Revisiting an Old Favorite: Toi

My first experience at Toi on Sunset was pretty much up there as one of the greatest of my life. It was about 11 years ago, and I went to Toi to interview one of my all-time favorite bands. The record label had flown me down from San Francisco, had a town car waiting for me at the airport and had booked a room for me at the Sofitel on Beverly (yes, I was pinching myself the entire time!). The band was Radiohead and they were in Los Angeles to promote their new album, "O.K. Computer."

After meeting the guys at the Capitol Records offices, we piled into a car and drove to Toi for lunch. We sat near the window, and ordered an array of vegetarian dishes. Over spicy veggie curry, steaming bowls of rice and piles of thick, saucy noodles, the nerves that had plagued us all during the first few minutes of our meeting melted into laughter and easy conversation. I remember Ed making fun of our waiter, who was clearly stoned out of his mind. I guess they don't describe Toi as "Rockin' Thai Food!" for nothin'.

Today I went to Toi to meet up with Gene from FoodJiva.com. Yes, yes, there's been a lot of FoodJiva talk lately and I promise I will fill you all in soon. We got the veggie curry (with Radiohead tickets selling out in 2 seconds these days, my precious veggie curry memory is as close as I am going to get to them now - bah!!!), and pad ke mao noodles. And of course I had to order Toi's famous brown rice. Where do they get this stuff? It's nutty, chewy and sticky in the most perfect way. If only Radiohead or I would have known about the brown rice way back when; we ate white rice at that meeting years ago, which was just fine. In any case, it was nice to revisit an old favorite and have the flavors be exactly as they were all those years ago. I guess that's why Toi has stood the test of time and will continue to rock out for many years to come.