Food for thought: Ariya Thai Kitchen

Huntington Park, an ethnic hub of Latino culture, offers dishes beside the traditional tacos and pupusas. Walking eastward on Gage Avenue from Marquez High School, you can find Ariya Thai Kitchen, which, as the name suggests, serves Thai cuisine.

With the purpose of showing you the wide, unsuspected variety of under-15-dollars meals, five members of The Gladiator web team set out to review the Southeast Asian cuisine restaurant.

The Appetizer (Salad)

The first dish that was given to us was a small salad.

Angie: This salad was your basic salad with lettuce and other vegetables, but with special Thai peanut dressing sprinkled on top. The peanut dressing is okay for some people, but I personally did not like it. It basically tasted like melted peanut butter.

Jesus: If you do not want peanut dressing with your salad, just ask. I enjoyed mine, but beware, peanut dressing might make or break a salad.

Andrea: Everything about the salad was great except the peanut dressing. I personally did not like it, but if you are a fan of anything with the taste of peanut butter then you have to try it.

Joseph: Nothing special about the salad. It had vegetables with peanut dressing on top. I’m a fan of peanut butter, so the peanut dressing on top of the salad made it delicious. Without the dressing the salad would have been pretty plain and tasteless.

Main Dishes

Chicken Satay (Jesus Estrada) with rice, egg roll, Thai iced tea

Looking at the menu, I saw the chicken satay, and I felt compelled to try this marinated chicken on a stick. The Thai style chicken satay was served with rice, an egg roll, and a salad. The satay tasted like plain, bland chicken. Fortunately, the peanut dressing added flavor. Also, the white rice fell apart easily (a big no-no) and I had to add chili for flavor. Moreover, the satay left me unfilled, so Angie, Andrea, and Alex gave me some of their food. Nevertheless, the Thai iced tea tasted creamy and milky enough to excite my taste buds.

Price: $7.99

Price Rating: Too little for what you pay for. 5/10

Taste Rating: 6/10

Pad Thai Dish (Angie Evangelista) with rice, egg roll, and a lemonade.

I decided to try the Pad Thai, and I loved it. The sauce on the noodles was delicious, and they had a great consistency. I had the option of choosing either vegetables, chicken, shrimp, tofu, or beef to accompany it. I decided to go with the vegetables. There was more a good balance between the vegetables and the noodles, which

Chow Mein (Andrea Estrada) with Fried Tofu, egg roll, rice, and iced tea.

The chow mein with fried tofu was good. It probably was not the best, but neither was it the worst. I think it was good for how much it cost. What I like about it was that they gave me options of what to serve my chow mein. You had a choice of tofu, chicken, shrimp, and beef or just alone. What I really liked about the dish was the sweet and sour sauce. It was great once you dipped your tofu in it. It was the best combination. Aside from that I also thought the rice was a little too dry for my taste. This a good place to take any vegetarians because they offer a variety of great dishes without meat for a good price.

price:$7.99 (lunch special with free thai tea)

price rating: 8/10

taste rating:8/10

Fried Wontons (Joseph Hernandez)

The fried wontons were served with a sweet and sour sauce on the side with some lettuce on the side. The fried wontons were a little greasy but full of taste. They were crunchy and the pork on the inside made it even more delicious.The sweet and sour sauce served on the side was packed full of taste and made the wontons a one-two combo. However, it was a pretty small meal for $6.00.

Taste rating: 8.5/10

Price: 7/10

Fried Spicy Rice with Chicken and a Lemonade (Alex Morales)

The fried spicy rice with chicken was delicious considering it was just rice with chicken. It tastes great by itself, but adding lemon to it made it taste even better. The cucumber slices it came with sort of helped tame the spiciness after I was done eating...not by much, but it’s still a nice touch. Even though it doesn’t seem like much, I was only able to eat half of the rice because there is just so much rice on the plate! All that rice for $7.99 seems like a good deal, but $4.00 for two lemonades seems kind of expensive.

Price rating: 7/10

Taste rating: 8/10

Ariya Thai Kitchen

Address: 2560 E Gage Ave,

Huntington Park

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