Sai Fine Bistro adds new spice in northeast Tarrant

The best new restaurants in northeast Tarrant County are not in the same old places.

From Italian trendsetter Loveria Caffe in Colleyville to the handsome Mughlai Fine Indian Cuisine in Southlake, diners can circle the globe without braving Southlake Boulevard traffic.

The newest “something different” is Sai Fine Asian Bistro in Colleyville, an Asian dinner house by a chef with a background in both Dallas and Fort Worth.

“Chef Eddy T” Thretipthuangsin brings new dishes and some familiar favorites from now-gone Kin Kin Urban Thai or Bite, good restaurants in iffy locations.

Sai Bistro is in another oft-changing location, adding elaborate Asian decor to a former French restaurant in Colleyville Plaza north of Glade Road.

“My Southlake customers can get here easily, and the Colleyville people like having someplace different,” Thretipthuangsin said.

Southlake has Howard Wang’s China Grill and also Malai Kitchen, soon to open another location in Fort Worth.

“What I’m doing here is not your typical Asian restaurant,” Thretipthuangsin said. “I think it’s more creative.”

New entrées include a duck confit with peach chutney and a honey-mango coulis and a five-spice duck breast with black cherries and a kabocha squash purée.

There’s a garlic-black pepper filet mignon served sizzling, orange-balsamic chicken or garlic-cilantro “Thai barbecue” pork ribs. On the simpler side of the menu, there’s pad Thai, red-curry chicken, duck fried rice, a roasted beet-walnut salad and soba noodles or a Malaysian curry.

The basic dishes start at about $13, with the better platters going up to about $35 for a marinated Kurobuta pork chop with chestnuts, cranberries and bok choy, or $28 for a New York strip steak in Malaysian curry.

Sai Thai is open nightly for dinner only; 5005 Colleyville Blvd., 682-325-4050, sai-restaurant.com.

A new Billy’s Oak Acres

A second Billy’s Oak Acres BBQ will open by summer.

Yes, for real this time.

Billy’s will replace a sports grill in a once-notorious nightclub space on Camp Bowie Boulevard West. The location is near Western Hills High School, on a block where young Oak Acres owner Billy Woodrich used to come for barbecue at long-gone Larry’s Crossing.

This Billy’s will have a full menu and family-style platters every day, such as chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried chicken or smoked pork chips, plus steaks and prime rib on weekends, fried pies and breakfast Thursdays through Sundays.

It’ll have everything the original North Las Vegas Trail location has, except oak trees.

“We’re planting one in the parking lot,” Woodrich said.

The first Oak Acres will remain open but keep shorter hours, he said. People still come from miles around on Loop 820 for barbecue and chicken-fried steak, and Billy’s sells out some days.

The new Billy’s will offer a patio and separate meeting room. The 1963 building is being redone to a rustic look, a change from its past life as an upholstery shop, a boat sales lot and the 1980s Tree House nightclub.

Watch for the new Billy’s Oak Acres at 7709 Camp Bowie Blvd. West. The original location is open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays, lunch Sundays at 1620 N. Las Vegas Trail (north of Loop 820); 817-367-2200, facebook.com/BillysOakAcresBbq.

May for Meso Maya

Long-awaited Meso Maya is scheduled to open its first Fort Worth location in the first week of May.

Interesting: It’s in a former seafood restaurant in the Trinity Commons shopping center on South Hulen Street, but Meso Maya has chosen to brand it “Meso Maya Tanglewood.”

Meso Maya is the uptown corporate cousin to El Fenix. But the similarity ends there.

Meso Maya is a contemporary Mexico City-style restaurant known for avocado margaritas, steak Oaxaca-style, a pork chop with calabacitas, cochinita pibil, chicken mole and seafood dishes such as a Herradura tamarind-glazed salmon or grilled salmon with coconut rice.

Look for it at 3050 S. Hulen St.; 682-316-8256, mesomaya.com.

This story was originally published April 17, 2017 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Sai Fine Bistro adds new spice in northeast Tarrant."