Jitlada with David:

I convinced David to take a trip with me to Thai Town for dinner. My friend Ross went to Jitlada when he was in town and told me it was the place to go in Los Angeles for Thai food. On the Internet I found out that Jitlada was known for its Southern Thai specialities and the spiciness of the food. I like Thai food but have grown tired of only eating Tom Yum and Pad Thai. Jitlada’s menu showed me that Thai cuisine had a lot more to offer than I realized.

We ordered two Thai iced tea’s and beef salad to start. David ordered pad thai with chicken and shrimp as his main course and I ordered some yellow curry chicken dish. They ask you how spicy you want each dish when you are ordering. This is a tricky game because they tell you everything is spicy so you have to decide how much more spice you think you can handle. I opted for medium and David stuck with mild. The spiciness was great. It didn’t hit you until you were three bites in. After three bites you had a fever you didn’t want to go away.

The beef salad ended up coming out last. A lot of reviews on Jitlada knock the service and apparently the staff doesn’t care to change that. The first dish to arrive was my main course. It was deep fried and served cold. I think they must have made the dish for someone else as a mistake and decided to serve it to me. The next thing to arrive was my side of sticky rice. It came in a fun bamboo barrel and was sticky.

David’s Pad Thai arrived and he ripped through it claiming it was “the best pad thai he ever had”. I have to agree with him. It was spicier than most pad thai and an ample amount of fish sauce that made it leap off your tongue.

The last dish we received was the beef salad. They kept apologizing and telling us it would be out soon and by the time we got it we were kind of over it. It was pretty good if you just ate the beef and the onions. If you happened to grab some of the sauce sitting at the bottom of the plate it was not so good. They used more fish sauce than I had ever tasted in a dish. David didn’t know about fish sauce so he was confused why our beef tasted like fish.

I think it was an off night for Jitlada. The food had all the potential to be great but the service got in the way. I must say that Jitlada has reinvigorated my interest in Thai food. I am looking forward to going back because there are 40 more dishes I want to try. Next time I will also go spicier. I liked the mellow burning in my mouth and want to kick it up a notch. It doesn’t seem like service is a priority at Jitlada but if you could at least get your dishes in proper order and served hot this place would be fantastic.