Spicy Thai Lao is in a blink-and-you-miss-it south-suburban strip mall. But you don't want to miss it.
by Mike Sula
When Kaew Saengsom was a little girl in her home province of Nakhon Phanom in far-northeastern Thailand, she paid her way through grammar school by working at a papaya salad stand. She got really good at whacking away at the hard unripe fruit with a large knife, and that's part of the reason why the som tam she serves at her tiny Burbank strip-mall storefront, Spicy Thai Lao, is so exceptional.…[ Read more ]