Sea Thai Bistro worth it

The food at Sea Thai Bistro in Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa is very much like Sea Modern Thai Cuisine in Petaluma, which is understandable, since executive chef Tony Ounpamornchai oversees the kitchens of both establishments.

The Santa Rosa venue is the more upscale of the two, in both price and ambience. On a recent night, a dinner special of three fish balls rolled in panko and given a sweet and spicy coconut milk sauce went for $28 -- a price you would expect to pay for a fancier entree at a top Wine Country restaurant. And while the crispy coating on these Monkfish Tails (**½) covered mild-flavored, tender, fresh-tasting, succulent fish, at that price, you should get Darryl Hannah as a side dish.

Not everything will put such a dent in your wallet. Meat entrees run from $12 for the golden cashew chicken to $28 for the ribeye steak, curries are $15, and seafood dinners run between $19 and $24. That's expensive for a Thai restaurant. Still, there was no shortage of customers enjoying the fare on two recent nights.

One reason: the food. It's a cut above the run-of-the-mill Thai fare served in so many little storefronts, but not extravagantly above. The chef buys "organic and sustainable products whenever possible," according to the take-out menu, and that can help define the flavors of the dishes. And dinner plates come with lots of fresh vegetables. Those monkfish balls were joined by wax beans, cherry tomatoes, green figs, slices of portabello mushroom, broccoli florets, asparagus tips and zucchini strips.

Another reason: the wine list. Here's a rarity for a Thai restaurant -- 37 wines by the glass and 83 by the bottle. And it's not just the number of wines that is astounding, but the quality of the choices and the broad knowledge it took to put together this list.

It is heavy on whites, as you can imagine, since Thai food goes so well with nicely chilled white wines. Four flights are offered -- 2-ounce pours of each of three wines. One flight brings together a tocai from Italy, a tokai from Slovenia, and a sweet tokaji from Hungary. There's even a flight of three gruner veltliners, a trendy Austrian white. And Sea Thai's wine list may be the only one in the area that offers bottles of txakoli from the Xarmant winery in the Basque region of Spain ($30) or rkatsiteli from Dr. Konstantin Frank in Hammondsport, N.Y. ($52), or picpoul from Tablas Creek in Paso Robles ($65).

A third reason: the service. It's everything service should be and more, because it comes with warm and generous smiles. How extraordinarily pleasant it is to feel appreciated, welcomed and well-cared-for as a customer.

You may remember when this restaurant space was the East-West Cafe, which has since moved next to the Rialto Cinemas on Summerfield Road in Santa Rosa. It was a plain space without much to recommend it. But that has changed. The interior walls are now painted an oxblood red that runs floor to black ceiling. The walls are decorated with nature's sculptures -- dried stalks, driftwood, moss. The tables are covered in white cloth and white paper. Sunscreens on the windows and soft lighting create a relaxing atmosphere.

Interesting and typically Thai appetizers began with Mummy Chicken ($8 **½). Bites of chicken breast are wrapped in a fragrant leaf and served with a cucumber relish. The menu says they come with spicy sriracha sauce, but maybe you have to ask for it, because there was none of that red sauce on my plate. Crispy Prawns ($8 ** ) and Golden Spring Rolls ($8 **) were deep fried a bit too hard. The menu said the spring rolls consist of taro root, cabbage and glass noodles wrapped in romaine lettuce, but the lettuce seemed to have gone missing. Both appetizers were especially good, though, dipped into the spicy and sweet sauce provided.

Rather than offering them separately, Sea Thai combines two kinds of meat in its Satay Sampler ($8 ***). Two skewers of saffron-coconut marinated chicken breast and two skewers of lamb loin are grilled and served with spicy-sweet sauce, cucumber salad, and peanut sauce. The spicy-sweet sauce goes particularly well with the lamb, and the peanut sauce -- the best around -- traditionally goes with the chicken.

An appetizer called The Little Basket ($8 ***) uses a large romaine lettuce leaf as the basket. It holds crunchy chow mein egg noodles, red onion, cilantro, tomatoes, carrots and cashews in a moderately spicy dressing and could be a light meal in itself. You have eight Thai-style salads to choose from, including a green papaya salad, grilled fish salad, and Sea Thai's house salad that mixes seafood and garlic in a red wine sauce, and organic greens with a lemon-lime vinaigrette. The Filet Mignon Salad ($12 ***) had a sharp, spicy kick to it. Thinly sliced beef, romaine, frisee, shallots, cilantro and tomato in this salad also got the lemon-lime vinaigrette.

Black Noodles ($12 **½) were rice noodles and slices of pork in a brown meaty sauce joined by broccoli florets, cherry tomatoes, mei qing choi (a dwarf hybrid of bok choy), carrots, and cilantro. This savory dish gives you your vegetables, starch and meat in a healthful proportion, something Asian cuisines in general are noted for.

Chicken was the meat of choice -- beef, pork, tofu, prawns or mixed seafoods are also available -- for a moderately hot Spicy Green Curry ($16 ***). This curry stew was rich with the flavors of spices, but also contained a mix of local red and green bell peppers, carrots, yellow summer squash and snap peas.

Sea Thai's desserts are all $6. There are the standards: banana fritters with coconut ice cream, sweet sticky rice with mangoes; and not-so-standards like raspberry pinot noir sorbet with fresh berries, and pan-roasted pineapple with coconut ice cream.

To sum up: Sea Thai Bistro is pricey for a Thai restaurant, but the food is very good, the wine list is wonderful, the atmosphere is relaxing, and the service is first rate. You get what you pay for.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for A&E. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.

TOP THAI

Restaurant: Sea Thai Bistro, 2323 Sonoma Ave., in Montgomery Village, Santa Rosa

When: Lunch daily from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dinner 4:30 to 9 p.m., except to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Price range: Moderate to very expensive, with entrees from $12 to $28

Reservations: 528-8333

Web site: www.seathaibistrosr.com

Wine list: ****

Ambiance: ***

Service: ***½

Food: **½

Overall: ***

Extraordinary ****

Very good ***

Good **

Not very good *

0 Terrible