The second place we tried on this LA trip was Tainamite. The menu is Southeast Asian, with wraps, salads and rice and noodle dishes, but what caught our eye were some of their appetizers.
Yes, there were egg rolls and chicken wings, but the mango shrimp spring rolls ($6) and the bao with a hard boiled egg in the middle ($5) got our attention.
When we picked up our order after a few minutes, the proprietor told us to be careful because the bao was very hot. No problem, we’ll start with the mango shrimp spring rolls.
In our experience, spring rolls aqre deep fried and served hot, and summer rolls are served cold in a translucent wrapper. At Tainamite, they called the cold, translucent rolls spring rolls, and the deep fried rolls are called egg rolls. Hey, as long as we got what was on the menu photo, that’s all we care about.
The first taste to hit our buds was fresh mint, followed by the eponymous shrimp and mango.
Also inside the rolls were shredded daikon, carrots and cucumbers, which were cool and refreshing.
On their own, the rolls were like eating a salad, but the peanut sauce that came with the dish added a very nice flavor to the rolls.
We moved onto the bao, which was still pretty hot. You can’t tell from the photo, but this bun was actually larger than a softball.
The bao was stuffed with Chinese sausage meat, a few veggies, and a full hard boiled egg!
Even though it was dinnertime, this would have made a good, hearty breakfast. It’s not the sausage and eggs we usually get, but we could easily get used to this for breakfast.
You can check out Tainamite’s website here, and find them on twitter here.
