@ thai food again: jitlada

saturday night. the next meal of the holiday weekend was to be at jitlada, our new favorite thai restaurant. i've never had a "favorite" thai restaurant since i've been in l.a., actually. dinner of course starts off with a beer. this was our third time here in the past 2 months. i can definitely now say that this is by far the best thai food i've had in the U.S. of course, nothing will ever compare to what i had in thailand, but i still get cravings for jitlada's food (especially the tom kha/coconut soup) all the time. if only they weren't so far away from me! (sunset and normandie?? that's like $5 round trip in gas money)

jitlada is known for their southern thai cuisine. i have two words to describe this regional food: deathly spicy. you must order from their southern thai menu on the very last page (beware: some menus are mysteriously missing this page. make sure to ask for it. click here for a link to a translation of that menu.)

we always start with the coconut soup (tom kha - currently #12 on the main menu). pictured above is the seemingly endless bowl of soup.

tom kha is coconut based and consists of mushrooms, bell peppers, and chicken (by default - but you can get shrimp instead). i love anything with coconut milk but what makes this my favorite is the tangyness of the soup. this is mostly why i love thai food: the tangy, basil-y, lemongrass-y, spicy flavors that come together for such a fulfilling eating experience. this soup is also really great paired with rice. i can seriously just eat this soup with rice and that's it.

destructor's fish. he orders a different whole fish everytime we go. today it was a pomfret. this is fried and topped with a rich, sweet chili basil sauce full of fresh garlic (i think i am drooling again as i write this).

southern thai curry 1 of 2! #8 on the southern thai menu: spicy curry with chicken and young jackfruit. the ingredients were nothing new but like most of their southern curries i think there was tumeric involved. probably not that much because i asked for them to make it mild. last time, i had the regular southern curry with tea leaves and was in so much pain from the spicyness i had to eat a plate of ice (which they gave me with the curry).

this is my friend's beef curry with cassia buds (#3). i had 1 bite and it was so spicy that everytime i took a bite of my milder curry i wanted to cry.

anyway, it's not as painful as it sounds. i very much enjoy eating spicy food except for the bloated feeling i get from drinking too much water to defuse the burning sensation.

fyi we also ordered the prig king but it was not good. that's the only thing we ordered that was "normal". i was craving green beans but really, you can get this dish anywhere so don't waste your time on that here.

finally, dessert. there are no words to describe this. "jazz" who is the owner of the restaurant told us she makes this herself (click here to read her story). mango sticky rice has a very special place in my heart. you sometimes see this at random food festivals, but that's like having panda express instead of real chinese food. the mango is perfectly ripened and warm. the rice is sweet in a subtle way (i hate super sugary stuff), with intoxicating coconut flavors. please eat this!

i can't wait to go back and try their rice salads and mango shrimp salads. i've heard great things about them.

jitlada thai restaurant
5233 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 663-3104

4 meals in 1 day

last saturday was a day of eating. we started with cuban sandwiches from porto's (not pictured here, was too hungry). this was a late lunch, but we proceeded to meet our friends for an early dinner at 15 in silverlake. we had been wanting to hit up the $15@15 special for a long time (note! just saw on their site that it is now $19@15. lame.). between 5 and 6:30pm, you could get a nice 3 course meal for $15. so it didn't matter that we had just barely finished lunch. we had to have it.

olive tapenade. a classic and very delicious here.

tomato bisque. i liked it but i've had better. it was a good balance though - not too creamy and not too sweet. i despise sweet tomato soup. the portion was just right as well.

mac and cheese. didn't try this one but can you really mess up mac and cheese? maybe.

hearts of palm salad. beautiful, and HUGE. the four of us couldn't finish this.

destructor's pork chop - a little citrusy with really delicious corn salsa (no cilantro!), which was tangy and sweet.

i think this burger was bigger than my face.

ah, my salmon dish. i'm not a big fan of cooked salmon, but i didn't want anything heavy. the salmon was okay - nothing special, but the rice was a pleasant surprise.

it's black rice with pieces of fennel, and watermelon. i have to say the watermelon confused me. it didn't taste bad, but it didn't go with the rice. it just kind of was there, trying too hard. the blend of rice and fennel was so savory; the rice was also really moist and well seasoned. i could have just eaten that alone.

dessert! at this point i'm not sure how i managed to eat the whole piece of bread pudding. considering i'm not a big dessert person, this means a lot.

so after dinner, we went out for drinks. later that night, we had our 4th meal. you see, with gas prices being so ridiculously expensive now, we have to maximize every trip we make to the east side. otherwise it's just not worth it.

one thing on the east side we always want is thai food. so of course, we had to stop by ruen pair in thai town that night. i think i really should have stopped eating after dinner, because i felt so sick after my 4th meal.

this is our friend's duck plate. okay, that's fine...but THEN -

my friend miss phd ordered duck feet stew. yes. i grew up watching my grandmother eat chicken feet but this? the webs freaked me out. however, miss phd taunted me until i finally agreed to try one. conclusion? still gross. all i tasted was soft webby skin.

this is the egg salad. i remember thinking the whole time, "is there cilantro in this?" it was one of those weird things where i could taste something that was a little sketchy. i felt that at any moment i might vomit from full-on cilantro flavor, but that never happened. this was really delicious (except for the moments when i thought i tasted cilantro): tangy, a little spicy, and an interesting mix overall. good with rice, too.

after this we went home and i went to sleep, and i never wanted to eat again (well, just for a day).