Ow... ow... ow... Jitlada Hurts So Good

Sometimes LA seems like a small city and it's hard know it, really know it unless, you study hard, have a gaggle of adventurous friends, and/or are willing to try anything. And by anything I mean a southern style Thai restaurant in a mini-mall in Thai town. Low ceiling, family feel, warm but busy servers and a menu so long and crazy it's impossible to do it justice unless you studied it for hours. You just have to go with it. I tried Jitlada's food at the Jonathan Gold, Gold Standard event this year. Handed a plate of the hot, hot rice salad and Khrua Gling, dry beef curry, I dug in and Mark said I squealed. I don't remember squealing... I just remember this burst of flame in my mouth and then an explosion of flavor. It was fantastic and one of the best things we tried out of all the restaurants Gold hosted (another post on that...).

Anyway, we headed to the restaurant with our friend, Katie who is a fan of hot, hot, hot and ordered a bevy of drinks, Singha's and Thai Iced Tea and water, water, water... before we ordered the Khrua Gling again, catfish salad (featured here in Gourmet Magazine, and every bit as good as described by the article), rice salad (salty, sweet, crunchy and hot all at the same time), kaeng khew-wan khài "Mang-kon", green curry with egg-yolk-stuffed fish balls (we ordered it a 4 on a scale of 1-10 in hotness and it was mind blowing) and mounds and mounds of white rice. It was soooo wonderful. I loved every bite. We headed to Scoops for ice cream to cool our tongues after it was over. This place has been open since 2006, but I'd never tried it. But I'm a believer now, especially in the brown bread flavor, which tasted like sweet brown bread, a malted, crunchy bite with vanilla and brown sugar. Yum.

The only thing I regret was eating there the night before a killer workout at Catz on Saturday morning. Next time, I want to do lunch after the workout and with loads and loads of Thai-iced coffee. I can't wait.