March 28, 2008 9

Jitlada Thai Restaurant (Sunset Blvd)

By in 08: Hollywood, Favorite Food Entries

DSCN2996A friend who is a big fan of Thai food told me about this place that specializes in authentic southern Thai cuisine. Most of the Thai restaurants in Thai town are northern style which has strong Chinese influence. According to my friend, Jitlada‘s menu used to be in Thai only. It was until a chowhounder from Chicago helped translate the menu with the owner into English when he visited LA last year. You can read his experience here. It contained good informations on Southern Thailand and how their cuisine different from the North. Useful for a Southern Thai food newbie like me.

Since this is my first time trying, my impression is that Southern Thai food seems to be more complex in flavor. They use more turmeric and Arabic spice, hence it’s more exotic tasting than their Chinese-influence Northern counterpart. There are a lot more seafood dishes on the menu as well. Jitlada also don’t tone down the spice level for the American palette. So if you have lower tolerances (like me) for spice ask for mild.

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Green Mussel. The broth is incredible! Really really delicious. The mussels were fresh. If I have higher spice tolerate level I would gulp down the broth like soup. So many flavors in one. One of the top dishes of our meal.

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súp hang wûa Southern Thai-style oxtail soup. It’s got oxtail, lemon grass, shallots, scallions, and cilantro. Amazing! My 2nd favorite of the dishes. I’ve had Indonesian oxtail soup before so I was expecting something similar, turned out it’s very different. This clearly taste Thai.

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Poo Nim Pad Pong Karee: Deep fried soft shell crab sauteed with curry powder and vegetable. Unexpectedly delicious! This was probably my most favorite of all the dishes we got. The soft shell crab is deep fried so you can eat the shell too. So much flavor. I love the curry sauce a lot too.

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Moo Nua Mae Chan: Grilled beef, southern style with papaya salad and sticky rice. Best papaya salad I’ve had! But it was spicy so I couldn’t eat too much. The beef was really good too. Seafood combination, a bit normal but still good.

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Dry curry chicken. The dry curry taste very different from what I’m used to. It took me few bites to get into it, few of my colleagues couldn’t get into it at all though. I think there’re a lot turmeric in it so it reminded me of Indian’s curry.

Owner Jazz (yes that’s her name ^_-) shows us great hospitality and was very friendly and helpful to us. I can’t wait to go back to try more. They have a lot of “generic” Thai dishes (i.e. Pad thai, Pad see ew) on the menu for those who prefer to stay at their comfort zone. But for those who want to try something different and unique, flip the menu to the last page which list out all the signature Southern Thai dishes on one page.

Jitlada Thai Restaurant
5233 W Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 663-3104

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9 Responses to “Jitlada Thai Restaurant (Sunset Blvd)”

  1. sneakermonkey says:

    Jitlada is awesome! Their rice salad is really good along with their dry curry beef.
    Its very spicy, couple of bites and I break out in a sweat! But sooo good. I want try their raw blue crab next. Glad to see you posted this place!

  2. sneakermonkey says:

    Jitlada is awesome! Their rice salad is really good along with their dry curry beef.
    Its very spicy, couple of bites and I break out in a sweat! But sooo good. I want try their raw blue crab next. Glad to see you posted this place!

  3. sneakermonkey says:

    Jitlada is awesome!

  4. Chubbypanda says:

    Ever notice that the more south you get in Asian, the better the food is? This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it does seem to hold up a lot of the time.

  5. Joan says:

    oh I definitely will try the rice salad next time. And yes the raw blue crab too! There are so many interesting dishes on the menu it was quite overwhelming. ^^;;

    chubbypanda, you might have a point. How about Europe? Some of the best European cuisines like Italian, French, Spanish, Greek…all in the south!

  6. seat says:

    Mouth-watering…can’t remember the last time I had Thai food. Did you actually memorise the long Thai names? I was never able to learn them!

  7. Aporn says:

    I read your blog for great eats all the time. Glad to see you post about Jitlada. As an authentic Thai person, Jitlada’s food is very close to the motherland. It’s of southern region. Great stuff.

  8. sneakermonkey says:

    After reading the post, I had to go back.
    Finally got the raw blue crab, and its delicious!
    Too high maintenance for my friends, but very fresh and light. Spice creeps up on you, so beware! Also tried the green curry with egg yolk fish balls (#1 on the menu) – very rich and yummy. Curry lamb -I think you’ll like this one too. Lamb is very soft and succulent. Also got the Deep fried prawns with with sweet chili sauce (#47?) I’m not sure about the number but its really good. It comes with deep fried tea leaves and basil, which isn’t mentioned on the menu. I only wish they gave more prawns, they only give 3 small skewers. Deliciousness!

  9. Joan says:

    Thanks for the report, Sneakermonkey. 😀
    They all sound really delicious. I definitely want to try the blue crab and the lamb. Deep fried tea leaves…hmm soudls good! I’ll try to go there tomorrow, if I can get a group though…