On the Trail of Northern Thai
Ocha and Sanamluang are worthy stops in a search for the cuisine in L.A.
By Richard Foss
I believe that every experience, legal or otherwise, is available somewhere in Los Angeles. If you don't find what you want, you either haven't looked hard enough or got distracted while searching because you ran across something else that was really cool.
I recently visited the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai and spent a week entranced by a cuisine that was subtly different from any Thai food I'd experienced. I was familiar with Bangkok-style fare - the cuisine of a cosmopolitan city, influenced by Islamic, Vietnamese, and other trading cultures. Chiang Mai is hundreds of miles inland and culturally different, the former capital of a kingdom called Lanna that had fewer visitors and a cooler climate. The difference was subtle but distinct - more fruit, less coconut; more pork, less fish; and rich herbs in everything. Before I even left Thailand, I was promising friends here I'd find a Chiang Mai-style restaurant so they could try it, too.
Except, I couldn't. When I asked Thais in L.A. about Chiang Mai-style food, some looked wistful, others puzzled. Some referred me to Issan-style restaurants (Northeastern Thai, influenced by the Laotian taste for pungent fermented fish sauces). Finally, someone suggested Ocha, a mini-chain said to specialize in Northern-style food.
The menu was promising - quail-egg soup such as I enjoyed in a Chiang Mai café, the popular dish of crispy pork with broccoli, and lots of rice noodles. (Lanna means "One Million Ricefields.") The food was good - the quail-egg soup ($7.25) thick and fragrant but not really hot, an order of fried fish cakes ($7.25) dense and chewy, the classic dish of pork with pepper and garlic ($7.25) made with some crystallized garlic that added extra zing. The crispy pork with broccoli ($7.25) really took me back - it was simple but perfect, the thick slices of fried pork crunchy, the flavors concentrated. Some signature dishes of Chiang Mai weren't there - no sticky rice, richly herbed sausage, ginger-pork curry, or fried frog skin (not that I really expected to find frog skin on an English-language menu, but I asked in case they offer it to their Thai clientele). Ocha had very good Northern cuisine and will be worthy of return visits, but my quest was not yet accomplished.
A friend was sure he'd seen a Northern Thai restaurant near the Buddhist temple in North Hollywood but couldn't remember the name or exact location. Not surprisingly, we couldn't find it. I stopped at a Thai market to see if anybody could direct us. Two bags of groceries later (I like Thai desserts, and the mangos looked lovely), our checker told us the place we were looking for had closed, no place else had Northern food, and that would be $19.35. We were even hungrier after being in the market, and we noticed a neighboring café. Sanamluang is named after a palace just north of Bangkok, so I knew I hadn't found my Northern Thai restaurant, but it looked good.
We ordered Yen-Ta-Fo noodles with mixed seafood ($6.25), crab cakes ($7.25), roast pork leg over rice ($5.75), and fried Ko Chai rice biscuits stuffed with vegetables ($3.95). Crab cakes are usually flat, pan-fried patties - these were shaped like little fireplugs and deep-fried. They also contained shrimp and pork, making them way outside the usual definition, but they were fine when considered as a mixed meatball rather than a crab cake. The rice biscuits were similarly interesting, a paper-thin crisp layer over a soft, almost molten interior of green vegetables and glutinous rice. I'd never order these to go, since the texture was what made them appealing and they softened a few minutes after serving, but they were excellent fresh with the spicy dipping sauce.
The pork leg was likable but not outstanding, roasted Chinese-style and served with gravy over rice. The only disappointment was the noodles, which had a perfect texture but came with a strange pink "special gravy" that overwhelmed the taste of the seafood. It wasn't all that spicy, just odd - it actually seemed to subtract flavor from the seafood without contributing anything particularly remarkable. I'd visit Sanamluang again, but I wouldn't order this.
The meal was thought-provoking if not entirely successful, a side trip on my continuing quest for Chiang Mai cuisine in Southern California. I expect to enjoy the searching as much as the finding.
Published: 03/22/2007
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