Mini-Review: Busaba Thai

Subtitle: Best Thai in LA

I love this place, and I love savoring and describing food, but I'm feeling a bit terse right now. Hope I can do this restaurant justice.

This is a vegetarian Thai restaurant, it is located near the eastern end of the boutique strip on Melrose in Hollywood, and it is owned and run by Thai women. They serve the only Thai I've had in LA where I found an actual, real slice of lemongrass flavoring my curry. Granted, most of the places I've eaten at are of the cheap late-night-delivery variety, but Busaba has similar prices and is about as fast. And they have panang curry, my favorite.

My stars, the curries. You choose tofu or one of several types of mock meat, and you get a lot of it enfolded in a thick coconut-based sauce spiced with lemongrass, galangal, and all the other things you want in a Thai curry (except, of course, fish sauce, which you shouldn't want anyway because of, y'know, extinction).

Their tom yum soup is a bracing salty broth with the perfect tang of lime filling out the corners. It has now replaced Chinese hot-and-sour soup as my drug of choice for colds and flu, partly because there aren't any veggie Chinese places within three miles of my apartment, and partly because of the lime.

The menu comprises more than just curry and soup. There are several noodle dishes (including pad thai and -- yes! -- lad na), spring rolls, salads, satay, fried rice...and dessert:

Coconut custard. Thai tea ice cream. How about a scoop of coconut ice cream alongside a crispy hot eggroll filled with mashed banana? (And, even better, the ice creams are vegan.)

Busaba Thai
7168 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 857-1882