Jade noodles and transitional times

surprised we made it this long before talking about noodles

Greetings from not sunny, not warm, and not dry Los Angeles! Truly feeling so #blessed that my West Coast escape is giving damp New England vibes. It’s exactly what I was hoping for.

I’m spending the rest of December in LA because come January, I will be moving into my own place in one of my favorite New York neighborhoods! More on that soon. I’m too exhausted to even begin to try to put a spin on this move, so I’m just going to be honest and say that I am experiencing the very visceral end to an almost 6-year relationship – and all the sadness, anxiety, confusion, and liberation that might imply. I am moving out of the Greenpoint home we’ve shared for the last 4 years and embarking on my very first real solo journey in New York City, which is scary because New York is inherently lonely. It’s also exciting because New York is the best place to be alone. All this is to say that right now, I’m in a state of limbo, and I am choosing to limbo it out here in Los Angeles, which has always been a special place to me.

When I was 22 years old and fresh out of college, I decided to leave Ohio and move to Los Angeles. I’d gotten a part time internship at a food & beverage PR firm and my older sister, who’d been living in LA for almost a decade at that point, helped me find a sublease in the area of East Hollywood known as Thai Town. I’m not going pretend I was some small-town girl shocked by the sights and sounds and smells of LA, but there was an element of that; the facets of culture I’d experienced up to that point in Ohio (other than my own) were more spread out and muted. I very much existed in a bubble of whiteness.

my heart skips a beat when I see the Sapp Coffee Shop signage

Anyways – I had no friends (lol), no job, and no money. But I was HUNGRY. So I decided to spend my free time eating my way through the affordable spots in my new neighborhood, oftentimes using LA Times’ late Jonathan Gold’s prolific critiques as my guide. My research eventually brought me to a remote strip mall on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and North Kingsley Drive, home of the Sapp Coffee Shop. Here’s an excerpt from a piece of writing I wrote about that experience a couple years ago:

“Sapp Coffee Shop was an entirely new experience for me. The restaurant was simple: wood tables, no music, plain dishware, simply-plated food. There was a coconut juice station near the cash register, right next to a cart with sticky rice in banana leaves and other takeaway goodies. The primary language spoken inside the restaurant wasn’t English, and it felt homey and unpretentious. As instructed by the great Jonathan Gold, I strayed from my typical order of drunken noodles or pad thai and instead requested the jade noodles. The dish was striking, made up of jade green noodles and bright pink barbecued pork along with roast duck, sweet crab meat, peanuts, cilantro and scallions. It was sweet, salty, herbaceous and sour. I finished my bowl in three minutes flat.”

These days, Sapp Coffee Shop is much less of an undiscovered gem but a gem no less. There’s something oddly beautiful about the fact that I found myself back there this week, eating a bowl of my precious jade noodles. I’m no longer 22 and confused about life; I’m 29 and confused about life! (Just kidding! I’m not so broken I can’t make jokes. I still got it.) But I am, once again, in a very transitional phase of my life with zero clue about what’s coming next. I’ve picked up a lot of coping mechanisms for this sort of anxiety over the last 7 years and I’ve done a lot of growing up, but I can confidently say that a bowl of noodles in a quiet, homey shop is still one of the best remedies out there.

If you’re at Sapp Coffee Shop, you’re here for one of two things: jade noodles or boat noodles. Or both, if you’re me.

an icon living

Jade Noodles

The iconic jade noodles are, as their name suggests, a striking shade of jade green and come topped bbq pork, roast duck, crab meat, fresh herbs, peanuts, a wedge of lime, and a touch of sugar. My palate normally leans towards more intense flavors like sour, spicy and funky and while these noodles are none of those things, they *are* delicious and satisfy an emotional need above all else. Be generous with the lime.

Boat Noodles

I was late to the boat noodle game but the real ones know this is probably the single best dish at Sapp Coffee Shop. Speaking in terms of flavor alone, I actually prefer them over the jade noodles. The boat noodles are served in a tangy, hearty beef broth enriched with blood (which didn’t taste like I thought it would when I first tried it - it’s more of a texture thing to me, tbh). I always get the version with “beef and everything” and politely demand you do the same: it comes with with sliced beef, beef meatballs, tendon, beef tripe, beef liver, bean sprouts and crispy pork rinds. This is a “more is more” situation. Fun fact: boat noodles are named after the noodles that vendors sell on boats in Thailand’s canals and rivers.

look at the love in my eyes when I stare at my boat noodles. don’t settle for anything less!!

If you’re already in Thai Town…

…you might as well check out:

• Northern Thai Food Club for some of the best chicken khao soi around

• Jitlada because it’s iconic as hell

• Pa Ord Noodle 3 because their pad kee mao got 22-year-old me through some seriously gnarly hangovers

• Silom Super Market for some Thai groceries to take home

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Sapp Coffee Shop: 5183 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Northern Thai Food Club: 5301 Sunset Blvd #11, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Pa Ord Noodle 3: 5269 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Silom Supermarket: 5321 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027