In my post on Pha Khao Lao this past Wednesday, I mentioned enjoying like dishes at Spicy Lao Kitchen a bit more and that we needed to do a return visit to compare. In the comments of that post, "FOY" Junichi mentioned how warm the weather has been recently, perfect weather for some Lao food. Well, I'm thinking Junichi is psychic (perhaps he should be the true owner of the Ojai Psychic Friends Network t-shirt?) because guess where we went?
Yep, Spicy Lao. We got there right past opening, a few minutes after 11.
We ordered a load of food, getting our favorites, which I won't dwell on too much since I've done several posts on Spicy Lao already. I'm going to focus a bit more on dishes we hadn't tried before.
The Nem Khao was perhaps even better than what we had on our first visit to Spicy Lao.
And the Moo Tod always delivers…..
As does the refreshing, spicy Goong Nam Pla. My goodness, the spice, acidity was spot on. This was so refreshing!
Remember we wanted to order the Heavenly Beef on our last visit, but they were out? Well, guess what we got? Yes, the Sien Savanh.
Well, these folks own JL Jerky in the same strip mall, so you'd expect the flavor to be spot on; which it was. Not overly salty, good savory tones, hint of sweet. The spicy-fish sauce that accompanied the beef was good. You will need some good teeth for this though!
As I noted in my post on Pha Kao Lao, we've yet to have some decent Mok Pa in San Diego. Though we had never had the version from Spicy Lao.
So, of course we finally ordered it.
This looked a bit different from versions we'd had before, but the Missus really liked it!
The fish was super creamy, good dill, kaffir lime leaf, and I made out some lemongrass as well. Slight amount of heat, decent savory tones, though it was a bit on the salty side for me. The Missus did say that this was better than what I make at home. So I guess we've got another dish on our "Spicy Lao list".
And even though the woman working apologized in advance for possible slowness since she and one cook were the only one's working, we actually got our food faster than on previous visits. I guess Spicy Lao is currently our favorite Lao restaurant in San Diego at this time.
Please note the new hours.
Spicy Lao Kitchen
5375 Kearney Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123
Postscript – I've recently read that Spicy Lao's future is currently up in the air. I'm hoping that they stay in business!
