Saturday, August 16, 2014

Review of Satdha

I gave Satdha an overall score of 4.6, or 5 stars, based on the following 7 categories:
number of visits4 of 5
price range3 of 5
family friendly?3 of 5
% menu vegan5 of 5
quality of service4 of 5
quality of food5 of 5
local mainstay?3 of 5

Comments:
This is what vegans in Santa Monica have been craving for years; good, comfortably vegan Thai food. Satdha doesn’t seem like one of those Buddhist “vegan” places where they purposefully ignore ingredients in their sauces and mixes. Instead they have thrown together some wonderful creations that keep my non-vegan fears at bay.
Slightly off the beaten track, and well away from most tourists, Satdha has a stylish and clean little restaurant on Lincoln next to their small parking lot. Their full service eating area is well lit with beautiful white tables and an artistic wooden wall slash bench along the interior. Upon entering, you find yourself slightly transported from a drab part of Lincoln just outside.
Service has always been solid and, for lack of a better way to say this, authentic. I don’t know how they put their staff together, but they all seem to have grown up with this food.
Now, what to say about the food. I wouldn’t say authentic because they don’t sneak fish sauce and other aquatic offenders in at any opportunity like they do in SE Asia, but I could say that it is pleasing to my epicurean side. The Shallot Tempeh is perfectly prepared with slightly crispy tempeh cooked in a sweet tamarind sauce, covered with crispy shallots, steeped on a plate over broccoli, and then slowly reduced to a few streaks of tamarind sauce that I couldn’t get on my fork. The Catfish Eggplant and other dishes are also very good giving vegans many choices and reasons to keep coming back. Oh, and I love their rice too; both the brown and the sticky. And if you’re entree wasn’t too sweet, a lot of them are on the sweet side, try the coconut sticky rice with mango before the bill great reveal; Satdha tends to be slightly expensive.
I find Thai food, and Southeast Asian food in general, very enjoyable and to have many vegan options; that is if they can keep the fish sauce out of it. Satdha found a way to do that and have convinced me that this isn’t one of those vegan in name only places. So much so that I think it may now be easier for vegans to get good Thai food in Santa Monica than in Bangkok.


Additional Info
Address: 2218 Lincoln Blvd, 90405
Area: Ocean Park
Reviewed Meal: Lunch
Ethnicity: Thai
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