Mesa Thai Cuisine

🇹🇭 THAILAND / Just south of Los Angeles's excellent Thai Town, this East Hollywood gem is unfocused but never underwhelming.

🇹🇭 THAILAND
📍 820 N. Western Avenue, East Hollywood, Central Los Angeles
🅿️ Plaza has small lot
🥤 No Alcohol but BYOB for nice folks

In most of Los Angeles, the simple word “mesa” is the word for table, the piece of furniture used to eat delicious meals. In Thai though, the word is the month of April (เมษายน) and used as the namesake. This choice is because it is the hottest month of the year in Thailand, a hint towards how they serve the food from this kitchen.

Los Angeles has no shortage of Thai restaurants that are not afraid to make their foods very spicy, but the long, red Thai bird’s eye chili that shares the sign of Mesa Thai Cuisine in East Hollywood should serve as a guide. Spice lovers will be satisfied even with an order that is directed to be medium, just as the cuisine intends. Go more than that at your own risk (and possible peril).

When Mesa took over the space from another Thai restaurant in 2018, it quickly became a favorite within the community, with many coming back again and again for the properly prepared pad thai and fiery pad krapow. Whenever you plan for thoroughly spicy meals, make sure to get a dish or two to the table that can relieve your taste buds like sai krok isan ไส้กรอกอีสาน ($8.95, above). Simple and sour with a snappy crisp skin, everything a fermented pork and lemongrass sausage should be.

An all-Thai “specials” menu is written on the wall, the first clue that you might want to invite your Thai friends when dining here. The printed menus also have big differences, a sole papaya salad on the English menu is made to look ridiculous by the double digit renditions on the Thai version. Many other dishes are omitted entirely for English speakers.