Tiny Thai in Cotati thinks big

Tiny-Thai in Cotati is indeed tiny, about 280 square feet in the storefront’s dining area, but the food is big.

The restaurant is not a source for delicate and refined Thai cuisine. It’s substantial, with portions that are big. The cooking takes a gonzo, even coarse, approach to this Southeast Asian style. It’s Thai cooking for college student appetites, of which Cotati has a surfeit.

At dinnertime on a recent night, a lot of the take-out orders were picked up by young people, but by no means all. It seems that among the general populations of Cotati and Rohnert Park, Tiny-Thai is a hit.

There’s room for just five tables in the dining area, with a couple of metal tables outside on the sidewalk and two stools at an inside counter. Western pop music plays on the sound system. There’s no beer or wine, but there is Thai iced tea, regular iced tea and soft drinks.

The dinnertime rush was handled by just one server, but she handled it well, boxing up our table’s leftovers, running take-out orders from kitchen to the hostess’s stand, toting up the checks, running the cash register and credit card machines, and serving patrons inside and out with a pleasant smile, though she was veering dangerously close to the weeds.

Dinner started with a plate of four Fresh Rolls ($7.50 ***). Translucent rice wrappers enclose lettuce, carrots, beets, avocado, cucumber and red onion. The menu promises mint, but there was none discernible in these vegetarian beauties. The root vegetables were raw and crunchy, and the avocado lent a buttery note. The rolls were served with a thick peanut sauce that proudly shouted its peanutiness. This is not always the case with peanut sauces at Thai restaurants. Too many sauces just mumble something about peanuts. Tiny-Thai’s is the Ethel Merman of peanut sauces.

A raft of five Pot Stickers ($6.95 ** ½) were hand-formed, with the wontons stuffed fat with ground chicken, cabbage and carrots, then browned in a pot. There was no evidence of sticking, but so what? They were chewy, savory and sweet after a dip in a sweet chili dipping sauce.

A problem arrived with the Yum Nur ($8.95 *). This beef salad featured a fresh medley of cucumbers, chilies, red onions and tomatoes in a sweet lime and fish sauce dressing, topped with slices of beef so tough they were inedible. It was remarkable that one could chew and chew and chew on a piece without yielding a scrap of meat for swallowing.

A section of the menu is labeled “Thai Street Food” and includes Thai Basil ($9.99 ***). This is a stir-fry with peppers, onions, carrots, bean sprouts and green beans in a mildly spicy garlic-chili sauce with your choice of tofu, chicken, pork or beef. After the experience with the beef salad, our table chose chicken and was not disappointed. For an extra dollar, we ordered brown rice, which looked more like red rice and tasted sweet and fresh. It’s fluffier than regular brown rice and absorbs sauces well.

Pad Thai ($9.99 **) was a big portion of very sweet and oily pan-fried noodles, a little ground peanuts and lots of large, meaty prawns dredged in rice flour and fried along with the noodles, egg, bean sprouts and green onions.

Tiny-Thai makes its own curries, including red, yellow and green coconut curries. The curry sauce for the Ginger Pork Curry ($11.99 ** ½) was the consistency of thin soup due to the absence of coconut milk to thicken it. The pork was tender. Fresh garlic and big slabs of peeled ginger gave it a refreshing, spicy bite, while carrots, peas and broccoli provided vegetables.

Most of the dishes were sweetened with a Thai chili sauce which, after a while, grew tiresome, not because it didn’t taste good but because there was too much sweetness. At the end of the dinner, desserts like coconut ice cream, fried banana, tapioca pudding and mango with sweet sticky rice seemed superfluous.

To sum up: The room may be small, but they think big in the kitchen.