White Elephant - Santa Clara

Khao soi - northern Thai chicken rice noodle with coconut broth

One of the exciting thing about moving is the possibility of checking out different restaurant in a new neighborhood. So one day we passed by this Thai restaurant at the corner of Lafayette and El Camino Real in Santa Clara and thought we should give it a try.

The place was kinda small. More like a place one would go for take out rather than eat in. It was a nice Saturday afternoon but there was only one table occupied when we walked in around 1 pm. I was hoping that it wasn't the sign of the quality of the food.

There were five of us so we had more flexibility in ordering. We got mostly noodle dishes because those were the ones we don't normally make at home. We ordered pad Thai, pad see ew, khao soi, chicken satay, tom yum noodle soup and roti.



The roti which was described as pan fried Thai bread was nothing other than the Malaysian style roti pratha served with choice of curry or peanut sauce. But somehow the roti was a bit over pan fried so it looked a bit tanned. The curry was bland and very light.

chicken satay with the peanut sauce and pickle cucumber

The chicken satay looked pale and didn't have the nice golden brown color of a bbq meat. I skipped that completely though it was quite a big hit with our group.

My tom yum noodle soup was okay. It looked nice and red but wasn't very spicy so I asked for chilli sauce. The lady brought us typical chilli powder and sambal chilli sauce. It tasted better after it became spicier but it's not up to the level of awesome.

vegetarian pad see ew - stir fry rice noodle with tofu

The pad see ew ended up going home in a take out boxes with us because we couldn't finish it. We heated up for dinner that night and it tasted better than expected. We asked for it with tofu and vegetables and it was very nice after we mixed it with our home made garlic chilli sauce.

roti - pan fried Thai bread served with curry or peanut sauce

The khao soi which was rice noodle soup with coconut milk was very promising looking. The broth was golden yellow color with slices of red onion, crispy wonton skin and cilantro as topping. It also had generous amount of white chicken meat. Squirt the lime and top of with some sambal chilli and you're good to go.

I guess if we ever go back we would go for stir fry noodle because those are the type that we couldn't mimic at home.

White Elephant
930 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 987-9373
http://whiteelephantthai.com