Where am I, in Bangkok? No, North Hollywood, but I would have been pleased to eat food this good in Thailand.
As a matter of fact, I saw nothing over there quite like the som tam (green papaya salad) at Sri Siam Cafe, where I've just had lunch. Every bite bursts with lively, fresh flavors, lots of them.
Mixed in with shredded green papaya and carrots are fine egg noodles, tiny bits of fresh lime, cut-up round Thai eggplant, pale Thai sausage, long beans and peanuts.
The salad is very spicy, and the sweet-sour-salty balance of tastes is perfect, punctuated every now and then by a sudden bright flash of lime.
Raw cabbage on the side helps to cool down the spicy heat. And the plate includes puffy fried pork cracklings, which seem to be as popular in Thailand as in Mexico.
Just as good is nam khao tod, or crispy rice salad. The rice is mixed with sour northern sausage, roasted peanuts, ginger, green onions and dried red chiles. Like the som tam, it's spicy, not tamed down for western tastes.
I had gone to Sri Siam to meet Thai friends, with whom I had just traveled to Chiang Mai. We wanted to have the famous noodle curry from that area, kao soi, and ordered two versions, one with pork, the other with beef. For my taste, pork and chicken match better with the coconut- and curry-flavored broth than beef.
The restaurant makes its own curry paste for kao soi and provides condiments to dress it up. The choices are limes, pickled mustard greens, a dark spicy sauce, bean sprouts and sliced red onion subbing for shallots.
Sri Siam's spicy ribs (below) are marinated with lime and salt and then fried. They're good on their own, but Thais like to combine many tastes, and so these come with roasted peanuts, shredded ginger, lime, green chiles, cilantro and cabbage.
A board on the wall lists specials, handwritten in Thai. These are worth asking about. Dishes I would try the next time are duck larb, the hot and sour soup tom yam with pork hock and the salad nam tok made with trout instead of the usual meat.
Sri Siam is plain and unpretentious, tucked into a strip mall. It has the usual standards, if that is what you want, and lunch specials during the week. But it rises above this level with cooking that makes it more than a neighborhood restaurant.
Sri Siam Cafe, 12843-45 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605 (corner Coldwater Canyon). Tel: (818) 982-6161. Open daily, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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