Posts from the ‘Thai’ Category

Jan 9

Spoon Thai

Yes, women have been getting irrationally violent over food this week. First it was the McNugget puncher who was shortly upstaged by the burger rampager.

You might not understand that primal rage. I didn’t at first, but now I do. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t eaten at Chicago’s Spoon Thai on Saturday. Of course there were no fisticuffs or verbal abuse; I was merely howling inside, trying to suppress the Hulk-like anger traveling up from my stomach into my neck when my ground pork and skin turned out to be cubes of chicken breast.

I should’ve known better than to try Thai food in Chicago when they do a million things better (if you want to go “ethnic,” Mexican and Eastern European will soothe not incense) but I was swayed by reviews and photos that seemed so convincing. The northern-style food did indeed look unique and shared many dishes in common with Lotus of Siam, the lauded Vegas strip mall restaurant I dined at twice in one weekend.

And it immediately hit me that Lincoln Park is the German-not-Italian Carroll Gardens of ten years ago; boutiques and cuteness amidst the working class stalwarts, both young couples and pompadour’d men with Cubs jackets covering paunches at nearby Hüettenbar where I had to down a drink (ok, three) to make things right again. But most Carroll Gardens-like were the Thai restaurants clustered on every single block. I spied at least five on the cab ride there. We’d subway’d it everywhere else up until this point but thought we’d save a little time and avoid the predicted six-degree temps, but it just wasn’t worth the $20. I’d rather just play Little Match Girl on the el platform and complain about it.

From what I understand there is a regular Thai menu and a special Thai menu, both are now laminated and official-looking. At some point in 2003 the Thai-only menu was translated by an ambitious Chowhoundy type. I’m not sure how it came to its current form dated 2005. I appreciate such efforts, though I’m starting to wonder if the translations, getting lost in them, was part of the disconnect I experienced (I should’ve taken a photo because I can’t seem to find the Thai menu online anywhere and I’m going to look like a liar with no evidence). You would think that if people were getting different things from what they had ordered it would’ve been detected in the past five years. Maybe I shouldn’t have free-styled it and stuck strictly to what I had seen written about online. I just had faith that everything on the authentic menu would be good.

And the mussel omelet was. Greasy and puffy, lacy and eggy with bean sprouts for crunch, I was confident we were in for more greatness. Hawy thawt is made for drinking, and I had my big BYOP bottle of Stella.

While nibbling on the pancake, our salad was brought out. I was pretty sure the beige blobs were chicken, and even if it was pork, it certainly wasn’t minced as described in the menu and there was definitely no pork skin to be seen. This worried me. We both took a bite; the flavor was right on: sour and hot with a fish sauce undertone. No complaints there. But I didn’t order chicken and started getting anxious when I remembered our curry also would contain chicken. I’m not opposed to chicken if it’s what I ordered but I can’t stand two bland white meat dishes in one sitting.

We stopped after a bite each so that we could correct the mistake and get the salad we’d ordered. I eventually flagged down our waitress and asked about the pork. She brought out the menu and pointed to what I had ordered, no confusion, and insisted it was what we had on the table. Um, no. This wasn’t going anywhere. I am guessing that she could read the Thai but not the English description and the mix-up lied in the translation. To her eyes, we got what we asked for. Attempting to right the wrong felt futile. But like I said above, wouldn’t someone have noticed before that when they ordered ground pork they got chicken breast?

I was disappointed that this would be my final meal in Chicago. It wasn’t what I had imagined at all and a waste of my limited time. I had used up a valuable slot for this and considered just paying up and leaving to try Big Star, The Bristol or Kuma’s Corner, all who didn’t make it into my schedule. But that frangry feeling really enveloped me when our curry showed up.

I was picturing something brothy and spicy akin to a jungle curry, it wasn’t like I was imagining anything creamy and coconut milky since this was northern Thai food. But the menu promised Thai eggplant and bamboo shoots. This bowl was swimming with straw mushrooms, snow peas and carrots. Ugh. Totally Chinesey and not at all what I wanted to eat. The photo doesn’t convey much of anything, I’m afraid, I forgot to take it until the very end of the meal.

I tried a few spoonfuls and gave up. Just not destination Thai food. I’ve never left behind Thai food before (well, maybe at Joya) and our waitress seemed mildly surprised that we hadn’t eaten it all. But I’m such a pussy that I said I was full. I’ve never really had to deal with a situation like this before and was completely baffled how to deal since it started feeling like a joke was being played on me. James at least asked, “Was this supposed to have Thai eggplant?”

“It could,” our waitresses responded.

Er, or it could not. WTF? I’ve always taken menu listings to be more than just guidelines. If you ordered something that was supposed to come with bamboo shoots and Thai eggplant or ground pork and pork skin, isn’t that what should appear on your table?

Like I said, I can’t find the Thai menu online anywhere, but this is our bill. I wonder how two of these three dishes translate because they’re not at all what we thought we were ordering.

Nearly a week has passed and I’m still confused and unhappy about this place. Of course it’s not like I went hungry; a piece of chocolate cake was consumed at a diner near the Belmont stop (unintentionally, something about the shocking cold weather made me unable to hold my pee and while waiting for the red train back to the loop I had to run downstairs and find a bathroom at the nearest place, which happened to be this diner) followed by a double cheeseburger at Billy Goat Tavern.

Touristy, sure, and we’d been there before but Spoon Thai had been my bright idea so I had to go along with James’ Billy Goat choice to be fair. I’d rather eat a cheeseburger than blech chicken breast, any day.

Spoon Thai * 4608 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL

Share on Tumblr

Nov 15

OBAO Preview

In 2006 I worked a block from where OBAO, Michael Huynh’s latest venture, is scheduled to open on Monday. The immediate area has shaped into a multi-culti lunching paradise (Güllüoglu, Barros Luco, Mantao Chinese Sandwiches) or maybe it just seems better in comparison to the Financial District blandness I’ve grown accustomed to. And I shouldn't complain so hard, we're getting a Baoguette down here.

Based on the sampling at OBAO’s preview party, there is high promise. The grilled cubes of pork belly were a little sweet with nice char and good balance between the meaty and fatty bits. Lamb chops were coated in chopped lemongrass and tasted like they’d been marinated in coconut milk. Instead of shrimp paste, thin slices of beef were wrapped around sugarcane. Bacon too. Why had I never thought of that?

Shrimp rolls and chicken satay were perfectly fine renditions, but couldn’t compete with the oomph of the pork, lamb and beef. Or maybe I just have a preference for the fatty.

I think this was a pho. It definitely was pho-like, but the poached egg threw me off.

The unknown element will be the noodles, which weren’t showcased at this event. I’m crazy for laksa and can’t decide if the non-traditional green tea soba noodles as they are touting will be a welcome tweak or just weird. Will the char kway teow also be an Asian hybrid? I’m sure I’ll get the answers soon enough.

I imagine the signage will be complete and the garbage bin removed by opening day.

OBAO * 222 E. 53 St., New York NY

Share on Tumblr

Nov 1

Sriphraphai Long Island

Sripraphai is one of the few restaurants that I’ve eaten at so many times that I can detect subtle differences in dishes on each visit. I’m not that astute normally. I know some believe that the quality—and spice level—has decreased proportionately with the increasing size of room, but I don’t tend to agree. However, I did wonder how the food would translate to their random (to me, at least—maybe staff or owners live nearby? It doesn’t appear to be a Thai-heavy community either, but more Italian, middle eastern and Indian based on businesses we passed) Long Island location that had been teasing me on their homepage for what feels like a year.

So, my Halloween day plan to finally try the Red Hook Ikea that’s only 1.9 miles from my apartment was shifted at the last minute to Hicksville, just a few towns over from Williston Park, home of the brand new Sripraphai branch. Brooklyn Ikea can wait.

Yes, there was a crowd out front around 8pm, though not nearly as dense as the eaters that swarm 39th Ave. All resemblances ended there. For one, there was a parking lot adjacent to the stand alone building (we still had to street park). And more importantly, a bar with a few tall chairs on the short side near the front window that were completely open. A cocktail (ok, a Singha) while waiting for a table? How civilized. Oh, and we discovered that they also take reservations and credit cards (though the machine was broken). After only a few sips of beer a two-top became available.

The menu appears to be the same, at least the same as the relatively compact spiral bound one with small photos of nearly every single dish that was new on my last Sripraphai visit. Some of the servers were the same too. Unsurprisingly, the clientele was a little more white and suburban with way more rambunctious kids than I’m accustomed to seeing in Queens (not so, in Brooklyn). Large Chinese families were the second most represented group, which meant just about everyone was eating with chopsticks. Not a single table within eyeshot was lacking a plate of pad thai and another of fried calamari (the child-pleaser of choice, it seemed).

It wasn’t clear to me if the diners were there due to Sriphraphai’s reputation or if they just wanted to try the new Thai restaurant in their neighborhood. I would say a majority were familiar with the establishment. We got nods of approval from our server, ”very popular dish” with our orders of crispy watercress salad and chinese broccoli with crispy pork, which was unusual considering we’ve had this same waiter a million times before and he’s never acknowledged our ordering prowess.

Determined to branch out from my usual picks, I still had to glom onto a few control dishes. My initial assessment was that the crispy watercress salad was minutely different. I’m not sure if it was because I was looking for aberrations and minute tweaks would’ve slipped past me in the original location, but visually the liquid that pools at the bottom of the white plate was more orange than usual though not spicier as the color indicated. And nearly everything we ate seemed a touch saltier. The big difference was the watercress clusters. They weren’t warm, as if they’d been fried earlier, though not soggy either. If anything the batter was crunchier and more substantial. There was a lacy delicateness lacking even though the overall flavor of the salad was almost identical to the version I’ve come to love. Only a nitpicker would have a problem with any of this.

Nine times out of ten we order crispy pork with chile and basil instead of the fatty strips as a mere accent to Chinese broccoli. This is a good dish to pretend that you’re getting in some healthy greens while also getting a dose of pork skin.

I’ve never had a whole fish at Sriphraphai so this whole snapper with chile and basil was a radical departure. This is why we didn’t order our usual crispy pork; the fish became our substitute meat. You can also choose from a small or large trout. Another fried dish, obviously what I enjoy about much of this food is the contrast between crunchy and soft (the only downside being the inevitable leftovers lose any crispness). The white flesh stayed moist and the skin was wonderfully crackly and bubbled. Also, the light heat was offset by a touch of sweetness.

Though the balance was skewed with one of my favorite curries of duck, bamboo shoots and Thai eggplant. Once again, the sauce was more orange when normally this conglomerate is more swampy and served in a bowl. The flavors are usually mysterious and dark more like a deep body of water far from land, this was sunny like a tropical lagoon. I’m not saying I didn’t like this dish, but knowing the original it’s hard not to compare.

The most striking difference was the inexplicable and very fleeting likeness to the preseasoned pork tenderloins from Costco that I don’t like because they have a barely discernible pastrami flavor. This duck had a tenderloin/pastrami undercurrent that I think might be attributable to cumin. Cumin is fine when it blends into the scenery. It personally creeps me out a bit when it stands out, though. That’s just me. There is definitely a different curry paste being made (or maybe not being made in-house, which is the issue) at this location.

Thankfully, they have replicated one of my favorite aspects that you don’t always find in Thai restaurants: the refrigerated cases and metal shelves full of snacks. I also like that the desserts have glamor shots and names in the menu now, which cuts down on awkward browsing in the busiest part of the restaurant (at the original location—here, they’re off to the side). I took a plastic container of pumpkin custard squares to go and being Halloween, this parting sweet was fitting. Good as these creamy cubes are, I still felt a little deprived that I never got any fun sized candy bars on this holiday.

For being a new operation, service was efficient and good natured (though similarly harried and forgetful as the original location), and the food was still many times more enjoyable than what exists in South Brooklyn. I’m never ever in Long Island (NJ is my suburb of choice) so it’s doubtful I’ll make a comparison visit in the near future. It’s nice knowing they’re there, though.

Sriphraphai * 280 Hillside Ave., Williston Park, NY

Share on Tumblr

Sep 20

Pok Pok

Originally on my list of Portland to-tries, I ultimately omitted Toro Bravo from my itinerary. I went Spanish on a recent visit to Philadelphia. Do I really need to try tapas, good as they may be, in every US city I visit?

The same could be said for Thai food, a cuisine I’m more particular about, maybe because it’s so messed up so much of the time. I’ll eat chorizo and gambas practically anywhere, no problem. I’m not taking chances on a weak, watery papaya salad that tastes of lime juice, sugar and nothing else, though. I already knew Pok Pok wasn’t going to serve soggy pad thai doused in peanut sauce. Chef-owner, Andy Ricker has been all over the glossies as well as the blogs (as a Gresham native, I couldn’t help noticing that Austin is from Sandy, Oregon). I imagine he knows what he's doing.

And it’s not even close to a secret. Add Pok Pok to the list of Portland restaurants that don’t take reservations for groups under six, engendering 45-minute-waits. I was on vacation and the food lived up to my expectations, so it didn’t kill me. But if I lived in the neighborhood I could see it being a frustrating Lucali-like tease. This photo was taken as I was leaving and the crowds had died down.

The most unusual part of the Pok Pok experience is that in their striving for authenticity, half of the seating is outdoors. The thing about outdoor dining in Thailand is that, um, it’s in the tropics and you’re eating fiery food under intense heat and humidity, all punishing and part of the experience. Portland is all fir trees, moss, slugs and dampness, more pot roast and potatoes in front of a fireplace. The incongruity of a frosty Singha and tongue-searing som tam in these temperate environs was jarring. I’ve often said that I would enjoy Southeast Asian street food more if the weather was kinder. I just didn’t picture it like this.

We took whatever we could get, as did the majority of the wiser Gore-Texed, polar-fleeced customers also waiting to dine. Who knows how long it would’ve taken for an indoor seat? On this sunless, late summer Sunday, the temperature was 60, if that, with intermittent bursts of rain. I was wearing short sleeves, a sweater and light jacket and was a touch chilled. In NYC they would’ve had heat lamps. Oregonians are hardier people.

Papaya salad with shrimp (I’m now wishing I’d tried it with the salted black crab) was the hottest thing on the table and I appreciated its intensity. Painfully spicy and tart, very much in a Northern Thai vein like most of the food here. This isn’t a restaurant for rich, coconut-heavy curries.

The Aviation is having a moment in Oregon. I spied it on the menu at Belly in Eugene, as well as here at Pok Pok where it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t recall either places using Crème de Violette. Instead, I chose the Asian take on a whisky sour using tamarind, lime, palm sugar.

Just looking at this iced plate of mustard greens makes me shiver. What normally might be a refreshing accompaniment to tart, peppery boar collar seemed unseasonably cooling on this particular evening. The bitter greens did pair well with the rich, tender meat.

We made these Vietnamese fish sauce wings for a Super Bowl party this year. Ours turned out pretty well but I had nothing to compare them to. Grilled over charcoal, these had great char and lots of caramelization. A funky sticky-sweet crust forms around the edges. They got cold really quickly, though.

The pork belly salad was a balancing relief from some of the spicier dishes. This had a fresh, crisp quality from the Chinese celery, cilantro and onion slivers.

I just read that Pok Pok is opening a bar across the street, rather than sending expectant patrons to Matchless as seemed to be the routine to keep the front patio clog-free. This might help matters. As to other Andy Ricker projects, I just couldn’t bring myself to stop by Ping because it replaced Hung Far Low, an Old Town icon (yes, I did note flyers advertising a benefit gig to restore the famous dilapidated sign). I spent so many nights nursing a whisky sour and sharing sesame chicken in the upstairs lounge. There's even a photo of me climbing up said stairs on inside sleeve of Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's, “Answering Machine Music.” I'm like a New Yorker who fled for the suburbs in the '70s and is all freaked out by the new face of The Bowery.

After dinner, I checked on the Space Room. And yep, the cocktails are still $3 a pop and they still have the creepy black-light murals of Haystack Rock and what I think is supposed to be Mount St. Helens being volcanic.

Pok Pok * 3226 SE Division St., Portland, OR

Share on Tumblr

Jun 10

Rhong Tiam

I don't want to overstate their case, and I'm wary of mid-teens pricing, but Rhong Tiam definitely has some of the best non-Queens Thai food I've had recently. Dare I say even a bit Sripraphai-esque?

I think I'm responding to the Bangkok styles they both produce, which I've interpreted as rich curries cooked down to a thickness that ingredients stick together, spicy with balanced sweetness. I have heard that Bangkok's cuisine is considered sweeter than in the rest of the country, though I doubt that means Brooklyn-style sugary pad Thai. Just that the food is sweet in comparison to the austere lime-chile-ness of a northern larb or a fiery hot-and-sour southern fish curry.

You'll be fine as long as you stick with the Thai dishes. I wouldn't cross over into Vietnamese summer rolls or salmon teriyaki, though I'll admit I was curious about the Thai nachos using shrimp chips. I'll save that nonsense for visit number two.

Obviously, they just like using familiar lingo, hence this "Thai chorizo." It's crumbly mild grilled pork sausage that doesn't taste like anything Spanish (or German or Italian, for that matter). I ate little bites of chile with mine but the slabs of sliced ginger were too much for me. It is traditional, though.

Yes, “pork on fire,” dark, possibly soy sauced cubes of meat, with forward chile heat and a hint of lemongrass, is spicy but hardly as punishing as hyperbole on other blogs would lead you to believe. You just need a small pile of jasmine rice, here, molded into a conical shape, to cushion the blow. All of the components are discernable through the heat, which is a good sign. If you want to have your ability to taste obliterated with a burn that surrounds your mouth, grabs your tongue and creeps into your ears, you should try the Southern Curry at Sripraphai. It's a bit much, frankly. Crispy (I'm still not sure why that word is an irritant to Robert Sietsema—I’m just defensive because I’m a crispy/tasty/perfect abuser) fried basil, lime leaves and onions add both texture and mellowed herbaceousness.

This catfish preparation isn't for the impatient, there are a lot of fiddly bones to contend with in these fried cross-sections. I always thought that the little bones were rendered edible with this style of fish. I hope so, because I eat them. Maybe I've been doing this wrong all my life. I also eat shrimp shells. Roughage, right? The absorbent green Thai eggplant halves added more crunch and the slew of krachai shreds lent a fresh bitter sweetness that I prefer over sometimes too pungent ginger.

Rhong Tiam * 541 LaGuardia Pl., New York, NY

Share on Tumblr

May 16

Joya

You think I would have the good sense to steer away from Cobble Hill Thai food in a restaurant with a DJ booth. I shot down suggestions of Grand Sichuan House and Anselmo’s in the name of open-mindedness and the quest to give seemingly so-so neighborhood restaurants a fair shake. Now, I’m afraid my mind has been shut for good. I had issues (actual screaming matches) with a scary, marathon-running, MBA know-it-all coworker from a few jobs back. She insisted Joya was the best Thai food she’d had in NYC and I wasn’t having any of that nonsense. But I was able to garner one of my favorite quotes that I’m positive I’ve mentioned many times before. Picture this being said in the nastiest, condescending, 5’1 tough office lady voice, “Have you even been to Thailand?!" Ok, you win, Brooklyn pad thai is totally the same as street food in Bangkok. Better, even. And so I went to Joya. Hmm…I don’t know how to say this without coming across racist and/or elitist (and for the record, that dijon kerfuffle is utter crap. My family totally ate Grey Poupon on our backyard-grilled burgers in a blue collar suburb 20+ years ago. It was mainstream then, and certainly is now) but it’s a genuine question Why is Joya, a mediocre Thai restaurant in a gentrified, overwhelmingly white neighborhood, filled to capacity with Long Islanders (this wasn’t a judgmental inference based on the usage of dawtah and cah [that would be daughter and car], the two loud tables I was sandwiched between were talking specifically about Long Island and how far they’d driven into Brooklyn) and well, black people? I’m not all “Stay out of my neighborhood.” Frankly, you can have it. It’s more, “Why are you coming here for this restaurant?” Do they know something I don’t? Everyone seemed to be having a good time, so who am I to ruin their fun with my killjoy spirit?And the food was barely passable. I didn’t even bother with photos. The chili basil mussels we started with were fine enough but the stir fries and curries were flat and flavorless, even more so than your typical Americanized Thai. I like “bad” Mexican and Chinese, but I can’t abide bad Thai because it doesn’t even translate into craveable greasy junk food (hard shell tacos, sweet and sour pork) it just ends up pale, bland and sad. I tried to take the when in Rome approach, and maybe after a few glasses of Yellowtail Reisling, the fortyish woman next to me who’d clearly been downing cheap white wine all night, would cease hurting my spinal column with her shrillness. But there’s no ignoring deafening shrieks about farts, queefs and explicit sex acts (now, I really will get blocked by work filters) punctuated by maniacal laughter. There’s a time and a place, people. And this is coming from a loudmouth who likes to drink.I freakin’ love New Jersey but Long Island scares the crap out of me. And now, so does Joya. No matter who tries bullying you into thinking this is good Thai food, do not listen. This is no time to be open minded. In an unprecedented move, I am downgrading the two shovel rating naively bestowed on the restaurant in 2003, when I was unfamiliar with the neighborhood, to one shovel. (5/15/09)

Dec 24

Diandin Leluk

When a co-worker I don’t speak with often asked me about my vacation yesterday I realized how pissed I still am about the Thailand debacle. I have not accepted and moved on yet and neither has James who recently stated, “I’m not eating Thai food for six years.” I don’t truly believe that boycott will last but I can identify with the ire.

So desperate to rectify our aborted Bangkok eating trek, we researched where to find real Thai food in both Singapore (Golden Mile Complex) and Hong Kong (Kowloon City). In fact, our first meal in Singapore was at Diandin Leluk. Larb before laksa.

Our hopes were not high–they mangle Thai food in Malaysia and they share a freaking border—and no, our appetite was not appeased. The surroundings were definitely promising, though. Everything I read online painted an enticing picture of a dumpy ‘70s shithole that could barely be called a mall by Singaporean standards. There’s talk of tearing down the entire building, which is home to about 20 Thai businesses including many hairdressers, bars and stores that were the Asian equivalent of Dee & Dee or Pretty Girl.

Part of the problem may have been us, we know better than to settle on the restaurant with English menus (this was Singapore, though) but we were kind of exhausted and didn’t have the spirit to attempt one of the eateries with only Thai scrawled on paper signs on the wall. And many of the small restaurants seemed like they were more hangouts for drinking beer and playing dice. I wasn’t convinced that they served great food either.

The condiments seemed right: sugar, chile power, fish sauce, chiles in vinegar and crushed peanuts. The menu seemed odd, though. We ended up ordering weird things because absolutely nothing appealed. I would’ve predicted that the food would be Chinese-y and that was the case, lots of stir-fries and not really any curries.

We almost left but instead went with it and ordered, yes, fried rice. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Ok, the seafood salad was rightly spicy and tart and contained a good amount of shrimp, squid and chunks of fish.

Fried pork with chile dip is more of a drinking food than a dinner dish. That was fine, we had big bottles of Tiger beer as an accompaniment.

I think we should’ve ordered tom yum, everyone had it on their tables, but I just never order soup unless it’s noodle soup and then that’s a meal unto itself. The food wasn't bad, it simply wasn't what we wanted. We were so underwhelmed that we nixed seeking out Thai food in Kowloon City. It’s usually wise to stick with the local cuisine anyway, though we did go a little wild and paid a visit to an Argentine steakhouse in Hong Kong. We couldn’t resist the novelty.

Diandin Leluk * 5001 Beach Rd., Singapore

Share on Tumblr

Sep 4

Zabb Thai

1/2 “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” was all I could spit out while approaching Roosevelt Avenue. Even from a block away I was getting an unpleasant eyeful of at least 40 diners-to-be swarming the sidewalk in front of Sripraphai. Seriously?
I know the place’s popularity seems to grow exponentially each year and that you get what you’re asking for on a Saturday night even on a holiday weekend, but no, I wasn’t buying the insanity. It’s not Sripraphai’s problem that they’ve become such a success but I can’t tolerate the hour waiting thing even for my most favorite salad in the world (next to Resto’s crispy pig’s ear). I felt tired and defeated without even stepping into the fray.
Quick plan B: Zabb just down the road. No crowd, and in their favor they keep late night hours and are BYOB (which I didn’t realize until we’d already sat down). Curries aren’t their strength, as the focus is more Northern Thai, but fiery herby salads and stir-fries are good too.

Moo dad. I was thinking these would be crispy like skin-on pork belly in little chunks, but these pork strips were breaded and fried and served with chile sauce. This could’ve been heavy and greasy a la chicken fried steak but the coating was light and the meat was juicy. And I really liked that we got a full container of the sauce with our leftovers. I’m always disappointed when I bring home uneaten steak from Argentine parrillas and there’s no chimichurri included in the bag.

I always mean to order the catfish mango salad at Sripraphai but can never forgo the crispy watercress, it’s a catch 22. I love how the fish has been fried unrecognizably into fluff. I once made this at home a million years ago. Getting the catfish into this state wasn’t the hard part—it was shredding the mango properly. I need a tool like this. Crisp, salty and fatty hit with sweet fruit and rich cashews? I love that combination.

No, this duck salad wasn’t a replacement for my beloved awesomely rich duck, eggplant and bamboo shoot curry. The flavors were all there, maybe I just wanted those particular vegetables mixed with the poultry.

We weren’t asked about spice levels and forgot to make any mention. The chicken larb was the only dish that seemed too mild.
I have zero business sense but judging from the freak show in front of Sripraphai there is clearly a market for authentic Thai food for non-Thais. And even though there’s a glut of so-so Thai already in my neighborhood, that would be my target area. If I knew how to open a restaurant and import cooks from Thailand I would channel my inner Chodorow and make it happen.
Which reminds me, I’m 99% sure I’m going to Thailand later this year. I’d been planning on Malaysia but had my mind changed at the last minute. Why not Thailand? At least I that’s what I thought until all hell broke loose this week. But I went to Singapore during the SARS scare, particularly because the flight was dirt cheap. Maybe I can work this civil unrest thing to my financial advantage. Ha, there's always the free food for protesters angle. (8/30/08)

Aug 3

Poodam’s

Poodam’s has reminded me once again of the lameness that is Brooklyn Thai food. Even an unassuming corner spot in that weird part of Astoria not far from the multiplex theater serves better food than any of the attention grabbers in Cobble Hill.

I’m almost certain that I’ve relayed this tale before but it clearly annoyed me enough that it’s still stuck in my craw more than a year after the fact. An extremely volatile, know-it-all former coworker with an MBA (who got fired shortly after I quit of free will) insisted that Joya in my neighborhood served the best Thai food she’d eaten in NYC. And I was like, “You’re nuts” which prompted the oh so sassy, “Have you even been to Thailand?” Uh, yeah I have, and then I thought she was crazier than I already did.

The Issan menu (they spell it e-san but I like it with an I) is what makes Poodam’s unique. When I see Northeastern Thai specialties, I stick to salads over curries.

I tend to imagine Thai sausage as grilled, stiff yet crumbly like this from a random Poodam’s diner. Yet whenever I order a salad with Thai sausage (which has only been twice, the other instance being at Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas) the style used is pale and boiled-seeming, more akin to weisswurst or bologna. I don’t mind these soft sliced links but it’s something to remember. Obviously, I enjoyed this rendition with tomatoes, red onions and a tart-hot dressing or else I would’ve remembered to have taken a photo before half of it was gone.

Normally, I prefer my duck a little fatty, crispy skin intact, but it also makes for a rich larb ingredient. Typically, there’s no added fat in a larb preparation (just broth) so a gamier meat than chicken works well. I’ve been known to make healthier larb at home with chicken breasts but that’s not something I’d want to eat in a restaurant.

The fried fish was more Chinesey in flavor though I can’t put my finger on what made it so. Maybe it’s soy instead of fish sauce? I’ve noticed this effect with certain basil and chile preparations. Whole, crispy bass is a treat.

Drunken noodles just because. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t order noodles with a Thai meal because they seem like a distracting thing unto itself.

My Poodam’s review for Nymag.com

Poodam’s * 44-19 Broadway, Astoria, NY

Share on Tumblr

Sep 6

Sripraphai

I don’t usually mention Sripraphai re-visits because they’re frequent and my ordering style is repetitive. I’m only bringing this meal up because I’d never attempted take out before and was highly impressed by the thoughtful packaging.

I always come back from vacation dying for whatever food wasn’t where I just was, even if the cuisine I did eat was remarkable and even if I was only away for a few days. It’s not even like there’s tons of “real” Cuban food in NYC anyway. But the first business-lined intersection we hit after exiting the BQE from the airport en route to Sripraphai was Roosevelt and 69th, with El Sitio staring right at us across the road. No! No more Cuban food.

On Monday, our last night in Miami, I gave in decided to visit the pool. (Said pool at left, and don't worry, there's no way in hell I'm exposing myself online in a bathing suit.) At 4:30, it was well-past prime tanning time and the area wasn’t overwhelmingly crowded. Based on their reading material, a majority of the bathers and layabouts remaining were German and Eastern European. As the sun was about to set, an Asian couple showed up. The female, kind of plain and in a Louis Vuitton logoed bikini and khaki fishing hat that she kept on even in the water, her male counterpart, slightly sourpussy and portly. I knew I wasn’t in Brooklyn or else he would’ve been a skinny white dude with glasses. I enjoyed their conversation.

Hat girl: I want Cuban food for dinner.
Portly guy: No more Cuban food, it’s not good for you.
Hat girl: [sulking] I’m going to eat Cuban food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Portly guy: No.
Hat girl: Now I want ice cream.

And she got it, too. No one else in the pool area looked like food had touched their lips all afternoon. But leave it to an Asian girl to bring a substantial bowl of ice cream into the pool, squat on the shallow end stairs and chow down. Meanwhile, the only other person eating anything in the vicinity was a black woman with a bizarrely ample backside and thighs thicker than this girl’s waist, eating an apple.

That’s what’s wrong with this world. Skinny girls gobbling ice cream with abandon and hefty gals nibbling fruit. I want to know what goes on behind closed doors, you know, food anthropology. Would the ice cream eater really go on to polish off a massive plate of rice, beans and lechon? Would the fruit snacker eat salad with dressing on the side for dinner? Is there such a thing as a “good” metabolism or is a calorie a calorie? In some ways I’m hoping the former because maybe this essence could be captured and manufactured. Why are we wasting time on cancer and AIDS research when it could be medically possible to eat like a pig and remain lithe as a gazelle? Now I sound like a Cathy. Ack.

crispy watercress salad, dry and wet

So, I went overboard with my ordering at Sripraphai and got drunken noodles with chicken, crispy pork with chile and basil, duck curry with eggplant and bamboo shoots, and the crispy watercress salad that I had originally decided against because I figured the crispy bits would rapidly turn to sog by the time we got around to eating them (we’d recently eaten lunch and were picking up dinner to eat like five hours into the future). But I love the salad so much that I ran the risk. However, they package up the wet parts separately from the crunchy stuff. So smart, like a McDLT yet successful.

crispy watercress salad united as one

While waiting, I had time to peruse the shelves and refrigerated cases unimpeded because the restaurant was nearly empty, which is a rare thing. I decided on a container of four rectangular rice-based sweets that I don’t recall being combined together before, and num prek ta deng (their spelling, I always want to say nam prik). They have a slew of nam priks to choose from. I picked this one because it contained shrimp and sugar and I like my searing heat with a touch of sweetness and fishiness.

(My latest short-lived regimen has been the nam prik diet where I bring a cup of jasmine rice to work topped with a generous blob of chile paste. This lunch yesterday nearly killed me. I love insanely hot food but the proportion of paste to rice was askew and I literally burned my tongue and roof of my mouth. Of course, that didn’t stop me from finishing my painful meal.)

I was trying to think of an excuse for brining home enough food for three meals (other than sheer gluttony, of course). Well, September 4 is kind of my anniversary and that’s a good enough reason as any. Kind of, because dating anniversaries don’t seem to count and kind of because James barely acknowledges it anyway and insists that it’s somewhere in October. Yet since eight years is more substantial than many marriages (at least any that I’m acquainted with) and I’m not terribly marriage minded, it counts. (9/4/07)

Posts from the ‘Thai’ Category

Spoon Thai

OBAO Preview

Sriphraphai Long Island

Pok Pok

Rhong Tiam

Joya

Diandin Leluk

Zabb Thai

Poodam’s

Sripraphai

Featured

Occasional Instagramming

Yes, it’s come to this

My Other Blogs

What?

The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101