Jitlada realization

Overrated? I don’t know. The fact is that there is no other restaurant in town serving dozens, if not hundreds, of exotic dishes on Jitlada’s menu. For example, so far as I know, Jitlada is the only restaurant in town with a fresh-turmeric-based Southern curry. I find it delicious and unique in comparison to all the other Thai curries. For that reason alone, I can’t agree that Jitlada is overrated. But I would agree that Jitlada does not typically make the best embodiment of dishes that you can find at other Thai restaurants.

Sqirl? I like it.

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Sqirl serves dainty food that squirrels would like if they were human.

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If you’re talking about the dishes people who rate the place highly order, what restaurant in Southern California or anywhere else in the US does them better?

Lum-Ka-Naad’s Southern Thai menu

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WOW look at that menu… You just put a lot of miles on my car :smiley:

Hmm, I don’t think you are going to end up at Sqirl anytime soon…

Doesn’t love2Eat do a Tumeric curry?

They do a tumeric chicken soup that is divine.

Eh, I don’t really care if they’re the only ones in town serving the Southern thai dishes that they serve. I just don’t think their food is that good. Obviously that’s just my opinion and taste. But I don’t think we should celebrate a restaurant just because no one else in town is serving what they’re serving, if it’s not very good.

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If Jitlada’s dishes weren’t both rare and delicious it wouldn’t have so many fans among people who have eaten widely and well.

If you could point to another place that does the same dishes better, then “overrated” would be an impolite but legitimate criticism of other people not having as informed opinions.

Otherwise, calling the place “overrated” has pretty much the reverse effect.

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search teh forums. I’m not the only one that thinks Jitlada is just not that good. Being the only one doing this food doesn’t automatically make them good. If it doesn’t taste good, it’s not good. So to me, the fact that so many rave about this place, it’s overrated.

I think the point is many of us would rather eat far better tasting non-unique thai dishes vs eating unique thai dishes that taste like ass (to our taste buds) - bonus of not dealing with exorbitant prices and sub-par service for that privilege.

Therefore, Jitlada is overrated unless an individual really cares to eat the 15 dishes that Jitlada does that nobody else does, which said individual may or may not find delicious (or even edible, depending on the individual’s tolerance for spice).

I think it’s obvious that Jitlada is incredibly polarizing and people love it or hate it.

If somebody asked me “hey I’m looking for southern thai, spicy as hell” sure I might refer them to Jitlada (with the usual warnings). but if somebody asked me for a thai restaurant recommendation I would never stake my name on Jitlada (a mistake I’ve made before).

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If you’re looking for a standard Thai restaurant, Jitlada’s fans will be the first to warn you that’s not the place.

How was the pineapple fried rice?

Exactly. The rest of the internet did not get that memo.

My co-worker’s pad thai was horrible and like $10. Take that shit off the menu or stand by it.

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You’re writing off a lot of great food if you don’t take a connoisseur’s approach to reading menus. I’ve had a lot of great Cantonese, Sichuan, Shandong, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Burmese food at restaurants where you can have a mediocre or worse meal by ordering the dishes they put on the menu in an attempt to please clueless Americans.

Jitlada started out as an extreme example of that situation. They didn’t even have an English translation of the southern menu at first:

https://jitladala.wordpress.com/our-family/

If a restaurant only did 1 item well, would you still consider them a good restaurant for that style of cuisine?

By way of example I would not consider pho tau bay a good vietnamese restaurant (or even a good pho restuarant), but I would go there for their awesome banh cuon

FFS the argument in this thread isn’t even “Jitlada does great southern thai cuisine”, it’s “Jitlada is the only game in town that does southern thai cuisine”.

K I’m done with my Jitlada rant before TonyC puts sand in my gas tank. Cheers, have fun lambasting my opinion :wink: I’m good with that.

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ns1 makes an interesting point. for example, is langer’s a good deli, or a one trick pony?

[quote=“Ns1, post:36, topic:2012”]
If a restaurant only did 1 item well, would you still consider them a good restaurant for that style of cuisine?[/quote]

I’d go there for that one good thing.

Old-school restaurants are sometimes close to that. I love to go to Tadich Grill in SF once in a while, but there are only four things I know are safe to order, and whole sections of the menu are pretty much guaranteed to be bad. So if I recommend the place to somebody I do so with a strong caveat. It’s a charming but bad restaurant where one can nevertheless eat very well.

Vanessi’s in SF also used to be like that. I sat at the counter once and enjoyed a peculiar but delicious meal of minestrone, Caesar salad, herring, and zabaglione while watching the cooks brutally overcook beautiful steaks, chops, and salmon and then let them sit for ten minutes to cool.

I was a big fan of Jitlada pre-Gourmet magazine fame.
I was - and am - a huge fan of Jazz and Tui - they are great people who have done great things.
However, these days I find the food too unreliable, the options for better (or at least more consistent) Thai food (at better prices) too numerous, and the wait for a table too long.

That said, the menu was always spotty and tried too hard to incorporate things they probably shouldn’t try to (or flat out don’t) “stand by” to use ns1’s excellent formulation.

Hey, he wrote off an entire city’s pizza after going to 4 random places so… amiright @Ns1 :wink: