Spicing Up Downtown

There’s good news for Thai food fans in downtown Los Angeles: Maithai, a new Thai restaurant on North Spring Street, is so close to the Civic Center that some downtown workers can walk over for lunch.

The chef, Khun Dang, cooks the same spicy northeast Thai, or Isaan, dishes she did at the well-known Khun Dang on Beverly Boulevard, along with familiar Thai dishes such as pad Thai, hot and sour soup, panang curry and satay.

The Isaan dishes include larb and som tam . Khun Dang makes excellent larb , crunchy with toasted rice, the ground beef seasoned with just the right balance of lime juice, fish sauce, chiles and mint. The restaurant’s som tam is spicy, sour and sweet, the shredded green papaya topped with chewy small dried shrimp--or, if you prefer, salted crab. It’s light and refreshing.

A pork salad called nam kao tod (on this menu spelled toadd ) is Isaan food at its robust best. So many textures and tastes play off each other in this dish: the blandness of the ground meat, the soft chewiness of boiled pork skin, the fresh bite of ginger root, the crunchiness of peanuts and of clumps of rice fried crisp and brown. Peppery, salty and sour, it needs its garnish of lettuce, cabbage and herbs.

Waterfall ( nam tok ) is yet another spicy meat salad, made with pork or beef seasoned much like the larb . With these and other Isaan dishes, you can order northeastern-style sticky rice, which comes in a covered basket.

Isaan food is typically hot, but Maithai adjusts the amount of chile to please all tastes, and even the dishes identified as very spicy, such as “XXspicy” Southern-style Maithai curry, are not excessively fiery. This curry is made from tender chunks of sole in a smooth, yellow coconut milk sauce spiked with bamboo shoots and bell peppers. The anise flavor of Thai basil gives a lift to the smooth richness.

Spicy catfish is sliced, deep-fried and then stir-fried, emerging chewy and crisp--a far cry from the meltingly tender fish idolized in Western cuisine. Sliced red bell pepper and fine strips of krachai , an aromatic cousin of ginger, are scattered over the fish.

Back on the Isaan menu, pork jerky was one of the few disappointments--it tasted stale. Spicy liver and Thai menudo, a hot pot that combines several variety meats, is not for everyone, nor is the spicy bamboo shoot salad, a sour dish of shredded bamboo shoots topped with roasted rice. For most of us, it’s an unfamiliar taste, perhaps best eaten in small doses, like a condiment.

These bamboo shoots are among 10 bargain lunch entrees. Another is spicy, crispy pork, which is certainly crisp but very fatty. (The garlicky, spicy seasoning is quite nice.)

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The combo lunches are cheap, fast and high in carbs. The plate is loaded with pale orange fried rice, chow mein, a rather doughy egg roll and two fried won tons, each with a tiny dot of pork filling.

For a lighter lunch, try shrimp salad. The shrimp are seared and seasoned with lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, chile paste and soybean oil. Seven seas soup ( po taek ) is shrimp, squid, mussels and fish in a rich, strong, hot-and-sour broth. Oddly, it contains both real and imitation crab.

The pad Thai is very sweet and a bit bland, ready to be seasoned at the table with dried chiles, vinegar or fish sauce (both combined with hot green chiles). Do it right, and the noodles blossom into a memorable dish.

Maithai’s snow cone supreme is perfect after this spicy food. It’s not a cone but a bowl of crushed ice and tapioca pearls flooded with coconut milk and brightly colored syrups.

The dessert not to miss is fried bananas. Khun Dang has been known for these since her Melrose days. Her batter is considered the best because it doesn’t grow soggy as the bananas stand. The formula is a secret, but coconut milk may be one of the components.

Maithai is a simple, comfortable place with a few Thai decorations, including a back bar that looks like a Thai house. The background music is sometimes Thai but mostly vintage American pop tunes and Elvis hits, all performed by Thai singers.

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Maithai Thai Restaurant, 637 N. Spring St., Los Angeles. (213) 613-1115. Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Awaiting a liquor license to serve beer and wine. Validated parking for 1 hour at the Sunshine Auto Park in the middle of the block. Visa and MasterCard. Entrees $4.95 to $12.95. What to Get: Larb, nam kao tod, waterfall, papaya salad, Maithai curry, pad Thai, fried bananas, snow cone supreme.