Thai food with a California twist

If it's true, as the saying goes, that the best place to eat is wherever the locals eat, then Thai-food lovers in Los Angeles can't do better than this: the Wat Thai Buddhist Temple in North Hollywood.

Sure, Thai restaurants abound in Los Angeles, which is home to some 40,000 to 50,000 Thais - the largest concentration outside of Thailand. There's lots of great Thai food to be found here, particularly in the "Thai Town" section of the city, which is just east of Hollywood and west of downtown.

But an interesting alternative is Wat Thai Temple, the first Thai Buddhist temple built in the United States. Every Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., mom-and-pop food vendors set up for business in the courtyard that surrounds the temple.

For a few dollars a meal, you can feast on dishes that you won't find in restaurants - at least, not prepared like this. These dozen or so vendors prepare food from family recipes handed down over two and three generations: spicy green papaya salad; hot, creamy curries; little dumplings of chicken, shallots, and palm sugar; sweetly seasoned skewered chunks of chicken or pork; and freshly made pad thai noodles. There is also a huge variety of desserts, including the basic but delicious sweet sticky rice with mango, as well as split mung beans, fried and filled with condensed milk and sugar.

"Because the food at the temple is cooked by Thai home cooks for Thai consumers, it is more authentic," says Los Angeles chef and restaurant owner Evan Kleiman. "Restaurants tend to oversweeten the food to please the American palate. The food at the temple is more home-cooked in style."

The food is only part of the weekend scene at the temple, which, like those in Thailand, serves as a community gathering place. Families come for all sorts of activities, from Buddhist Sunday School to classes in Thai language, music, and dance. Teens join their elders in worship in the temple - the only Thai temple in the US built in traditional Thai style - and they gather at tables under the trees, eating food from the vendors' stalls. The soft, lilting sounds of the phonetically based Thai language are heard everywhere, while the scent of burning incense wafts through the air.

"In Thailand, the temple is the central meeting place on weekends," says Jet Tila, a first-generation American Thai who is a chef and owner of Bangkok Market in Los Angeles. "It's the place where everyone gets together, the whole family. It's a place to hang out. Everyone's got something to do here."

Mr. Tila, whose parents moved to the United States in 1967, says he grew up spending his weekends with his family at the temple. People began bringing food, potluck-style, to share with the monks after prayers. Eventually, he says, food became a way to help raise funds for the temple, with vendors donating part of their profits to the temple.

For an outsider, a visit to Wat Thai, which was built in the early 1970s, offers a rare opportunity to get a glimpse of real Thai culture without traveling to Southeast Asia. Monks in saffron-colored robes wander the grounds and will happily answer questions about the temple or their religion, and food vendors will tell you about their recipes and how they prepare them.

Page: 1 | 2