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Talesai

310-275-9724
9043 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA  90069
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http://www.talesai.com
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Price Range: $$$ ($12-$20)
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Irene
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S. Irene Virbila, LA Times Restaurant Critic

Restaurant review: Talesai in West Hollywood

 

Several generations of a Thai family are seated around a long table at Talesai in West Hollywood. After they've finished eating, the beautifully dressed elderly...

Times Description

Step outside and you're on the Sunset Strip, the Key Club's giant sign pulsing to a disco beat, spewing light across the street and onto the facing buildings. Talesai, serving owner Prakas Yenbamroong's mother Vilai's homey Thai cooking in a modest low-slung building, has stood at this end of the Strip, half a block from Doheny, for 25 years, drawing music industry insiders, the foodie faithful and anybody looking for a quiet, civilized spot for dinner.


This year marks a new beginning for the restaurant. After closing for three months for an extensive renovation, Talesai reopened in November with young Kris Yenbamroong, Vilai's grandson, as owner and chef. You'll see him occasionally pop into the dining room to say hello to a friend, looking like a Thai Harry Potter in his black-framed glasses. He grew up in L.A. but went back to Thailand for high school, then studied film and graphic arts in New York and worked with filmmaker Richard Kern. His cooking teacher, though, was his grandmother, now 74 years old.

His new menu is shorter and more focused, and he's introduced some of the rustic regional dishes he came to love when he was living in Thailand. He's also putting a new emphasis on the quality of the ingredients. But like his grandmother's, his cooking is refined and much more subtle than the typical Los Angeles Thai restaurant's. If you're looking for nothing more than a mouth-numbing chile burn, this may not be your place.

The new owner has smartened up the room too, with mirrors, a colorful mural in the bar and a glassed-in wine storage area at the back of the dining room. Now there's a big picture window in the front (maybe too stark) and a comfy black leather banquette.

The appetizers don't miss a beat. You'll want to order the signature Hidden Treasures, delicate bites of crab, shrimp and calamari fired with chile and sweetened with coconut, served in the special dish in which they're baked, each with a tiny dome over the top.

And when it's nippy out, there's no better way to warm up than with a bowl of thom kar, coconut milk soup laced with lemon grass and chile with mushrooms and three fat shrimp to fish out of the broth. It's one of the best versions I've found.

--S. Irene Virbila, Times Restaurant Critic, 1/7/08

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Reviews from Yelp_large (3)

  • Ss
    Posted by Michael Y. on Yelp_small
     

    Great place to eat Thai food. I got there Pad See Eew and it was one of the best I've had in Los Angeles, CA. I like to think I know my thai food because I...

  • Blank_user_extra_small
    Posted by karen m. on Yelp_small
     

    We have been going toTalesai for as long as I can remember. For many years, we have gone back time and again for many special occasions and just for casual...

  • Ss
    Posted by Jon M. on Yelp_small
     

    I've been going to Talesai for many years and have always been a fan. The Yembamroong family, who owns the restaurant, are friendly and welcoming and the...

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