Sampling Thai Cuisine with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget while Reviewing for the Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) - Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
I loved the Thai food that I
sampled at Baan Thai Restaurant in Seaside (California) that reminded me of my
life at the University of Chicago when I was in college there.
I queried my editor at the Monterey
County Weekly (Circulation: 100,000) about doing an article on Baan
Thai. She asked me to hold off and do an
article on a Thai restaurant in Marina called My Thai that had just opened up.
I eventually took Florence
out to this restaurant and Baan Thai several times to sample Thai food as a
cultural outing. You can learn about
world history through studying the trade practices and history of spices and
food ingredients. As we ate I would tell
her about the information I looked up.
I wrote the following article
on My Thai restaurant:
“Thai food is totally
individual, befitting a country which has never been conquered, yet it has
similarities to both Indian and Chinese food,” notes Charmaine Soloman in The
Thai Cookbook: A Complete Guide to the World’s Most Exciting Cuisine.
I decided to see how My Thai
in Marina (CA) honors its Indian heritage.
On a recent lunch visit, I ordered Panang curry with shrimp.
There is a major difference
between Indian and Thai curries. For
example, the chile paste used to prepare Panang curry is made with many fresh
ingredients like cilantro roots, lemon grass, galangal, and kaffir lime zest
whereas Indian curries rely on more dry spices for flavors.
I have perused many cookbooks
at home to make Panang curry, my favorite Thai dish. The waiter told me that they thickened the
curry by letting it simmer a long time and not adding anything to it like
crushed peanuts at My Thai.
My Thai takes no shortcuts in
the kitchen, but does not keep customers waiting long for their food. The curry I ordered arrived piping hot within
minutes, tickled my nose with a sweet aroma of shrimp paste and coconut cream.
The orange-pink color of the
curry matched that of the plump shrimp.
The orange-pink color contrasted nicely with the green beans and green
peppers, sweet red peppers, and carrots.
The sweet-and-savory curry no
doubt got its salty flavor from Thailand’s namm pla fish sauce. I ate each curry-coated vegetable, leaves of
Asian basil, and shrimp with bites of flavorful rice.
The carrots and green beans
were crisper than what I had expected, but that did not keep me from eating
them; I did not want to waste any curry.
The Panang curry came as part
of a lunch with a cup of hot-and-sour soup, which had tofu, mushrooms, and
slices of galangal in it.
The Thais use galangal like
the Chinese use ginger, which it resembles in appearance.
Galangal’s flavor makes me
think of biting into perfume that lingers on the tongue. The woody slices in the soup may not be to
everyone’s liking, but I ate mine.
I drank a Thai iced tea made
with black tea, sugar, and a healthy does of cream. This drink is a particularly good antidote
for putting out chile fires, if you order spicy food.
The default spiciness of the
food at My Thai is mild, so be sure to ask for spicy food, if you like that.
The food was so good that I
came back for a weekend lunch with my husband Laurent. We started our meal with orders of chicken
satay and fried shrimp rolls.
The satay was made of
flattened, marinated chicken breasts.
Their bright yellow color hinted at turmeric in the marinade and their
sweet flavor signaled the use of coconut cream as well.
The grilled chicken came with
a peanut dipping sauce, cucumber relish, and strands of carrot and cabbage. The peanut sauce was rich. I liked refreshing my palate with the sweet
relish. The tender chicken meat made me
want to make a meal out of my appetizer.
The fried shrimp rolls that
Laurent ordered looked like skinny baseball bats with shrimp. They came with a sweet sauce that accentuated
the flavor of the shrimp. We both liked
this dish. We felt we had made a
gastronomic discovery.
I drank a Thai Singha beer
with the appetizers I ordered. This
crisp lager reminds me of Corona and goes well with spicy food. Laurent ordered the most well-known Thai dish
as his main course, Pad Thai, while I chose Dusit’s Delicious Duck.
The stir-fried noodles and
tofu in Pad Thai hearken back to Thai food’s Chinese heritage, yet the salty,
sweet, and sour flavor of the dish make it uniquely Thai.
Laurent ordered his version
of beef Pad Thai. It came with a
generous helping of crushed peanuts on top as a garnish. Laurent liked the Pad Thai, but could only
eat half of it due to its size.
My Thai calls its version of
roast duck Dusit. Many slices of duck
with the skin intact flavored by a medley of vegetables made up of baby bok
choy, carrots, sweet red pepper, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and onion made up
the dish.
The baby bok choy tasted
especially good with the duck, offsetting the duck’s richness.
There were ample servings of
meat. We were able to take home boxes of
midnight snacks.
The Bangkok-born owner said
that he serves Thai food as it is prepared in Thailand. In the few months that My Thai has been open,
the owner has cultivated a regular clientele, who love the authentic Thai
cooking.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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