Lacha Somtum – LA

Los Angeles certainly doesn’t lack for great Thai restaurants, as illustrated by polls of local favorites that routinely surface new “bests” like Holy Basil alongside long-time favorites such as Jitlada. Lacha Somtum is one of them: Located on Hollywood Boulevard in LA’s Thai Town – the only officially recognized Thai Town in the U.S. – this Northeastern Thai eatery specializes in “som tum” papaya salads, sour Issan sausages and jerky, hot pots, and seafood dishes, as well as serving blended drinks kept on the menu after its conversion from a cafe.

On our visit, we sampled some of their entree staples: a papaya salad with raw blue crab ($15), medium rare cooked shrimp (pra koong, $18), a crab pad thai ($18), and a yellow curry with beef ($14, including jasmine rice), each at an almost “no notes” level of excellence given its pricing. The utterly fresh, nicely balanced salad included a full blue crab – shell on – that was under-cracked at its hardest points, and the plate’s only small challenge to eat, while the wet shrimp and pad thai dishes each popped with salty, spicy, sour, and sweet flavors. Even the curry, often over-milked elsewhere, managed to let beef and vegetable flavors shine through enough curry paste to dye its included rice yellow.