Wat Thai Weekend Food Market
DETAILS:
Location: 8225 Coldwater Canyon Ave, North Hollywood, CA 91605
Market Hours: Saturday & Sundays - 8AM to 5PM
Parking: Free (but limited) parking lot available as well as free street parking.
Cost: Varies by item, but most entrees are typically $7.
Time Commitment: 30 minutes to 1 hour.
MISC:
Cash only.
To make transactions more convenient for the vendors, you must convert your cash into tokens (on site) which you then use to “pay” the vendors with.
Outdoor seating only.
Located on the northern edge of North Hollywood, the stunning Buddhist Temple known as Wat Thai is already reason enough to visit. Protected by twin guardian warriors known as Yakshas, this ornate and vibrant place of worship is the largest Thai temple in all of Los Angeles which is fitting since Los Angeles is home to the largest population of Thai people outside of Thailand and is often referred to as Thailand’s 77th province (Mainland Thailand has 76 provinces). Wat Thai offers numerous outreach programs to educate the city on Thai culture and tenants of Buddhism, but its greatest ambassador is its cuisine. Food always brings people together, serving as an olive branch between divergent communities, and Wat Thai accomplishes this with delicious panache.
Each and every weekend, from 8AM to 5PM, a rotating lineup of vendors (typically just over a dozen strong) set up in the rear parking lot of Wat Thai, emulating the food stall scene that you might find in Phuket or Bankok. And the flavors rival that of its more famous sister-neighborhood of Thaitown on the other side of the hill in Hollywood. Any Thai dish that your heart desires can be found here. Wether its noodles (like the ubiquitous pad thai to rarer choices like boat noodle soup), rice selections (one vendor sells pineapple fried rice… in a hulled-out pineapple!), salads (while you can’t ever go wrong with papaya salad, might I suggest the mango salad with crispy catfish), skewers (you can have chicken satay anywhere, I dare you to try the chicken intestines instead!), or all the desserts you can handle (after you have the obligatory mango sticky rice, get some Thai gelato from the Moommaam stand), if you don’t leave happily stuffed, you’ve done something wrong. I suppose that gives you all the more reason to return which is an excellent idea in any situation.
RESOURCES:
Wat Thai Temple website.
