Lek Thai Food

3145 SE Hawthorne Blvd

Cost for 2 (with tip) $21.50

If we’re in the mood for Thai, we normally don’t venture to Hawthorne, as our office is one block from Thai Thai on Stark. But when I saw the building that was formerly The Italian Joint had been painted lime green and purple and filled by Lek Thai, I figured I might as well throw myself on the fire and try it out.

Like Chinese places, Thai restaurants usually have bitchin’ lunch specials, so I expected a discounted menu, which they had. Unfortunately, the specials weren’t all that great, all over $7 for a single dish. Since most of the other Thai places I’ve tried cost less, and include soup, things weren’t off to a great start.

Since there was no appetizer included, we started with an order of vegetarian salad rolls. They came with sweet and sour sauce with peanuts in it, instead of the peanut sauce I’ve come to expect with the dish. Personally, I would have preferred peanut sauce, but Jared seemed to like it and proceeded to eat it with a fork after the rolls were gone. The rolls themselves we ok, but nothing special.

For entrees I got the yellow curry with beef and Jared got Pad Thai with tofu. I guess I’ll start with the good news. The beef was some of the most tender I’ve ever had in Thai food. Now that bad news. I ordered the curry mild, not bland, and the potatoes and carrots were cut in huge, unappetizing chunks. I sampled the Pad Thai and the noodles actually seemed undercooked (which I didn’t even realize was possible with rice noodles, or at least, I’ve never had it happen before.)

Perhaps Lek is still working out the kinks, since I only noticed it opened a week ago, but with the plethora of Thai options out there, I don’t think we’ll be back any time soon.

Veggie options: Standard issue Thai

Speed: It was empty, they got us fed fairly quickly