Restaurant: Jitlada [1, 2, 3, 4]

Location: 5233 W Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90027. (323) 663-3104

Date: August 26, 2015

Cuisine: Thai

Rating: Gut burning great

Tonight’s outing is a Hedonist return to Jitlada, an outrageously authentic Southern Thai place deep in Thai-town. The joint gets 27 in Zagat! It’s run by Jazz Singsanong with Chef Tui in the kitchen. The menu can be found here.

You know it’s real because they don’t skimp on either the chilies OR the fish sauce.

One of Yarom’s ancient wines. Undrinkable.

Crispy papaya Salad. Delicious — fry is always tasty. The “dressing” was sweet and tangy.

Another even more ancient, and even more undrinkable wine. Could barely stomach a second tiny sip.

Papaya salad. Solid, but not as yummy as the fried one.

2008 Weingut Reinhold Haart Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Spätlese. VM 90. Delicate aromas of green apple, lemon oils and clover. The kiwi flavor is light and lively but at the same time velvety on the palate. Rose petal and saline minerality mingle on a crisp, well-balanced finish. Very appealing.

Crispy Morning Glory Salad. This salad of shrimp and fried morning glory is just plain glorious. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Basically tempura flowers and it’s really the tangy, slightly sweet sauce/dressing that really makes it. Very similar to many of the salads I had in Vietnam.

2005 Dönnhoff Schloßböckelheimer Felsenberg Riesling Spätlese. VM 91. Pale golden yellow.Subtle bouquet of pineapple, nut oil and lemon zest.The luscious yet crisp papaya fruit is brightened by a refreshing mineral character.Deceptively light and wonderfully drinkable.A charming riesling with a sweet/salty finish.

Crying Tiger Pork. A Chinese influenced dish of spicy pork with a blend of coriander, pepper, salt, and garlic. Really flavorful, tender and just plain fabulous.

2007 Dönnhoff Kreuznacher Krötenpfuhl Riesling Spätlese. JG 92. pears and peach.. not very sweet nice acidity. will wait to drink again.

Chicken satay. A bit boring, but certainly a nice satay.

2003 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese. 91 points. I really love these wines and they have a certain, unpretentious, gulpability that few other wines have. The sugar also allows then to got with a huge variety of food. This bottle has a fair amount of sweetness with honeyed peach and lychee aromas leading into a medium bodied, low acid wine. Beautifully balanced, soft and down right gulpable, this is killer stuff.

Coco lotus soup. This was a mild red coconut curry soup with chicken. It was amazing! Really fabulous curry flavor.

2005 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese.

Pig ear. Strips of leather. I’ll leave these for the Labradors.

1993 Georg Breuer Rüdesheimer Berg Schloßberg Riesling. 93 points. Petrol, citrus and apple fruit, minerals and a striking acidity. Complex and engaging, very nice, has a future still.

Lamb fried rice. Much better than the pineapple fried rice.

From my cellar: 2000 Trimbach Pinot Gris Sélection de Grains Nobles. VM 93. Bright medium gold. Superripe aromas of apricot jam, exotic spices, honey and tobacco; just misses the clarity of the best SGN bottlings from this producer. Very dense but not hugely unctuous thanks to firm, perfectly integrated acidity. Sappy, vibrant and very long on the aftertaste.

Tamarind shrimp. The same shrimp as we had last time with the red curry, but with a slightly tangy, definitely sweet sauce. Not nearly as good. I didn’t love the sauce.

2010 Château Franc le Maine St. Émilion Grand Cru Cabernet Franc/Merlot. 91 points. Very rich, and not sweet or jammy at all. Still young but very drinkable if allowed to breathe for 2+ hours. Needs food. Quite delicious.

Thai hot wings. Tender and quiet spicy.

2007 Cantina Numa Rosso Piceno Tolenus.

Lamb Curry. Tender lamb in a hot curry with green beans. Really yummy. Really yummy. Should have ordered the “curry” version where it’s in a bowl with more sauce. There is also a sweeter version that is really good.

1978 Joseph Phelps Syrah. Drinking very well considering.

Glass noodles with crispy pork belly. Nice enough. I liked the texture of the noodles with the peanuts.


2006 Linne Calodo Outsider. VM 93. Bright ruby. Deep aromas of black raspberry, cherry liqueur, dried flowers and minerals. Powerful dark berry flavors are surprisingly light on their feet, with a jolt of smoky minerals adding urgency. Finishes vibrant and sweet, with excellent clarity and cut. An intriguing spice note gained power with air, adding to this wine’s vivacity.

Dungeness Crab in Curry Sauce. Crab meat, shrimp & peas sauteed in a red curry paste. This wasn’t AS hot. It was a little hard to get at the succulent grab meat, but the curry was explosively good too. Compare to the Singaporean classic. The problem is that the crab isn’t cracked and was hard to get into.

2004 Turley Petite Syrah Hayne Vineyard. VM 94+. Bright ruby to the rim. Aromas of black plum, minerals, iron and fresh blood; this wine calls for a rare steak. At once thick and sappy, boasting extraordinary density to its sweet dark fruit and iron flavors. The very long, slowly building finishes features outstanding sweetness and salinity and extremely suave tannins. This very powerful wine is developing at a snail’s pace.

Duck curry. Very similar curry to the soup, but with a few bits of duck and pineapple. Also a very nice curry, but fairly mild.

2008 Saxum Heart Stone Vineyard. RR 97. Color of dark red. Scents of black and blue berries, bold. Tastes were consistent with scents, with big, bold taste, but not jammy. This blend has a very interesting taste. Enjoyed this.

Jazz burger. A big beef patty covered in onions, peppers, and dressing. I was so full I was about to burst, but the flavors were fabulous.

Some super organic chocolate, all raw, no real sugar. The chocolate flavor was nice and fruity, but these were WAY too unsweetened for my palette. Tasted like health food. I’m a hedonist.

I love Jitlada, and it’s hands down the best Thai I’ve had in LA. The menu is enormous and full of goodies. All the flavors are great, the meats succulent, and boy is it hot. That being said, this was one of my weakest meals here — although it wasn’t the kitchen’s fault — we just didn’t order well at all. There were some great dishes, like the coco lotus soup, but we had too many people and ordered at first too few, then too many of each dish. There were far too many reorders. We must’ve ordered 3 rounds of the soup (with 2 bowls in one round). And then a couple of late comers arrived (DON’T COME LATE TO HEDONIST DINNERS!) and there was a flurry of reorders of the same dishes.

The net net was that we were full too early in the progression, and we never got to the spicy curries, dynamites, challenges, whole fish, and other “main dishes.” We were so full from our reorders of the same dishes that we couldn’t even handle the mango sticky rice. One of my lessons here to to really watch the rice consumption.

Still, the kitchen is great, we just had too many people, too much chaos, and didn’t didn’t balance our sequence right. I think 12 is the max here (we had 15-16).

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Or for more crazy Hedonist meals.