Food Adventures at the Thai Temple
I lived in the Valley for four or five years before, but somehow I hadn't heard about the Wat Thai Buddhist Temple in North Hollywood. So some friends took me up there on Sunday. The thing to know about the Thai Temple is that on weekends, vendors set up a food court near the parking lot selling all kinds of Thai food, a lot of which you don't normally see in restaurants. Extra bonus: most of it's cheap and yummy.
After exchanging some cash for tokens, I perused the booths and decided to start with some longan juice ($1.50) which was too sugary for me and thought I'd play it safe with red curry chicken w/ rice ($3) which was too, um, spicy. After years of cooking for Brad, who can't eat anything spicier than oatmeal, my spice tolerance is admittedly low. So after half a plate my tongue got burnt out, forcing me to get a bag of batter-dipped fried bananas ($2), piping hot from the fryer. I was tempted to try the fried sweet potatoes too, but I'm saving those for later.
The big discovery of the day, though, was Thai desserts. The great thing about a lot of Thai desserts is that you can pretend you're being healthy by eating them. More fruit and veggies in the diet can't ever be a bad thing, right? I tried some egg custard served over rice cooked in coconut milk ($2.50-yum) and bought a piece of custard-filled kabocha squash ($3=vegetable + dessert) to take home. Kabocha squash is slightly sweet when cooked and goes well with the custard. Kind of like pumpkin pie. My favorite of the day, however, was the mango and coconut sticky rice. They take a sweet, juicy mango, slice it, and serve it with sticky rice and a cup of coconut sauce. There are also some crunchy fried bean sprinkles for texture. Mixed all together in your mouth, you end up with a muy delicioso mango rice pudding. I know that this sounds blasphemous, but I may like it even better than chocolate.
In addition to the food, there is also a temple, complete with monks.
Next time I'll take pictures. Because there will definitely be a next time.
After exchanging some cash for tokens, I perused the booths and decided to start with some longan juice ($1.50) which was too sugary for me and thought I'd play it safe with red curry chicken w/ rice ($3) which was too, um, spicy. After years of cooking for Brad, who can't eat anything spicier than oatmeal, my spice tolerance is admittedly low. So after half a plate my tongue got burnt out, forcing me to get a bag of batter-dipped fried bananas ($2), piping hot from the fryer. I was tempted to try the fried sweet potatoes too, but I'm saving those for later.
The big discovery of the day, though, was Thai desserts. The great thing about a lot of Thai desserts is that you can pretend you're being healthy by eating them. More fruit and veggies in the diet can't ever be a bad thing, right? I tried some egg custard served over rice cooked in coconut milk ($2.50-yum) and bought a piece of custard-filled kabocha squash ($3=vegetable + dessert) to take home. Kabocha squash is slightly sweet when cooked and goes well with the custard. Kind of like pumpkin pie. My favorite of the day, however, was the mango and coconut sticky rice. They take a sweet, juicy mango, slice it, and serve it with sticky rice and a cup of coconut sauce. There are also some crunchy fried bean sprinkles for texture. Mixed all together in your mouth, you end up with a muy delicioso mango rice pudding. I know that this sounds blasphemous, but I may like it even better than chocolate.
In addition to the food, there is also a temple, complete with monks.
Next time I'll take pictures. Because there will definitely be a next time.
posted by tinatsu at 8:12 AM
4 Comments:
But all you could come up with for reasons you loved L.A. was "it's not West Virginia"?
Yeah, yeah. I was going to get back to that list, right after I save my hide from a certain, unmentionable, deadline-related evil.
And of course, I hadn't known about the Thai temple when I wrote that post.
Woah, that food sounds almost as good as, you know, you'd get on an actual trip to Thailand. And the prices seem comparable, too. :)
Have you saved yrself from Zebra, then?
I have reached a tenuous accomodation with the Beast. Which means that I have much work to do in the next two months. Four stories still to go. I think at least three of them are new.
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