Sanamluang

Don’t go to Sanamluang Cafe in Thai Town searching. Unless of course you’re a masochist (or a folklorist) and like to chase myths.

My friend used to date strippers, and each girl was either a feminist asserting her power over men or a damsel in distress waiting to be saved. Or so he said. He believed in the same mythology of all testosterone-fueled youth, particularly those left atomized in the romantic fields of the cyberworld. It is not just that the stripper really likes you, or that nothing in her past pushed her toward stripping, or that she can evolve out of stripping into something better at any time. The mythology implies that the patron possesses a combination of intuition, righteousness, and divine blessing that allows him to choose the right subject, enlighten the subject as to its true nature, and then expose the world to its hypocrisy. I met most of my friend’s girlfriends, and while they were nice people, they never quite lived up to his dreams.

On review sites like Chowhound and Yelp, you will find reviews of Sanamluang Café that assert “this place is dirty, greasy, and frightfully the best”…”damn Thai place in the city”. I linked two different reviews together here, but they are all about the same: Sanamluang is the best because it appears bad, because the reviewer found it, and because the masses are hypocrites for not seeing its goodness.

Based on this corrupted logic, I went to Sanamluang one night last week. It is located at 5170 Hollywood Blvd (cross Kingsley) in a small strip mall. It has minimal parking but is open til 4 in the morning every night. There are plastic tables outside underneath a red neon sign in dueling English and Thai.

I am a vegetarian, so I asked for a veggie dish with noodles. All the review sites rave about the noodles. Unfortunately, Sanamluang’s veggie options are limited, and once I picked a dish, the man at the counter walked behind the kitchen and consulted the manager. She returned to tell me that the dish came cooked in chicken broth. I asked about cooking it in water, but she said that was not possible. They were friendly and somewhat helpful, suggesting some fried vegetables. Sanamluang’s menu items range from $7-12, and after I couldn’t find a veggie noodle dish, I chose the vegetable curry.

I sat down at a table, and only then did I notice Sanamluang Café’s interior and grasp the mythology. Slate grey tile, like a janitor’s closet at Killer King Hospital. Yellow particle board booths with pealing laminate tops, framed against pastel wallpapers and prints of Thailand. A woman chopped green vegetables near the cash register and bragged of moving to Burbank, where the streets are wide and the schools are good. A couple played with their I-gadgets over a meat soup. A man mopped the floor with industrial-strength cleaner that made my eyes burn and left strands of cloth on the tile, replacing the musty stench in the air and grime on the floor. It was humid and bright and fever-inducing.

I changed my order to takeaway and went home to eat it instead, just as a swarm of drunks from the neighboring bars showed up. Inside the Styrofoam containers, I found the vegetables were corn, carrots, and lettuce slices straight from the bag, along with a few strips of tofu. The curry was yellowy-red milk with a domesticated assortment of spices. I heated up some rice and chopped my own veggies and poured the curry over it. It wasn’t bad, but for $7.62 with tax, I would have preferred a Singha at the karaoke place across the street from Sanamluang.
There are different grades of Asian restaurants in America, starting with the expensive high-end spots most of us cannot afford, and ending with the fast food carmelized slop shops that I no longer frequent. Sanamluang is a step or two above the worst, a step or two below the best, and I freely admit that my veggie preference undoubtedly biases me against Sanamluang. I’m sure if you order a meat dish, it will prove much better than a generic Chinese restaurant in the Inland Empire, but neither one is Bangkok.

Nor Kanchanaburi. And I don’t want it to be. It took me a long time to find the best late-night restaurants in Thailand for cheap, authentic food. Not until my second trip to Thailand, and not until I bonded with some locals in Kanchanaburi. One night we piled into the back of a pickup truck after hitting the clubs and stopped at a place I used to walk by with disgust, because it seemed like you’d get sick on contact. I won’t tell you about the food, the spices, the veggie options, or the prices. Not because I am someone special for going to Thailand and not because I am trying to hide secret recipes. I don’t remember the details, and frankly, the food was a function of the company.

There is no magic behind Sanamluang’s doors, but it is a real place that you can go at any time. It has Thai food that other people will cook for you, and you can eat it. You can take your friends there, and you can have an enjoyable conversation. Go or don’t go. It is neither best nor worst, and I will let you judge where it falls between.