reopened a few months ago at parc 555 hotel, after the pandemic interlude in the dogpatch.
food remains outstanding, and imo, along with nari, the best Thai food i’ve had in california - some distance beyond the socal stalwarts.
notably, i recently tried the entire set of vegan options:
For years we had good/decent Thai places in the cities we lived, e.g. San Diego, Boston but for really good Thai we tended to look forward to visits of Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas. Obviously with Covid that became more difficult. Now living in the Bay area really also gave us hope to have easier access to high quality Asian places, including Thai.
Kin Khao https://www.kinkhao.com/ really stands out for Thai restaurants - the only one in the US with a Michelin star - even though those stars have to be taken with a grain of salt for non-western places. But our first visit to Kin Khao really didn’t disappoint and it clearly showed why it stands out to any other Thai place - not your standard Thai dishes, no pick your sauce, pick your protein approach, no choice of heat level - just outstanding Thai food.
nari has one too
I didn’t realize that they also got one - did this happen this year ?
indeed they did! (nari 1* this year)
the pork belly is undeniably good - i really wanted to not like it the first time i had it, because its sort of cheat code to make sweet pork belly, but they manage to get the fat to a wondrous texture - it’s not just soft, it also feels … light! (at least to me)
the black rice pudding is also suprisingly good. sort of a must order…!
got one star in july
We were underwhelmed. We didn’t feel any dish was close to Michelin star quality.
W: The chicken rice was nowhere near as tasty as that of Pearl River Deli, which Michelin snubbed by leaving out of the guide. I’m not the biggest Anajak fan, but I consider Anajak much better.
What dishes did you order (We haven’t tried much Thai in LA) but found both Kin Khao and Nari easily on one Michelin star level) ?
W: what I felt is:
Papaya salad. Basically the same as what you’d get at any place in Lao for $1.
Laab rancho gordo beans. The laab itself is basically the same as what you’d get at any place in Lao for $1. I didn’t love how the beans were cooked or think they worked well for laab. For LA comparison: I think the laab duck at Lacha Somtum is much better.
Chicken rice. Chicken was slightly overcooked / chewy. It didn’t have great intrinsic flavor. The rice was good. I liked the sauce on the side.
P: Thanks for sharing your experience. These were what we ordered:
That’s an odd argument. Many (expensive) dishes in the US you can get significantly cheaper in the “original” country, e.g. many restaurants in Italy have pasta dishes for a 1/3 of the prize as at Osteria Mozza and often at higher quality - based on your argument you seem to imply that Osteria Mozza also doesn’t deserve a star
