A little means a lot
Tiny Café Linda’s a big provider of gourmet Thai cuisine
By Dan O'Heron 01/08/2009
During Arctic Hell Week, on my first visit to Café Linda’s, it was a tussle getting through the door, as layers of clothing had restricted my movements like a mummy bandage. It had stopped raining, but it was deathly cold.
To the rescue — like a fur coat in the snow and a snort of brandy — came a classic bowl of tom yum seafood soup. Bobbing around in a hot, dark chicken broth — energized by lime sauce, chili and lemon-grass paste — were generous portions of shrimp, scallops, squid and straw mushrooms, afloat with coriander leaves. Spiced to taste in the kitchen, it hit my cringing cold soul like a long soak in a hot tub.
The use of straw mushrooms gave me a hint about Café Linda’s special menu. In Asia, straw mushrooms are grown on straw that’s been used in a paddy. This contributes to a unique musty and earthy flavor, a promising prelude of special other things to come.
I wasn’t totally surprised by the quality of Linda’s cooking as I had been hearing comment after comment about this “great little new place on Holly Street.” Or sharp glimpses like, “It feels like my private stash of valuables.”
Little? Stash? On entering, you can take the entire restaurant in with one glance: Across from a banquette that hugs one wall, fronted by a few tables that can accommodate about 12 guests, are three small tables for two. A small wine and sake cabinet stands before a see-through curtain to the kitchen. Elbowing to the right, the room narrows to a tighter spot – a crack in a cranny -- with three more tables for two.
But when guests use the word “little” to describe the restaurant, it carries an emotional tone which means that small size is very attractive.
Put together by Manager/Chef Ai and her friend, professional designer Nikki, the room is fitted with graceful undulations of curlicue tapestry and wall art, warm woods, white leather chairs — sway-backed and comfortable — a tiny fountain that doesn’t burble, and fetching wall declivities shining with glass and bits of gold. With only the help of Pasadena’s Zee Gallery and Pier One, it’s remarkable how the young women managed to blend colors and things as clear and as simple as notes played in perfect harmony.
Whether seated in the front part, cozy with other guests, or squeezed into the last seat near the exit’s narrow groove, you’ll feel lucky to have a seat. And there’s plenty of breathing room to gasp at dishes like a Thai-style barbecued half-chicken, called, with reason, “U.F.O.”
Plump, golden-tanned, with an uplifting “extra-terrestrial” flavor that shines through the richness of an overnight marinade of lemon grass, cilantro, curry powder, garlic and soy sauce, the dish is served with a sweet chili dip and a blob of sticky rice, lodged in a hollowed-out bamboo cylinder, covered with a quaint woven wicker basket lid.
Like most all of Ai’s lunch and dinner presentations, the chicken was an epiphany that I’ll forever associate with urban sophistication. And it only cost $8.95!
For dessert, I was titillated by a platter of bananas that came across the room in flames, but disappointed that they had run out of crème brulé.
From a large menu, other dishes that I’ve eaten or had recommended to me by guests: mee krob (crisp rice noodles, puffed up by boiling in oil, served with chicken, shrimp and sour-sweet tamarind pulp, $6.95); and $7.95 beauties like minced chicken salad with onion, cilantro and peppery mint leaves, tossed in a spicy lime dressing; Japanese eggplant (striated shades of purple but more tender and sweeter than the usual) sautéed in black bean sauce; spinach with shrimp, and a ghastly hot “Thai Boxer” green curry with beef.
The boss that Ai sees about everything is veteran restaurateur, Laddawan “Linda” Chavakespongse. While obtaining a degree in hotel management at UCLA in the late 1970s, Linda worked as a waitress at Hollywood’s Chan Dara, then kind of a Thai Hooters.
She graduated to own restaurants in New York and Bangkok and today owns and operates Simply Thai in the exclusive Los Feliz district’s Hillhurst Avenue Restaurant Row.
A few vital Café Linda’s statistics: Closed Monday. Lunch is served from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Dinner begins at 5 p.m., and the restaurant closes at 10 p.m. — 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. At Happy Hour — 5 to 7 p.m. — all drinks priced at two for one; appetizers, $5. Free local delivery with $15 minimum purchase.
With more than a passing interest in wine, Café Linda’s takes a serious step with a white Pinot Grigio A Mano from Venice, Italy — a perfect match for seafood — and ruby red Pinot Noir, Summerland, “Wolf Vineyard,” San Luis Obispo, a convenient mate for most any Thai dish.
A dinky delight, Café Linda’s belongs right up there in food and ambiance — ahead in some ways — with the best of Pasadena’s larger Thai restaurants: popular places like A Taste of Bangkok, Chad Da, Chandra, City Thai, Noodle World, Oba and Saladang.
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