Siam Sunset - Los Angeles

A wise person once said "if you want to win, go back to basics." Okay, fine, that person was a character from an early season of Grey's Anatomy, which isn't exactly the best source from which to be pulling proverbs. But in the case of Siam Sunset it actually kind of makes sense.

Don't expect frills from Siam Sunset. Their communal cafeteria-esque tables and wandering servers are about as basic as you can get. But basic doesn't always mean bad - Siam Sunset's basics are as authentic as it gets.

The Thai Iced Tea is as sweet as sugar, a textbook mixture of tea and milk. But if Thai tea had a gold standard, this one would be it. 

The Thai tea calms and cools, and it soothes the fiery burn from the chili-soaked Papaya Salad, a cool and crisp Julienne with a slight hint of sweet-and-salty. It's just papaya, but it's as perfect as papaya gets.

The Glass Noodle Salad is soft and hot, made savory with piles of ground pork and sprigs of cilantro, a great contrast to the cold, spicy papaya.

You can't have basic Thai without some sort of curry, and the Duck Curry hits the spot. The curry is out-of-this-world thick and coconut-milky, and you can taste the duck infused into every sip of broth. 

You're not going to get 5-star service at Siam Sunset, but you will get Thai food that takes you to the streets of Bangkok. It's Thai food at its most basic, which is Thai food at its finest.