Kra Z Kai's
1218 Magnolia Ave. Suite 110
Corona, CA 92881
Time to get a little controversial. Coed baby showers are the worst. I swore I would never attend another one after one of my friends roped me into one six or seven years ago. I was promised the guys would hang out in the other room, watching football, drinking beer, and eating pizza. I got a broken TV in the community's clubhouse, boring Costco sandwiches, no other men in attendance, and my friend telling me he had to be here so no football would be watched. Thanks a lot for the false illusions of grandeur, guy.
Fast forward to the present. My friend Ozker is having a baby any day now. Thanks to the pandemic, though, the baby shower was replaced with a driveby baby shower. Not to be too glib on the subject, but that meant no lame baby games, no making small talk with people I don't know, and, best of all, being back home way more quickly so we could continue binge-watching Peaky Blinders. It also allowed Katie and me to try a restaurant in Corona. I did some research and decided we'd try Kra Z Kai's.
Kra Z Kai's is a Laotion barbeque spot. For those unaware, Laos is a landlocked country in Asia, surrounded by Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Thailand, and Cambodia. This is probably unsurprising to any of you, but this is my first foray into eating Laotian cuisine. It's not a real surprise when you consider a quick Yelp search that reveals that this is the only Laotian spot in Southern California I could find. The other handful of places serving food from Laos usually also serve Thai or Vietnamese cuisine.
The Laotian food at Kai's is meat-centric, which I learned is what they would consider street food in Vientiane, the capital city, and other cities throughout the country. The menu here is small, with seven entrees, two salads, and some ala carte items. Prices at this counter-service spot are also modest, as an entree will only dent your wallet of $13. This will be a concise review, as Katie got the same plate as me. You'd think she'd know better after 11 years of this blog, or maybe it's just that I have such great tastes. Yeah, probably not. On to the Laotian barbeque.
Since we only had one plate, I decided to add all the photos I took. This Lao BBQ Mix Plate ($12.99) is their most popular item on the menu at Kai's, and it also gives you a taste of almost everything they serve. Like a sampler plate, which I almost always gravitate towards when eating at a place for the first time. This meal includes one each of the following; a BBQ chicken thigh, BBQ pork rib, Lao sausage, a BBQ beef short rib, rice, and a side salad to round it out. My favorite thing on the plate was the Lao sausage. It's a pork sausage with onion, lemongrass, and scallion added. The texture might be too coarse for some, but the flavor resonates. I liked the contrast between the lemongrass, onion, and the rich pork. The pork spare rib was marinated nicely and full of meat that was very tender and flavorful. The chicken was juicy inside and had a nice, subtle, sweet glaze outside. The beef short rib was probably my fourth favorite, as it was too much work for so little meat. My bites were fine, but they did not stand out like the rest of the proteins on this plate. I should have taken a picture of the sauces that came with this, but I was intent on eating rather quickly after driving for half an hour with the aroma of barbecued meats wafting from the backseat. One of the sauces was a sweet and spicy chile sauce that packed a punch after you got past the sweet first part of each bite. The other sauce was Jeow Mak Len, a spicy tomato-based sauce seasoned with fish sauce. This one was excellent as well, so I alternated between the two. The salad was a basic green salad, and I went with the fried rice option instead of the steamed or sticky rice. This version of fried rice was much less greasy and lighter than you'd typically get at your local Chinese restaurant. The added onion was a nice touch as well.
This was an excellent introduction to Laotian barbecue. It did not remind me of Thai food like others have said, but it was more like Hawaiian barbecue without the sweet teriyaki covering the meats. I didn't miss it, as these proteins could stand independently. I look forward to trying other Laotian favorites on their return trips; sticky rice, papaya salad, the Lao beef jerky, and the Lao beef dip. Even better news, I learned that they have opened a booth at the new food hall in Stanton, Rodeo 39, So the people of OC can now forgo the drive out the 91 Freeway and experience Kra Z Kai's Laotian cuisine closer to home. I'm still not into coed baby showers, but this driveby version wasn't awful, and it got me to cross off another country's cuisine. Only about another 130 more to go, give or take.
Out of five elephants (because Laos is known as the Land of a Million Elephants, even though their numbers have declined to just 800, unfortunately), five being best to zero being worst, Kra Z Kai's gets 3 solid elephants.
For more information about Kra Z Kai's, head to their website here: https://krazkais.com/
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