I’ve been complaining about haven’t able to find an authentic Thai salad, the kind which I had so many time in Thailand and Cambodia. And Buddha heard my praying. One of my coworker who grew up in Thailand and Lao promised to show me his favourite secret place which has very good and authentic Thai-Lao foods. I asked him to let me share this place because I think we cannot be so selfish and keep it for our own.

Deep inside the Swap Mest market on Lankershim Blvd., laid the modest family – run place, Kim Thai Food restaurant. Kim is the name of the owner’s wife how was the cook. The husband is in charge of serving foods.

The menu needs to be update so please ask the owner what is available for the day.

I ordered skewed grilled pork, satay chicken, Lao sausages for appetizers, shrimp noodle and pork noodle for entré and of course, papaya salad which called Tom Lao.

I wish you were there to witness the foodgasm moment when we took a bite of the fatty, tasty sausage. It just snapped between my teeth and busted with flavors. The flavor of the South East Asia ingredients: pork meat, fat, fish sauce, garlic, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. At that moment, I drifted away to the Mekong river, wishing I had a can of cold Lao beer. The grilled pork was marrinated with brown sugar, soy sauce (maybe fishsauce ), garlic and lemon grass. It was sweet, savory and smoky. Sweeter than the Vietnamese kind. It just keep me going and I didn’t want to stop eating. I had to buy all of the remain skewed pork on the counter for myself. $2 of happiness. The turmeric-stained satay chicken is fine, a little ordinary.

While eating, we could watch the lady pounding our Som Tum Lao salad. Then they poured out more freshly-steamed sticky rice from a bamboo basket. The type that commonly use in Thai, Lao and Cambodia.

Our Som Tum Lao-papaya salad came, as we wished, it was pounded with papaya, tomatoes, long bean, chillies, fish sauce, garlic, lime juices and some kind of fermented crabs. The flavor was deep, complex yet spicy. It kept me going even though I was sweating from the heat of the chillies. Warning that this dish may be stinky for the foreigner so make sure that you won’t order it on your first date.

Then it came the main dish -shrimp noodle. This dish reminded me of our family dish we usually have at home. Mild pork and vegetables broth with fresh big shrimps served with rice noodle and some herbs. The owner insisted that I need to squeeze two lime wedges into the soup. It tasted very hearty and refreshing.

The duck soup was super flavorful! It is like …Duck Pho 😆. I always having problems deciding what do I want every time I came to this place. I just want to eat all of the foods they hav here.

It was a very memorial and satisfying meal. I just wish I lived near the restaurant so I coils have it more often.