Sticky Rice sticks to fresh, honest Thai


After the creative mind behind the newly revamped Altadena farmer’s market, Joseph Shuldiner, was brought on as a consultant for the Grand Central Market, it was clear things were going to change at the historic bazaar.

Honest ingredients · One of the options at Sticky Rice is gai yang, a Thai grilled chicken dish. A little lime and cilantro gives the dish a kick. -  Ralf Cheung | Daily Trojan

Honest ingredients · One of the options at Sticky Rice is gai yang, a Thai grilled chicken dish. A little lime and cilantro gives the dish a kick. – Ralf Cheung | Daily Trojan

And the revamp has already started. USC alumnus and restaurateur David Tewasart (Soi 7, Spirit House)  joins chef Johnny Lee (Flying Pig Truck, Rivera) to be a part of the first wave of new vendors to hit the stalls with their Thai food stand, Sticky Rice.

Shuldiner and Director of Business Development Christophe Farber wanted to bring a more modern culinary direction to the market, and Tewasart’s Sticky Rice certainly answers the call.

The concept behind the menu at Sticky Rice is simple — Tewasart refers to it as “Thai kitchen-style dining.” It’s the type of meal that kitchen staff would cook for themselves during downtimes, a type of food which is substantive enough to satisfy the physical rigors of back-of-the-house work yet light enough to keep the staff alert through long dinner shifts.

“A lot of street vendors in Thailand serve this type of food,” Tewasart said. “We’re just trying to simplify things.”

Tewasart has done just that: The menu at Sticky Rice currently boasts three options. The first is gai yang, or Thai-style barbecue chicken, served with som tum and sticky rice. The second offering is a Thai take on Hainan chicken, a steamed chicken dish served with garlic rice and chicken soup. Finally, Tewasart rounds out the menu with a beef panang curry served with coconut rice. All of the above are foods that Tewasart ate growing up — with an added twist:

“We use organic meats [and] free-range chickens,” Tewasart said. “We’re not trying to reinvent Thai food, we’re just trying to upgrade the ingredients and the quality.”

This commitment to better ingredients seldom fleshes out in such remarkable ways as Tewasart and Lee have done in their four-week soft open of the Grand Central Market. On one visit, a clean-tasting grilled barbecue chicken is unobtrusive yet savory, highlighting a marinade that positively blossoms with fragrant notes of turmeric and lime juice.

“I think everyone is searching for new flavors. Thai food itself is not exotic anymore — I notice a lot of the popular restaurants in New York, Portland or here in L.A. are doing different kinds of Thai food that represent different regions of Thailand, not just your typical pad thai and satay, which we probably won’t serve,” Tewasart said.

Sticky Rice’s primary focus — and greatest asset — is its execution of balance and restraint in flavor. Som tum at any other Thai restaurant in Los Angeles or Hollywood’s Thai Town is often a tedious exercise in managing the screaming heat of Thai chili. There’s no such drama to be had at Sticky Rice, where the thinly julienned green papaya is vibrant and tangy on the palate, followed by a snarky kick in the finish that lingers just longer than a moment.

Notably, when conceiving Sticky Rice’s menu, Tewasart wanted to eschew the extremes of oft-stereotyped Thai cuisine, including the overbearing heft of cliche, greasy noodle dishes.

This approach renders obsolete a staple of the Thai kitchen, the wok, which is something Tewasart insists the restaurant will not need.

All of Sticky Rice’s food tastes clean and steers clear of grease and MSG, including the beef panang curry. Lee braises cubes of beef in the curry base, coconut milk, kaffir lime, garlic and lemongrass, but the product lacks the usual film of oil that materializes toward the surface — something Lee explained was a result of cooling down the curry and skimming the residual grease during preparation. The extra step yields a noticeably more nuanced rendition of the homey Thai favorite, which Lee would be fully justified in charging twice the price of its $6 tag.

This leads to another point: Sticky Rice’s entrees are $9. The accessible price point is a statement that healthy, flavorful and expertly prepared food doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. Tewasart insists this is Thai food for everyone, including students.

“There’s a lot of foodies in [this] generation of university students. We’re seeing more sophisticated palates with this younger group of students and professionals,” Tewasart said.

This generation is sophisticated enough, at least, to know the difference between sound execution of simple concepts and garish, overwrought food pageantry.

At a time where restaurants are constantly pushing the envelope with esoteric combinations of flavors in an effort to woo potential diners (galbi beef dumplings with “spicy Seoul slaw” for lunch? Really, Lazy Ox Canteen?), it’s refreshing to see an approach such as Tewasart’s Sticky Rice. Everything is lean and simple, yet substantive, satisfying and honest. This lithe, back-to-basics approach strikes the perfect balance of cultural authenticity, culinary sophistication and lunch friendliness for the revamped Grand Central Market.