Wat Thai Temple (+pics)
Wanting to take advantage of the clear weather, I decided to head to the far reaches of the San Fernando Valley to the Wat Thai Buddhist Temple. It's pretty far up there on the corner of Coldwater and Roscoe. At 3pm, I was hoping that the majority of the crowd had died down, and it seemed like it did, but all the vendors were as busy as ever.
There were a lot of really interesting looking desserts (reminiscent of the some of the delicacies that Bourdain tried in his recent No Reservations episode in LA), there were some really delicious looking skewered meats, noodles with stew, fresh fruit and juices and lots of chili and fish sauce. There was a fried banana dessert that reminded me of a similar Filipino dish called turon.
I had heard that the papaya salad was the way to go, but I wasn't sure if I'd know it by sight. But sure enough, I noticed that all the vendors had maybe one or two people in line, but there was one stall where the line was about a dozen people deep. Seeing julienned papaya along with large bins of ingredients used to make the dressing, I knew it had to be it.
For $3, I was able to get a large helping of the salad, and instead of getting some of the barbecue for a dollar each, I decided to spend my remaining tokens on longan juice. Sitting down to take my first bite, I smiled in the weird mix of agony and satisfaction: I thought I told her to make it only medium spicy.
Full blog post: http://www.taste-buzz.com/node/52
By SauceSupreme
on Feb 18, 2007 06:21 PM
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Oh cool - I was just wondering about Wat Thai after I whined on a post about how nonexistant great Thai food is on the Westside... Thanks for the info and pix... And I thought you'd know - medium spicy for Thai people is unbearably hot for most others... my Thai friend's mom had a Thai restaurant in West LA back in the 70's. We'd go and eat there, and she'd come out chomping on those little chilli padis (the fierce little red guys that will blow the top of your head off) and casually smiling while greeting us - not even breaking a sweat... again, thanks!
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But would it be suicide for em to take my peanut and nut nut allergy there? Does the mango sticky rice have peanuts?
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Gee - I don't know... peanuts are obvious and hidden in Thai cooking... I would be worried just seeing a wok - peanut oil is common...
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It's the protein, not the fat, thgat causes allergic reactions so peanut oil is ok.
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Thanks for the fantastic post and beautiful pictures. The Thai/Cambodian New Year is coming up in April (12th?) and that's always a super-great time out there! Wat Thai is the perfect way to explore this cuisine. In Southeast Asia, regular people don't go to restaurants, they eat in open air markets just like this!
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In Southeast Asia, hawker stalls are like our cafes and burger joints... their restaurants are like our Vincenti and Spago - more or less for special occasions... no one likes to pay for ambiance and air conditioning except me!
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I was there yesterday too! It was my first time out; I swear I found heaven. The papaya salad, mango with sticky rice and the khanom krok were the highlights for us. Beautiful photos!
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