The Best Thai Food in America

The best Thai food in America isn't in a restaurant. It's at a Buddhist temple in North Hollywood, a working class San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles. But the food is only available on the weekend at the Wat Thai Buddhist Temple, an attractive ornate example of tradition Thai architecture that emerges from the ugliness of the industrial end of Coldwater Canyon Avenue. Although the Temple is near Sherman Way, where there's a large section of excellent authentic Thai restaurants, such as the Sanamluang Cafe, the Temple's home cooked food is a standout at nearly half the price of the nearby Sherman Way restaurants.

The Wat Thai Temple's food stalls are open on weekends from 9 am to 5 pm, and are located in the courtyard surrounding the Temple, but they don't take cash or credit cards. To eat, visitors must first go to a booth and buy poker chip-like tokens in 50-cent, $1, and $2 denominations.

Each stall offers different food specialties from barbecued meats on wood skewers visitors to seafood and duck soups to assorted fried tidbits. My very favorite Temple dish is the green papaya salad. I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about this strangely addictive dish, a concoction of tiny dried red chilies, crab meat, dried shrimp, lime, tomatoes, fish sauce, and shredded green papaya. I've eaten much spicy food from a variety of cultures, but the green papaya salad was easily the spiciest I've ever experienced.

The courtyard itself is a strangely pleasant and simple outdoor setting where food is eaten on picnic tables under trees with chopsticks and plastic utensils.

ABOUT THE TEMPLE

The Wat Thai Temple, built in the early seventies, is first Thai Buddhist temple in America. Visitors are welcome inside the Temple for worship, but there are rules of etiquette to follow. Shoes are left at the door and you enter with stockings or barefooted. When praying, worshippers tuck their feet under their body and sit cross-legged. Exposing the bottom of the foot to another person is considered rude behavior in Thai culture. Non-Buddhist visitors who are curious about the religion may sit in on a four-hour Sunday school class at the Temple.

According to the Temple's website, the monks are members of the Theraveda sect of Buddhism that "adheres closely to the pure teachings of Buddha." There are other Theraveda temples across the United States, but the Wat Thai Temple is the largest. Besides Thailand, there is a presence of Theraveda temples in Cambodia, India, Laos, Burma, and Sri Lanka.

The Wat Thai Buddhist Temple is located at 8225 Coldwater Canyon Avenue, North Hollywood, California 91605.

SOURCES:

http://www.watthaiusa.org/

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1204/p16s01-lifo.html

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/326520