Soi 7 in Downtown LA: Avoid and Go to Thai Town Instead

I knew it wasn't going to be pretty as we walked into Soi 7, a dark, unpromising Thai place situated next door to Bottega Louie in downtown (it gets all the overflow of customers unable to get a table there).

Like most people there, we were desperate -- hungry with no reservations anywhere and just shut out of Sai Sai Noodle at the Biltmore that supposedly had good noodles (I remain skeptical but will try it).

Our suspicions were confirmed. It's not so much that the food was inedible as it was either bland (papaya salad) or drowning in sodium (the rest).

We got chicken pad siew, crab fried rice and deep fried catfish because they had run out of deep fried whole fish (snapper).

While the chicken, noodles and greens were fine, the pad siew was extremely salty to the point of giving a headache.

Then the crab fried rice was also very salty. Why pour on the salt/soy sauce so much? The catfish was ok but the sauce that came with it, which I didn't add as we got it on the side, was, you guessed it, a ball of sodium.

I also had the mango mojito and it was pure alcohol, too strong so I couldn't even finish it. Service was spotty.

Needless to say, this seems like a takeout-cum-delivery place for a quick lunch. I will not be returning.