The restaurant occupies the McArthur Blvd space previously held by Chang’s and Kai Bistro. It consists of two boxy dining rooms, without much in the way of decore, though they do have some lovely bronze elephant statutes outside, which I think little kids would love to play with. It’s a nice enough place, for a relaxed, casual meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWe started with the Fresh Spring Rolls <\/strong>($12), which include shrimp, bean sprouts, herbs and lettuce in a thin wrap and were served with a peanut sauce. Both Mike and Maximilian loved them, Mike thought the peanut sauce was phenomenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the real revelation were the Lao Style Sausages<\/strong> ($13). They were fresh and vibrant and delicious. They are made with pork, lemon grass and kaffir lime leaf, and the aromas of the herbs really broke through. They were unexpected and wonderful. Maximilian thought it was worth driving to San Leandro just to have them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was far less impressed with my Yellow Curry with Beef<\/strong> ($15). The curry was OK, but it lacked the vibrancy and deliciousness of the yellow curry at Mai Thai. The portion was also somewhat smaller. Rice ($2) is on the side, which works well for people like Mike who prefer to avoid it. In all, I wouldn’t order it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mike had the Panang Curry with Chicken<\/strong> ($15), one of his standards at Thai restaurants. He felt the same as I felt about my yellow curry: it was fine, but not nearly as good as the panang curry at Mai Thai. Maximilian had the Spicy Green Beans with Chicken<\/strong> ($16.50). He said he liked it, but he was far more effusive about the sausage appetizer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the amazing version of sticky rice with mango that I’d had at Jo’s Modern Thai<\/a>, I was ready for another taste of the original version of this dessert. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the Mango Sticky Rice<\/strong> ($8.50) at SL Kitchen. It was, like the dishes before, fine – but uninspired. The rice could have been softer and had a silkier sauce. The mango could have been riper. Again, I prefer the version of this dessert served at Mai Thai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximillian ordered the Fried Banana with Ice Cream<\/strong> ($8). He also seemed to like it but didn’t ooooh and aaaah about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Service was efficient and friendly, they didn’t complain when we stayed later, and it’s nice place to hang out with friends. But the food, albeit beautifully presented, is less than stellar for Thai food – which has a super high bar to begin with. In all, I continue to prefer Mai Thai, though it’s not as close to my house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lao sausage shines at this mostly Thai restaurant SL Kitchen opened in San Leandro during the pandemic but we never got around to trying it until last week. We are quite fond of Mai Thai and it’s where we automatically go when we are in the mood for Thai food. Still, I’d been hearing good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,598],"tags":[657,28,62,110],"class_list":["post-4060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurants","category-san-leandro-eats","tag-lao","tag-reviews","tag-san-leandro","tag-thai","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/signal-2024-05-24-192114_002-e1716692198342-1024x536.jpeg\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSL Kitchen<\/strong><\/a>
1057 Macarthur Blvd
San Leandro, CA
(510) 567-3529
Tu - Su 11:00 am - 02:45 pm, 5:00 pm - 08:45 pm<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"