Thai Town After Dark

Photos by Kevin Scanlon

The entrance to Thai Town — the six blocks of Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Normandie, according to a 1999 City Council decision — is unofficially marked by an enormous, supine hot dog the size of a submarine resting atop a bright red Thai takeout window. That’s next door to an adult bookstore, which is next to a Peruvian restaurant that is down the street from the eerily empty Gershwin Hotel. Which all somehow makes sense. While much of the Thai cultural and nightlife scenes are concentrated in North Hollywood, Thai Town, which is known around the world, maintains a solid identity while seamlessly melting into the rest of Hollywood. Restless Kruang Tedd partiers bump up against bikinied strippers from Jumbo’s Clown Room; the beautifully garish, second-story Thailand Plaza stage overlooks screaming, fudge-faced children across the street at Sizzler’s. It’s a heavily commercial, walkable, subway-adjacent stretch dense with doughnut shops and Mexican markets and more chile-slicked noodles than any other neighborhood in L.A. And there’s live music of some sort — karaoke, lone singers, entire bands — in nearly every Thai restaurant-bar, on tiny stages dressed with white lights and disco balls. It could very well be the ideal neighborhood for a pub crawl.

Palms Thai. The number of regulars at Palms Thai — and their unbridled devotion to the place — seems to swell every year; and it’s hard to say whether the restaurant’s popularity is due to the dependable food or the kitsch-rich Thai Elvis who has performed on its stage, night after night for five years now, belting out melodious Elvis classics in rhinestone-studded bell-bottoms and long, styled sideburns. Regardless, Palms Thai could be considered ground zero for the growing nightlife scene in Thai Town, a festive restaurant that specializes in bar snacks and the more exotic meats (frog, boar, venison), where parties of eight and 10 and 12 are comprised as often of spirited Thai families as they are of sweaty Hollywood club-goers unwinding over steaming pots of spicy seafood soup. After 15 years in the same location, Palms Thai is scheduled to move up the street on June 1, where there will finally be a full bar and delivery service; and the Thai Elvis — he’ll have a much bigger stage to twist on. 5273 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 462-5073. New location: 5900 Hollywood Blvd., Suite B, Hollywood.

Thailand Plaza. Dinner and cocktails at Thailand Plaza feels a little like attending an ’80s-era prom at a high school with an outlandish decorations budget. The restaurant has the most elaborate sound system of any in Thai Town, which is significant because the waiters, in dark suits, who take turns performing cheesy American pop songs, are actually quite good. Full bands back them up on a stage dripping with twinkling lights and fake palms. If, by chance, a table of 13 rowdy Cal State guys should be blocking your view, the stage can be seen on a number of hanging TV monitors throughout the restaurant. Go all-out when ordering from the cocktail menu: the Thailand Delight — a frothy, pink, rum and pineapple-juice-based concoction, complete with tiny umbrella and fruit garnish — will conjure that Phuket island honeymoon you never had. Order a second and it won’t matter. 5321 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 993-9000.

The Stone. The sapphire-blue neon haze around the entrance to The Stone has undoubtedly caught the attentions of countless cars passing by late at night. Inside, the narrow, low-lit bar, which has an almost Manhattan-like vibe, is no less intriguing. As one regular put it, The Stone enjoys multiple personalities: Wednesday evenings are karaoke nights. Thursdays are “open-mic jam-session nights.” Friday evenings, The Stone caters to a gay clientele. On the last Friday of every month the bar hosts a Thai Drag show and, after 11 p.m., the Go Go Boys perform a live striptease. Stake out a prime spot on the roomy, second-story loft and relax with a key-lime or lychee martini. As The Stone’s Web site explains: “It’s not gay or straight, it’s a fun bar for all & everyone!” 5221 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-6061. www.thestonebar.com.

Jumbo’s Clown Room. The legendary Hollywood strip bar, where Courtney Love worked long before hooking up with Kurt Cobain, is now a “bikini bar” (rather than the skimpier pasties) thanks to a January 2004 amendment to a citywide ordinance. Which means, basically, it is a crowded but lively Thai Town dive bar with a very athletic dance show going on in the background. Wander in with your 81-year-old great-aunt, a firecracker, as we did. Have a Heineken or two. The next day, she might show you the new moves she learned. Jumbo’s has almost as much history as she does. 5153 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 666-1187.

Elvis Forever: Palms Thai’s rhinestoned crooner

Blu Monkey. Every once in a while, you can enter a local establishment and find a roomful of people you not only haven’t seen before, but people who don’t look, dress or talk like anyone you’ve ever seen before. At the Blu Monkey, one door east of the bleakly enigmatic Gershwin Hotel and across from the Red Line station at Hollywood and Western, a drunk power-shagged rocker blocked our path until we agreed to sing some Fun Lovin’ Criminals, a young brunette transplanted from the Midwest mixed us fruity martinis in glasses with beer-mug handles and a DJ spun trip-hop too loud to shout over. Talking remained possible, however, in the bar’s spacious back patio, where the rocker had found a new audience (“C’mon,” he insisted, “Couldn’t get it ri-ah-ah-ight, couldn’t get it right!”). 5521 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 957-9000. (Judith Lewis)