Off-Menu Specials Are Hot Items at Sri Siam

Fans of authentic Thai cooking will find the Valley’s greatest concentration of quality Thai places on Coldwater Canyon Avenue within a mile or two of the Thai temple.

On the corner of Coldwater and Vanowen Street is Sri Siam, a bare-bones cafe specializing in the cooking of Isaan, the bleak northeastern part of Thailand adjacent to Cambodia. This is some of the country’s--in fact, world’s--hottest cooking, flavored with scorching-hot prik khi nu chiles. Other flavorings used in this cuisine include fragrant kaffir lime leaves and the sweet complexities of lemon grass, fresh mint and coconut milk.

Sri Siam’s dining room is as inauspicious as most in this neighborhood of strip malls and gas stations. There are the usual glass-topped tables in tiny booths, the frilled place-mat settings and plethora of Thai language banners. Pay attention to these banners, though. They advertise off-menu specials, which--luckily for those of us who don’t read Thai--the servers are happy to describe.

For the specials are the real adventure here, and probably the source of this restaurant’s fierce popularity. English names for a few of specials have been penciled in on a board just adjacent to the Thai-language blackboard menu. Look for the list of names like curry cup, o-lou, catfish larb and Northern Thai sausage . . . and then forget about the sausage. “I’ve been working here a year,” said our waiter, “and they haven’t bothered to make it yet.”

But they do make the rest. The appetizer larb is hand-minced meat mixed with brown rice, onion, chiles and lots of lime juice. It’s traditional to wrap this filling up in cabbage leaves and eat it with your fingers. Sri Siam’s regular menu offers a choice of liver, beef, chicken or pork. I recommend the catfish larb, at once lighter and more flavorful than any of the larbs based on meat.

Curry cup is this restaurant’s kittenish name for a classic Thai dish known as hor mok. It’s catfish baked to pudding-like consistency with coconut cream, lemon grass and spices. The upscale restaurant Talesai serves this dish in small earthenware crocks. Here at Sri Siam it comes in a dull glass bowl, but it’s a creamier version with a more concentrated flavor than Talesai’s, not to mention a great price: $3.50.

Crab fried won ton, another dish not on the regular menu, is a hoot. If you’ve ever had the crab Rangoon at Trader Vic’s, this is the poor man’s version. Imagine a dozen oversize triangles of won ton skin oozing a filling of minced crab and cream cheese.

O-lou is a fried mass of either shrimp or mussels in a yellow bean and rice flour pancake. Underneath is a pile of sauteed bean sprouts and green onions. A sticky red sauce will be served on the side, and you’ll be instructed to pour it over the top. “Doesn’t taste good without the sauce,” said a waitress.

Still another special (not one on the translated list, alas) is grilled beef, which comes in thin slices charred on a wooden plank. Wrap the beef in cabbage and dip it in the complex sauce, but watch out for the slivered green chiles in the sauce.

On the regular menu, you can get a choice of red or green curries, noodle and rice dishes and terrific barbecued meats. The famous gai yang (barbecued chicken) is exemplary. For $4.50 you get five pieces, amounting to half a bird, colored yellow from turmeric, ginger and garlic, blackened beautifully on a grill. With the chicken comes a dark, smoky red chile sauce, almost Southwestern in character and properly fiery.

The menu’s back page has two terrific Isaan vegetable dishes, though the first of them, soup noh mai, may be an acquired taste. It’s a spicy bamboo salad with a slippery texture, served lukewarm. Som tam is the well-known shredded green papaya salad, loaded with chiles, crushed peanuts, vinegar and a choice of either shrimp or salted crab.

Also on the back page is sweet rice, and make sure to order it with whatever else you choose. This is the specialty of northeastern Thailand often called sticky rice, and Sri Siam serves it steaming in a finely woven bamboo basket. Every Thai family eating here will have at least one crock of sweet rice on the table, and no connoisseur of Isaan cooking would think of eating grilled meat, barbecued chicken and som tam without a basketful of this rice.

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DETAILS

* WHAT: Sri Siam.

* WHERE: 12843 Vanowen St., North Hollywood.

* WHEN: 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Thursday-Tuesday.

* HOW MUCH: Dinner for two, $15-$25. Suggested dishes: soup noh mai, $3.95; sweet rice, $1.25; curry cup. $3.50; Thai-style broiled steak (nuea yang) $4.95; half barbecued chicken, $4.50. No alcohol.

* FYI: Parking lot. MasterCard and Visa accepted ($10 minimum).

* CALL: (818) 982-6262.