Silver Lake: A Thai Meal & Creme Brulée at Wat Dong Moon Lek

Tucked away in a shopping center on the corner of Fountain and Santa Monica is your typical Los Angeles Thai food outpost, but with a very sweet twist. The difference between this Thai restaurant and the many others lining any given Los Angeles city block? The food comes with a decent ambience and house-made, Western-style desserts. Wat Dong Moon Lek offers a dependable menu of Thai fundamentals, including pan-fried noodles and curries, as well as more adventurous dishes, like Jungle Rice—perhaps named after the animalistic sounds one makes while attempting to breathe through and choke down the peppery, fiery dish. Since its opening in 2009, Wat Dong Moon Lek has steadily become a Silver Lake institution for eat-in and take-out.

We started our dine-in meal with Crispy Vegetable Egg Rolls and Fresh Rolls. The fried veggie egg rolls were no better than the frozen variety, but the fresh rolls were just as advertised, with bright green veggies and a chewy, translucent rice noodle skin. The dips that came with the rolls were a perfect balance of all the best taste groups: sweet, salty, spicy, umami. I drowned every bite with sauce. The fried shredded taro is another good appetizer choice, and it also comes with an addictively viscous nectar of a dipping sauce.

Moving on to mains, the Pad See Ew (thick rice noodles with broccoli, meat and scrambled egg) is one of the better ones I’ve had, though slightly sweeter than most recipes. And, instead of the usual imperceptible egg scrambled into the dish, it is served up over-easy, taking center stage and allowing the runny yolk to dribble over the pan-fried rice noodles like golden gravy. I wasn’t wild about the Goye See Me (fried noodles with veggies and gravy), as the fried noodles quickly became sodden with the watery sauce. The Garlic Green Beans were good, but basic.

My favorite dish here is the Jungle Rice. If you read my SQIRL post, you know that I find rice boring, but this fiery concoction is anything but! Jungle Rice is basically a fried rice, teeming with tofu (or whatever protein you choose), red bell pepper, green beans and thai basil, then pushed to the edge with a couple layers of spiciness to cover all the heat-bases. The black peppercorn is intense, rushing up your nostrils with its smoky heat. The red chili paste slowly spreads throughout the rest of your mouth, tingling with heat. My nose usually runs when I eat this dish, and my mouth kind of wants to run and hide too, but it’s too delicious to pass up. For those that I’ve already scared off, no worries, you can customize your spice level.

To finish off our meal and reward my tastebuds for what they just went through, we ordered the pumpkin creme brulée, a seasonal offering, and the carrot cake. The wife of the proprietor is a formerly trained pastry chef, and all the cakes, souffles and puddings are her creations. The creme brulée was completely surprising. It was just slightly sweet, and instead of being baked in a traditional ramekin, it came in an actual mini pumpkin. We scooped out the soft, baked pumpkin with spoonfuls of the creme brulee, like you would with clam chowder in a bread bowl. The carrot cake was also impressive with its three layers and perfectly applied cream cheese frosting. Like the creme brulée, it wasn’t too sweet, but hit just the right note to cap off another great meal at Wat Dong Moon Lek.

-Jennifer Li

Jennifer Li is a staff writer for Eastside Food Bites. You can read more from her and her boyfriend on their new blog Corned Beef and Rice. Also, see more of what she does at Jenli.me.