#6 Thai Food

#30 Hollywood Walk of Fame
#29 Yamashiro
#28 Hollywood Billiards
#27 Genghis Cohen
#26 Piano Bar
#25 Shmutzville
# 24 Loteria
# 23 The Griddle
# 22 Proximity
# 21 Hollywood Freeway
#20 Kitchen 24
# 19 The People
# 18 Sushi Eyaki
#17 Raymond Chandler
# 16 Jumbo's Clown Room
#15 Skooby's
#14 The Arclight
# 13 The Well
#12 Runyon Canyon
# 11 Canter's
#10 Hotel Café
#9 Body Factory
#8 The Troubadour
#7 Barney's Beanery (The Real One)

#6 Thai Food

This entry is not about any particular Thai restaurant. Nor is it merely about the several stops in Thai Town a short drive from my house. This is about the never-ending supply of incredible noodles, curries, and rice that has been showing up at my house far too frequently for the last year and a half.

My apartment is towards the eastern terminus of what you might call "Hollywood." As you cross over the 101 and go east, you'll pass through the relatively boring East Hollywood, and then come across a stretch of roads known as Thai Town. Furthermore, to the west, as Hollywood turns to West Hollywood and eventually Beverly Hills, the streets become chic, wealthy, and noticeably high end. Here, Thai restaurants are in high demand as well. In fact, Yelp! lists 495 Thai places within a five-mile drive from my house. Of these 495, we've probably eaten at about twenty of them. They're all insane. Fucking insane.

This is not a forum to discuss my favorite dishes from my favorite restaurants. If you've been following this entire countdown, you'll know it is about what all of these things mean to me. Because this entry is about an entire ethnic cuisine, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that I will miss, but the easiest way of saying it is that close to once a week for the last couple years, we have ordered Thai delivery, or gone for Thai food so many times, that it has become an absolutely integral part of my life that will be impossible to replace. The standards: Sunset Thai and Pimai will be seeing noticeable dips in their revenue next month. Delivery drivers will be wondering why their tips seem for be five bucks a week lighter. And Olsen and I are going to have to work our way through a new checklist of Thai places without the access to Thai Town or any of the more chic Hollywood places.

Also, I'd be remised if I didn't mention Toi here. Shout out to one of the weirdest, most authentically awesome 7 out of 10 restaurants on Earth. Toi is open til 4 AM and after 1 is an absolute zoo. The food is pretty good, but the décor, the atmosphere, the weird ass movies, the crowd is fucking insane. I'm going to miss Toi.

But most of all, I'm going to miss being able to type in seven random numbers on my phone, and having a good chance of dialing a Thai delivery place that comes to my place. I won't lie, my indulgence is Thai cuisine has not been 100% natural, as I have indulged in PEDs so to say. Taking advantage of my cities loose greenery laws, I have realized that very few things in life satisfy my cravings as well as spicy garlic noodles, spicy bamboo shoots, or chicken prik king.

Living in Hollywood has been a god damn pleasure thanks to Thai food. This next statement is bold, but I think it's fair to say that, despite an upcoming entry being ranked higher, I will miss Hollywood Thai food—not just the food, but the accessibility—more than any other food. I seriously cannot imagine having better access to my favorite kind of food anywhere on Earth outside of Bangkok. 6615 is the nexus of the Hollywood Thai universe. I'm going to end this now before I get weepy. Goodnight LA Thai world.