825 E. Rundberg
834-9388
30.35654° N, 97.68732° W
Pepper grinder rating: 0.
Men’s room rating: 2.
Dwight’s comments:
This used to be a place called Golden China, which I kind of liked: it was one of the better strip mall cheap Chinese places in town. Then they reconfigured themselves into Imperial Asia, a Thai/Chinese combo, which is just plain weird.
One of the wait persons reminded me of my paternal grandmother, if she were 30 years younger and Asian. The male half of the duo had a habit of laughing maniacally and sycophanticly at just about everything we said: after a while, he was really starting to creep me out.
They also have sushi. Sort of: they have a sushi chef and a sushi bar, but you can’t order sushi by the piece, only in various combination trays, and the selection is extremely limited. However, there wasn’t anything wrong, as far as I could tell, with the actual sushi.
The Thai food is a mixed bag: I liked the soup and the pad thai just fine, but the panang was a little heavier on veggies and a little lighter on chicken and curry than I like.
This is eccentric enough to be interesting: I’d go back and try them again, if I’m in a mood to put up with that. It isn’t so good, though, that I’d recommend it to people who have a low threshold for odd.
Lawrence’s comments:
If you’ve often thought to yourself “Man, I’d really like to served Thai food and sushi by a cheerful gay Asian man with blond hair,” then Imperial Asia is here to answer your needs. We got waited on by the aforementioned, and the grandmotherly woman, and the anglo sushi chef as well. Except for briefly forgetting Chuck’s order, service was very attentive.
And the food? Both the calamari and the Tom Kai Guy were pretty good, and disappeared pretty quickly. Despite asking for it as hot and spicy as possible, yet again my beef panang was pretty wimpy, but otherwise adequate.
Except for a few pieces of Ye Ubiquitous California Roll I spooged off Dwight and Milton, I didn’t try any of the sushi. The presentation was OK, but the inability to order sushi by the piece rather than as part of a combination tray puts it pretty far down the sushi list. Pretty decent wasabi, though.
I do admit that I find the Thai/sushi combination puzzling, if only because Thailand is pretty far from Japan. (Also puzzling is that between this, Oishi, and Kimchi, North I-35 seems to be turning into something of a Discount Sushi Corridor.) And while they seem competent in each, the Thai food isn’t nearly as good as that at Thai Kitchen or even Thai Village, and the sushi can’t compete with Mikado or Umi Sushi. It also doesn’t help that they’re in a Strip Mall of the Damned. I wouldn’t mind visiting again, but I didn’t find anything here really compelling either.