The Gossiping Gourmet: Mint Leaf Thai does sauces right

I always appreciate it when friends or readers tell me about a restaurant find. These are usually small places that don’t always get reviewed but serve great food.

One is Mint Leaf Thai on Balboa Peninsula near the ferry landing. I always enjoy the ferry ride, especially on a warm summer evening when traffic on Coast Highway and Balboa Boulevard isn’t so bad and parking is usually easy to find on the streets leading to the ferry landing.

The restaurant is comfortable and colorful, with dark-blue-green walls and a painted wood element with different colored slats.

Outside the all-glass front of the restaurant, on Balboa Boulevard, is a tiny table or two. Inside is a white long banquette. At the tables are big, padded, square ottomans. Tall stools by the windows look out to the street.

The staff is especially nice and attentive. My dining companion and I had a hard time paring down our choices from the many offerings on the large menu, but finally decided to begin with the mussels and the tom yum kai.

A big bowl of steamed mussels came with a wonderful, delicate, slightly sweet broth that was accented with lemon grass, slices of red onions and fresh basil. A spicy chili and garlic sauce on the side was reverberating with flavor. The mussels were just a bit chewy but still delicious.

Tom yum kai is a classic Thai soup that is both sweet and sour. The light broth is filled with chicken, mushrooms and galanga, a ginger-like root. Lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves and lime juice give the soup its sour notes. Mint Leaf’s version is one of the best I’ve tasted.

One of my favorites, mee krob, was on the appetizer list and we ordered it. This dish featured crispy thin rice noodles tossed with a sweet and slightly sour tamarind sauce that is almost like a thin caramel. It was dotted with pieces of chicken and shrimp and proved to be another great dish.

Each of the dishes from the entrée list allows for one of the following additions: chicken, pork, vegetable or tofu. For a few dollars, guests can order beef, shrimp or calamari.

For my entrée, I chose the pork with garlic and peppers. It was the only dish that we found boring. Thin slices of tender pork were accompanied by slices of carrot and some very undercooked broccoli, but the sauce was great: dark, rich, salty and sweet with bits of meat.

In contrast, we had a delicious spicy eggplant dish. The eggplant had been cooked to a lovely softness and served with fresh basil, red onion slices and red and green peppers, all resting in a yet another wonderful dark meaty broth with just the right amount of heat.

To finish our meal we ordered two desserts. The mango with sticky rice was prettily arranged with thin slices of mango around a mound of sticky rice with a pink flower on the top. The mango was perfectly ripened and very sweet and juicy. The rice was also excellent with the perfect touch of sweetness. We also enjoyed the ice cream served with crunchy fried wontons.

We were most impressed with the wonderful sauces and broths at Mint Leaf. There are so many tempting categories on this menu that we will definitely return. In addition to the appetizers, soups and salads and entrées, it offers curries, noodle dishes, fried rice dishes, signature dishes, seafood and house specials.

TERRY MARKOWITZ was in the gourmet food and catering business for 20 years. She can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].

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Mint Leaf Thai

Location: 712 East Balboa Blvd., Newport Beach

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily

Prices:

Appetizers: $6.95 to $15.95

Entrees: $10.95 to $18.95

Desserts: $3.95 to $6.9

Information: mintleafthaicuisine.com; (949) 675-9991 or 9995; Free delivery within three miles with a purchase of $20