Yai Restaurant - What Dishes Are Best?

I had a late lunch yesterday at Yai Restaurant. I was in the mood for spicy fried noodles and only one was listed on the menu; 50. *NOODLES WITH GROUND BEEF AND CHILI GARLIC 5.95. The waitress asked me if I wanted beef or pork, so I picked pork and when she asked me how spicy, I requestes it very hot. Also ordered a Thai Ice Tea. The noodles were good, not spicy hot enough and had no bird chilis, only a few large longitudinal cut, what looked like green jalapenos. No sweat on my brow today!

What else should I try here? Or should I move on? TIA!

Yai Restaurant
5757 Hollywood Bl.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323 462 0292

[hounddog]

While Yai has great flavor at bargain prices, one small point is the quality and quantity of meat dishes. For a little more money head down Sunset to Nadpob. This is a fairly new place, but should be on any top 10 list.

Pad thai Kron kan ...as others have mentioned..it's great Pad Thai, but not on the menu, only the specials board.
There normal Pad Thai is not very good.

Curry fried rice is good too...
Duck over rice...
lap...
STinky fermented bamboo salad if you like that kind of thing...

Hollywood Tahi is the best place for traditional Pad thai

- Che-po on rice...bbq & roasted pork. Ask for it with a fried egg (Thai style) on top!

- Pork leg with chili garlic.

- Beef salad.

- Yai Special #1 (BBQ chicken quarters served with shrimp fried rice).

Yai is perhaps the best Thai restaurant in the country. Their food can be so spicy as to make me cry & make my friends sweat in the face. No wonder it's always so cold in there & they refill water like mad! I always ask for my dishes just little spicy, which is almost too much!

My favorites are the BBQ Beef Appetizer (an absolute must order), Chicken with mint leaves and garlic, Beef Panag Curry, Roast Pork. The BBQ chicken is really good as well. Hard to go wrong, probably the best value of any place in LA as far as I'm concerned this place is damn cheap yet the food is excellent.

not on the menu, but an excellent dish is the pork leg, but cooked in their garlic basil sauce. it can get spicy if you ask for it hot.

my personal favorite is kow moo+ dang, or bbq and roast pork w/ rice, with a sweet red sauce lathered over the top. it's not spicy though- just sweet. yai's version is my favorite.

Link: http://jteja.blogspot.com

so what other places in thai town are worth patronizing? ive been to sapp and sanamluang (where my pad thai noodles weren't cooked long enough!). are they all pretty much decent?

Two other places I go to are:
1) Siam Sunset, on Sunset Blvd in the Oak Tree Motel, across from the 99 Cent store. You can park in the motel parking lot. A lot of their dishes are pretty good. They are a breakfast and lunch place. I usually get their porridge, and for dessert will get their hot tofu in brown & ginger sugar broth.

2) Hollywood Thai Restaurant. That's not actually the name- I think it only has a Thai name. It's on Hollywood Blvd in Thai Town, in the same mini mall as Shirak Market. Wide and varied menu, many things are very good.

Link: http://jteja.blogspot.com

"What else should I try here?"

Recommended: kao-lao ehn tûun, or "rich, star anise-flavoured soup with beef tendon."

E.M.

Image: http://www.silapaahaan.com/images/lth...

"What else should I try here?"

Recommended: sâi kràwk isãan, or "Isaan-style fermented pork and rice sausage."

E.M.

Image: http://www.silapaahaan.com/images/lth...

Their Jungle Curry nearly killed me last week - in a good way.
My impression was that they were famous for their crispy curry catfish dish- which is no slouch in the heat department either.

my Thai chef friend says their Pad Thai is the best in the city. It's fun to try their authentic version compared with the "gringo" version. Yum! (Literally)

Try their pork leg with chili and garlic, their nam tok (spicy beef salad), gai sop nokk (chicken in spicy curry) or their Pad Thai Kron Kan (I think this is the Northeren Pad Thai dish mentioned in an underlying post).

I really like this place. When I ask for it hot, they really do. Maybe it's because I'm Asian and feel like I can handle it.

This may be very unhelpful but when we went about a year ago, we tried this special that was on the board but not in the menu. It was my favorite dish of the night. It was a fried fish that was dressed in greens like a salad, with a spicy-tart dressing. Since it was on the board we had to ask the waitress to translate it, so if you return you can ask what the specials on the board are. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Their beef salad is very good. I think they also serve the special Northern pad thai which is different and spicier than the normal kind.

First tell her you want it hot, like Thais eat it hot.
The Penang curry is quite good. the "Jungle curry" at a normal temp is too hot for me, and I like spicy food.
Just a general good thai place, imho. Not worth a drive across town but good.