? What dishes did you order last? How spicy do you like your food?” etc., etc. As this was repeated over at the next table, a kid moaned, “Why is this taking so long?”

I generally have some sort of curry, pad Thai, chicken wings and a vegetable. I threw in larb, and that impressed the chef most.

“I’ve been involved in the restaurant business since I was 14,” said Sirichandhra, who hails from Bangkok. After living in San Francisco, and now Hawaii for 11 years, he said he was saddened that most Americans never “get to try good, honest Thai food.”

Then there is the timidity factor. “People come to my restaurant and say, ‘I know Thai food.’ Then they tell me what they know, and most people will say they’ve tried pad Thai, curry, chicken, maybe a papaya salad — the most basic dishes. It depressed me.”

That’s why he takes matters into his own hands. There is a method to his seeming madness. He wouldn’t compare his approach to “omakase” because that fails to take into account his attempt to get to know his customers, gauge their experience and comfort levels, personal tastes and food phobias, to come up with his personalized lunch and dinner selections.

People who can eat anything make his job easy. It’s harder when some people in a party are flexible while others have allergies or a varying tolerance for spice.

Because Haleiwa is a tourist town, he takes into account where people are from. For instance, people from the Southwest are generally familiar with Mexican food so have an instant understanding of spicy wraps. He’s learned that those from Japan love the sweet-sour nature of tom kha gai, or coconut chicken soup.

Dining here is like managed chaos. You’re sitting in cramped, packed quarters, with servers moving at a quick pace to please the almighty Siri­chandhra, quick to scold staff and customer alike. Whether you like this place or not will likely depend on how well you mesh with his alpha, no-filter personality and how much you’re willing to go with the flow.

I tried to sway him toward a curry crab fried rice, but he would have none of that, brushing my comments aside with a wave of his hand.

“You like duck?” he asked.

“Yes,” my friend said; “No,” I said.

I don’t dislike duck. I just don’t like it when it’s poorly prepared. I wanted to play it safe.

It turns out, the food is excellent, but I had yet to learn that. After Siri­chandhra left our table, I muttered to my friend, “He’d better not send out any of that Chinese-style stir-fry stuff.”

So the first dish to arrive was a white cake topped with a stir-fry of bean sprouts and onions. It turned out to be delicious … and, as Siri­chandhra suspected, probably not something I would have ordered on my own. The cake had the flavor and texture of Chinese turnip cake, minus the turnip, but he would not tell me what it was. I tried to ask a waitress, but none of the servers respond to such questions, saying that Siri­chandhra will reveal all at meal’s end. Of course, the always alert owner overheard me asking and remarked, “Some people are so sneaky.”

A house favorite of garlic chicken wings ($9.50) followed, with a sticky, crisp and spicy candied glaze that I also loved. I saw others receiving honey barbecue pork sticks with tam­a­rind sauce ($6.95) and wished those were coming to my table, but I had to come back another time for them. They were worth the repeat trip.

Next came a pairing of two carb-rich dishes that I would never order together because I try to avoid carb overload, but both proved hard to stop eating. One was pad se-ew, a thick chow fun-style noodle, stir-fried with the duck, which turned out to be quite good after all. The other was the yellow curry crab fried rice ($12.95) I had hoped to try, and I was elated that he’d actually listened. There’s not a whole lot of crab in the dish, but you can’t miss the shellfish essence.

It seems as if the food will keep coming until you show signs of slowing down. Our meal ended and the bill came out to $44. A dinner for four runs about $110.

Sirichandhra still would not tell me what was in the first dish, but drew a picture of a skate on my hand. When I called to ask about it later, he said steaming gives the skate that ephe­meral, polentalike consistency.

“It’s a classic Thai seafood dish, but only the old generation knows about it. The young people don’t know it, so I love introducing it.”

Only people who are regulars have a shot at ordering what they want. “By the fourth or fifth visit, I run out of ideas,” Sirichandhra said.

When I tried to bring up difficulties some have had with his business method, he said, “There’s a percentage of people who will always find something to complain about. All I can do is try my hardest. I do what I do and take care of what I can. I believe in karma.”

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.