Tai Tai Three Ways: Wrap, Salad, and Flatbread at CJ's

Some flavors are good enough that a single format cannot hold them. That is the whole story behind Tai Tai at CJ's Urban Cafe. It started life as a wrap, and it now turns up in three different places on our menu, which makes it the easiest Asian fusion lunch Moorpark has if you like knowing exactly what you are going to taste but not exactly what shape it will show up in. The core idea stays the same every time: grilled chicken, crunchy noodles, and a sesame-oriental dressing tying it all together.

Here is each version, and how to decide which one belongs on your table today.

One idea, three formats

Restaurants usually treat a good flavor as a single dish and leave it there. The trouble is that people do not eat the same way every day. Monday you want something you can carry. Wednesday you want something lighter. Friday you want something you can put in the middle of a table and share. Same person, same taste in food, three completely different needs.

Building one flavor into three formats solves that. You never have to give up the thing you like just because your appetite or your schedule changed, and you never have to gamble on something unfamiliar to get a change of pace. That is a small thing, but over a year of lunches it adds up.

It also makes ordering for other people considerably easier. If you are picking up lunch for two or three, you can get the same flavor in three different shapes and let everybody eat the way they actually prefer, instead of hunting for the one dish a whole group can agree on. That is a quieter kind of useful than a brand new menu item, but it is a big part of why this particular set of three has stuck around as long as it has.

The Asian fusion lunch Moorpark orders three different ways

The Tai Tai wrap

This is the original and still the most portable of the three. Grilled chicken, crunchy chow mein noodles, sprouts, water chestnuts, and sesame-oriental dressing, all rolled up so you can eat it with one hand. The crunch is the whole point here. Chow mein noodles and water chestnuts both hold their snap, so this does not turn into a soft wrap by the third bite the way a lot of chicken wraps do. Like every wrap on our menu, it comes with tortilla chips and salsa or a salad, so you decide how heavy you want lunch to land.

The Oriental Tai salad

Same idea, more of it, no tortilla. Crisp romaine, grilled chicken, crunchy noodles, water chestnuts, carrots, sprouts, and sunflower seeds. The romaine gives it structure the wrap does not need to have, and the sunflower seeds add a second kind of crunch that sits alongside the noodles rather than repeating them. If you want the flavor but want to eat lighter, or you just want a bigger bowl of vegetables in front of you, this is the version to order. It is also the one that holds up best if you are eating at your desk twenty minutes after you picked it up.

The Tai Flatbread Pizza

This is the one people do not expect. Chicken, chow mein, and oriental dressing on a 9 inch flatbread pizza. It sounds unusual until you eat it, and then it makes perfect sense, because everything that works in the wrap works just as well when it is spread out and served in slices. It is the sharing format of the three. Put it in the middle of the table, cut it up, and let people take a piece while they figure out what else they want.

How to pick between them

Think about how you are going to eat rather than what you feel like eating, because the flavor is a constant across all three. If you are driving, working through lunch, or eating somewhere without a proper table, take the wrap. It is the one designed to survive being eaten in the wrong place.

If you are sitting down and want lunch to feel like a real meal without feeling heavy afterward, take the salad. And if there are two or more of you, or you are ordering a few things for the table anyway, get the flatbread. Slices are the friendliest thing you can put between people, and it pairs easily with a salad if you want to build a small spread out of it.

Come try all three

Find us at 766 New Los Angeles Ave, Suite D-1 in Moorpark. We are open Monday through Sunday from 8AM to 7:30PM. Call ahead at (805) 529-5987 and we will have it ready when you get here.

Make CJ's your go-to in Moorpark. Browse the full menu and order at cjsurbancafe.com.

CJ's Urban Cafe — 766 New Los Angeles Ave, Moorpark. Fresh food, done right.