I have eaten at the Blue Mango in the past, but usually with friends, so I wasn't really paying close attention to the food and service per se. Today, for lunch, I at there by myself, allowing me to focus on the quality of the food served and the level of service that the restaurant provided. As this restaurant offers an unusual mix of Thai and Japanese food, so I decided to sample off both menus. From their Thai menu, I selected their Thai Iced Tea and their Musuman Curry. From their Japanese menu, I selected their Unagi Maki.
With my order placed, the wait staff brought out a small bowl of house soup. As house soups go, this one was delightful, with small bits of cabbage, green onion, carrots, tofu, finely minced chili, and other vegetables floating in a rich vegetarian broth. For house soups, I pay close attention to the salt levels, as excessive salt is often used to hide the fact that the soup has been watered down. The seasoning for this bowl of soup was perfect, so no watering down here.
Next came the Thai Iced Tea. It came in a tall glass with a reasonable amount of ice in it, and a generous helping of coconut milk floating at the top. Excessive sugar can kill a Thai Iced Tea for me, making it much too cloying. However, for their Thai Iced Tea, the sugar levels were perfect.
So far, Blue Mango was doing well, but with the serving of their Unagi Makki (freshwater eel rolls), Blue Mango began to wilt on me a bit. As Unagi Makki is a fairly basic sushi roll, the freshness and quality of the ingredients used to make it are important. Fresh, high quality unagi should be sweet and pleasing to the palate, and never have a "fishy" taste to it. Unfortunately, I detected a slightly fishy taste to their unagi, indicating that it had either been sitting around for just a bit too long, or else it just wasn't high quality (e.g., poorly processed). The off taste was slight, however, and could easily be masked by a decent dunking in soy sauce and wasabe.
The biggest letdown of the meal, however, was the Chicken Musaman Curry, which arrived at my table next. I had deliberately ordered a mild version of this curry (they offer everything from a heat of "3" to a masochistic "15"), as the heavy application of chilies obscures the underlying qualities of the curry's sauce. I wanted to see how complex and balanced the sauce was, as this is what separates a great Thai curry from an average one. In a good Musaman Curry, the sauce should be more than just coconut milk, peanuts, and chili sauce. It should have the caramelized sweetness of palm sugar, the sourness of tamarind sauce, the pungency of fish sauce, and the bright flavor notes of a variety of spices that often includes cumin, turmeric, cardamom, and star anise. Unfortunately, all of that complexity was missing in Blue Mango's Musaman Curry, which was really little more than chunks of chicken stewed in chili-laced coconut milk. Blue Mango had simplified this curry for the American palate so much that it had largely lost its Thai character. The results were not bad, just not very interesting.
Having sampled Blue Mango's fare, I have concluded that as a sushi spot and as a Thai restaurant, Blue Mango is just an average neighborhood eatery that gets to charge a little bit more for its food than it otherwise might, due to its proximity to the San Jose airport and downtown San Jose. The service there was generally fine, and the restaurant itself was clean and well-appointed, so my evaluation of it rested mainly on the quality of its food. If I happened to be in the area and had a hankering for sushi or Americanized Thai food, then I might stop by Blue Mango; however, its food is really not remarkable enough for me to go out of my way for. In the end, I give Blue Mango a rating of 3/5 stars. read more