We hope Chef Jazz doesn’t get mad at us for telling her secret, but we can’t help but want to bring more people into the Jitlada family. That is, after all, exactly what it feels like after you’ve been there a few times. When you’re sweating bullets while eating her southern curry (nowhere near the hottest on their menu) and Chef Jazz comes over to fill up your water, there’s nothing more endearing than the look on her face. Half of it is a sort of admiration, based in the fact that you’re going for it, halfway through the bowl without complaining, and half of it is a grin, knowing that it is a “2” out of 10 on her spice-meter.
Now, if you’ve read or watched any of Jonathan Gold’s coverage on Jitlada, you’d know that the only way to get the best tasting food is to trust the chefs to make it the way they want to make it. Don’t bother asking for a mild version of something that is supposed to be spicy; while the chefs are very talented, there is an art to balancing flavors in Thai cuisine. When you have one of the busiest restaurants in LA, it’s really hard to custom-make dishes like that! Imagine you asked Picasso to try to paint his lines differently, and do it fast!
Luckily, you don’t need to be able to tolerate spicy food in order to enjoy their advanced flavor profiles. That is, if Chef Jazz is willing to make you something she makes for her family, at home. To be fair, Jitlada has one of the best off-menu items in LA, which we’ll cover another time. (That is Chef Jazz’s famous burger.) That is also, however, quite spicy. What we got special from Chef Jazz (off the so-called “secret menu”) was her favorite way to cook green beans. Doesn’t sound exciting? It was.
While we couldn’t detect any Thai chilis in there, the primary flavor of the dish is from garlic… lots of garlic. Garlic and oyster sauce, flash fried green beans that are masterfully cooked with the perfect crunch. It was one of the most potent flavor bombs that ever detonated in our mouths, but don’t think you can replicate it at home by simply adding a TON of garlic and oyster sauce in your wok or pan. Thai food is all about balance and even though those two flavors were standing in the front of the line, there was a supporting cast filling in the rows behind them.
While Chef Jazz did say that she prefers to make them with long beans at home, we were beyond impressed with this version, which (as you can see) featured smaller green beans. Please don’t walk right into Jitlada and expect to be seated immediately and served this very-much-off-menu item, but after you go a few times, you might want to try talking Chef Jazz into it! You absolutely won’t regret it once you taste it! (The green beans were all pre-cut for curries, such as my jungle curry. FYI)
Does Jitlada live up to the hype or is it just a tourist trap? Read our review and find out! And as always, stay hungry and fit!
