There's a new-ish development - The Mills at Riverbend Commons - along the river front east of downtown Moline that we've driven by a couple of times in the past few months. There's a couple three restaurants on the ground floor of the complex that also has condominiums on the upper floors. One of the places that we've seen has piqued our interest, and one recent evening we decided to head over to try the Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar.
Jun Ling Zhang - who goes by the American-ized name of Kevin Zhang - is the man behind the Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar. He also is the guy who owns one of our all-time favorite places for Thai Food - Tantra Asian Bistro in Davenport. (Click here to read Road Tips' entry on Tantra - which is pretty sparse in words since I wrote it over 10 years ago.) Kevin is a friendly guy who grew up on Mainland China before heading to Switzerland to attend a hotel and restaurant management school near Lucerne.
After school, Kevin moved to Los Angeles to learn the English language and to work in a number of American and Chinese restaurants. He ended up in Davenport in 2001 and opened the Fuji Japanese Steak House. He soon settled on Thai food and opened Crazy Wok in Davenport about 13 years ago. He changed the name to Tantra Asian Bistro soon after opening a second location in Dubuque about 8 years ago. (The Dubuque location is closed, but Kevin Zhang is still involved with the Tantra Thai Bistro in Muscatine.)
The Mills at Riverbend Commons started accepting tenants for both business and residential about a year ago. Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar opened in October of last year. Zhang named the restaurant after - of course - the ever popular hot sauce that originally hailed from the coastal Thailand city of Si Racha. Sriracha sauce dates back to the 1930's and was said to be concocted by a Thai housewife to use on seafood. I've been told that the Sriracha sauce used in Thailand has a different texture and is not as hot as the Sriracha sauce found on store shelves in the U.S.
There was plenty of parking on a cold winter's evening when we pulled up to Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar along River Drive in Moline. (see map) We entered the building and immediately saw a refrigerated case with seafood and oysters. We like oysters on the half-shell, but they only had a couple of different varieties in the case that evening. We talked about getting some, but decided to pass on this visit.
The bar area was stylish with contemporary lighting and low-back seats at the bar. We decided that we'd come back some time to get some oysters-on-the-halfshell and mai tai's at the bar.
The dining area was elegant and contemporary in its design. Chandeliers hung near the front of the dining area and along the windows while the side and back are of the restaurant featured reduced lighting. It was very similar to the look and feel of Tantra Asian Bistro over in Davenport.
In fact, the young lady who waited on us that evening used to wait on us at Tantra. My wife recognized her and asked if she was the same person. "I sure am," she exclaimed. "I remember you guys, too!" She said that when Kevin opened Sriracha Thai that she jumped at the chance to move over to that restaurant. "It's a lot closer to my home over here than it was for me to get over across the bridge to Davenport," she explained to us. We ordered up a couple of mai tai's to get us started that evening.
The menu at Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar was also similar to the one at Tantra with the notable exception that there seemed to be more fresh seafood available at this place. It featured authentic Thai dishes as well as grilled lamb chops, grilled duck breast, and a number of stir-fry dishes.
And that's what my wife and I did that evening, we went with a couple of stir-fry entrees. She went with the black pepper garlic with beef strips. It featured a bed of garlic seasoned cabbage, broccoli and carrot cuts in a tangy brown sauce. The brown sauce is the key to the dishes at Tantra and she said that this was just as good.
I went with my staple broccoli and beef dish that I get almost every time I go to Tantra. However, it didn't have much of the brown gravy sauce with this dish as what I normally get at Tantra - or what my wife got. I don't know if they forgot about the sauce or if they serve it this way at Sriracha Thai, but I was mildly disappointed in the dish. The beef was tender and lean, and the broccoli was cooked perfectly with a bit of a crunchy snap with each bite. I only wish that I would have gotten more of the delicious brown sauce that makes the broccoli and beef at their sister restaurant in Davenport so very, very good.
So, other than the lack of the brown sauce provided on my broccoli-beef stir-fry, I felt our initial experience at Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar was pleasant enough that we'd like to go back again at some point. My wife enjoyed her black pepper garlic with cabbage, carrots, broccoli and beef. The service was very good and the atmosphere was elegant, but comfortable and unpretentious. Sriracha Thai and Oyster Bar is a wonderful addition to the restaurant landscape in the Quad Cities and it gives us another option for Thai food, even though it's similar to its sister restaurant Tantra Asian Bistro.
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