Yum Sະlut (by Pha Khao Thip)

🇱🇦 LAOS
📍 645 N. Broadway, Chinatown, Central Los Angeles
🅿️ Free parking with validation
🥤 No Alcohol

EDITOR'S NOTE: This restaurant is within the Lokels Only space and shares a small dining room with three other vendors.

Lovers of Lao food that live in or near Central Los Angeles or the Westside are likely to complain about the state of the cuisine in the city. They will moan about their "treks" to the Valley or "schleps" to Orange County for restaurants. San Diego has a pretty good scene, and the Central Valley is blessed with dozens (almost 30!) of Lao restaurants, but Los Angeles does admittedly have a blind spot.

Thankfully for those people, and for everyone really, chef Tharathip Soulisak has recently upgraded his business and opened a full service restaurant called Yum Sະlut. Initially the space and menu full of puns and innuendo can make you feel that the food will not be extraordinary, but each beautifully plated dish slaps you in the face with excellence. The chef calls his cuisine "Lao refugee food" but honestly it seems so much more than that. If Lao food were on the radars of Michelin or James Beard as more than token nods, this restaurant would start being awarded all the silverware and be impossible to eat at (as it should be).

The new Thursday through Monday spot inside Lokels Only in Chinatown has evolved from a business selling Lao sauces, pastes, and beef jerky to a food trailer and pop-ups at farmers markets and elsewhere. Despite being packed into a shared kitchen with other vendors, Chef Thip is making diners feel very special when they sit down for meals. The food is fresh and bright, served beautifully on traditional plates and banana leaves, and most importantly: it knocks your socks off.

If there were not a bunch of people around enjoying plates of soul food, Yum Sະlut would probably make you feel like you were back in Luang Prabang with dishes like laap xeen ($18.88, above). This minced beef salad served medium rare and spiked with lime might seem fancy, but in Laos you would see it eaten daily by construction workers or anyone else. Here it is served with herbs and vegetables, sticky rice in a thip khao, a dipping sauce to spike it, and a side of sipping broth. Recommended.

Almost all foods in Laos are meant for communal eating, but there may be no dish better for it than pun pa ($12.88, above). The fresh herbs, vegetables, rice noodles, and peanuts are just as important as the bits of fried catfish, all meant to be wrapped up together. The fermented fish sauce served for dipping is spiked with pineapple and ginger.

The catfish has been tossed with herbs and spices itself, and could be a superb snack even without all the accoutrements. The plate will get passed back and forth on your table and picked clean, extra sauce will be drizzled on other dishes if any survives this onslaught.

If you are in the mood for noodle soups, Yum Sະlut has four options and none of them will let you down. The one that stands out the most, because of its name and because the chef used to sell sukiyaki sauce, is the Lao refugee sukiyaki ($12.88, above), which uses that famous sauce his mother first invented in refugee camps in Nong Khai. Lao people are right at home in this city in northeast Thailand since so many people there are also Lao, and her sukiyaki stand was a hit.

Mung bean noodles populate the smooth orange chicken and pork broth, along with various pieces of seafood, fish balls, and chopped up herbs and scallions. Chef Thip will most likely make his way to your table at some point during a meal here, so asking him about the origins of his dishes will likely lead to his face lighting up to tell you the long path they took to make their way to this Los Angeles table.

Equally enjoyable is a bowl of khao soi ($12.88, above), a northern Lao specialty that has little or no resemblance to its more well-known version that comes from northern Thailand. Here the name makes more sense though, with thick cut rice noodles once again in a chicken and pork broth. A slick of red chili oil pervades that broth, along with sauteed fermented soybeans and minced pork.

Khao piak gai ($12.88, below) would probably have its own month if there existed a calendar of chicken noodles soups of the world, a pleasing bowl of hand cut rice and tapioca flour noodles. Big pieces of dark meat are generously portioned in a chicken and pork broth that is full of ginger and garlic. Squeeze in some lime and chop off some pieces of the bird's eye chili that comes with the soup to add a kick.

Fans of nem khao ($11.88, above) will be over the moon with the version here, served with a heaping pile of herbs and vegetables to make more wraps. Aromatics are almost strong enough to be seen when the dish is laid down, and the curried rice has the perfect ratios of crispy and soft as necessary. There is grated coconut, fermented sour Lao sausages, and crunchy fried pork skin, along with peanuts and chili peppers.

If you do not order a full portion of thum mak houng, Laos' version of papaya salad, you can get a smaller portion with meat platters like the jeun sai oua ($17.88, below). The namesake sausages of this dish are delicious (maybe sourced from Nok's Kitchen?) and come served with a full portion of sticky rice and a side of Lao tomato chutney that the chef has invented. The thum mak houng is also delicious, terrifically spicy, and no afterthought. It seems somewhat of a cross between the more funky, fermented Lao version and its Isaan neighbor which adds a touch of sugar and far less crab and shrimp paste.

The menu has no weak points apparently, as dishes keep coming and surprising everyone at the table when they are so good. Opening the steaming banana leaves of mok pa ($16.88, above and below) causes everyone to lean in with anticipation. When the herbal aromas escape and hit your nose, the results do not disappoint.

The steamed fish inside has the essence of all the herbs it was cooked with, each bite already delicious without using the provided fish paste. Use a dab of it anyways since it is so good, and place everything between your fingers with a good ball of sticky rice. Once again, the beefy sipping broth that is served with the dish is good to calm your tingling mouth as almost everything is spicy.

If somewhere in your stomach there is still room for dessert, Chef Thip makes good versions of sticky rice with mango or durian, but if you have never tried the third option, grab nam wan khao lod chong ($8.88, above). In a nutty coconut milk soup, strips of coconut, pandan flour, and jackfruit all swim together to provide an array of sweet and sour flavors. Recommended.

After a couple meals here, it seems very obvious that the chef sees his time at the space as a stepping stone to something larger. The kitchen is crowded with multiple tenants, and having his own space will probably allow him to spread his wings even further. Until that time, Los Angeles is lucky to have his talent available anywhere, and you should stop by the next time you are around Chinatown during opening hours.

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