4903 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
Category: Thai food
Quick take: interesting flavors that aren’t common, but not bad
Best item: KraPow fried rice
Another restaurant that is hidden but yet somehow easy to find it Hidden Garden Thai, which as two locations, Culver City and Torrance. They have a clearly labeled vegan section of their menu with a decent selection, so kudos to them. We ordered the Ka Pow friend rice mild ($17.00), Pad Kee Mao medium ($17.00), and mango sticky rice ($13.00)
This is the Ka Pow fried rice, which was decent. There was good flavor over all, but not too much of the wok char. Mild here is Thai mild, which means it is somewhat spicy, and they appeared to use holy basil instead of Thai basil, which has a distinctly different flavor. Oddly, on the website it says Thai basil, so I might be wrong, but nonetheless, according to my lazy google searches, the dish should be made with holy basil, so perhaps it’s authentic? That being said, if you haven’t had holy basil before, the flavor might be off putting.
This is the Pad Kee Mao medium, which again, is Thai medium and means it is quite spicy. There are additional flavors in this that aren’t present in normal Pad Kee Mao found in the states. There is some kind of green peppercorn that has a interesting flavor, but it might also have holy basil and ginger, which is interesting.
The mango sticky rice was good, but the rice was a tad on the salty side.
Ratings:
Hipster 1: 7.6/10
Hipster 2: 8/10, would return
Is holy basil the right ingredient for these dishes?
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