Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review – Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

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, because galangal is supposed to be good for the lungs and stomach.

I drank a Thai iced tea made with black tea, sugar, spices, and a healthy dose of cream.  This drink is a particularly good antidote for putting out chili pepper fires, if you order spicy food.  The default spiciness of food at My Thai is mild, so be sure to ask for spicy food if that is how you like it.

The food I ate for lunch was so good that I came back for a weekend lunch with my husband Laurent.  We started our meal with chicken satay – like chicken kebabs – 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 in the marinade as well.

The satay came with a peanut dipping sauce, cucumber relish, and strands of carrot and cabbage.  The peanut sauce was rich (high calorie).  I liked refreshing my palate with the sweet relish.  The tender chicken meat made me want to make a meal out of my appetizer.

Laurent’s fried shrimp rolls looked like skinny baseball bats filled with shrimp.  They came with a sweet sauce that accentuated the flavor of the shrimp.  We both liked this dish and felt we had made a gastronomic discovery for ourselves.

I drank a Thai Singha beer with my appetizers.  The crisp lager reminded me of Corona from Mexico.  Singha goes well with spicy Thai 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.  The sour flavor of the dish makes it uniquely Thai.

Laurent ordered the Pad Thai with beef.  A generous helping of crushed peanuts came on top of the Pad Thai as garnish.

Dusit is the Thai name of My Thai’s owner.  Dusit’s Delicious Duck lived up to its name.  Many slices of duck with skin intact flavored a medley of vegetables made up of baby bok choy, carrots, sweet red pepper, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and onion in a chili-basil sauce.  The baby bok choy tasted especially good with the duck, offsetting the duck’s richness (fat).

The Bangkok-born owner told me that he serves food as it is prepared in Thailand.  In just a few months, he had developed a regular clientele, who love the real thing.

End of article

My Thai has a new name and owner now, but the Dusit family helped created the love of Thai food on the West Coast as a lasting memory in our community.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Thai-Style Feasting: My Thai Restaurant Review – Part 1 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I first ate Thai food in the mid-1980s at the Thai 55^th Restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago when I was a student at the University of Chicago.  I always ate sweet-tasting Panang Curry with jasmine rice there.

When I saw the My Thai Restaurant in Marina (California), sweet memories prompted me to query the editors at The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) to do a review.  I described the food, especially an elusive ingredient called galangal and won the assignment.

Thai-Style Feasting is the official name of the article, but I liked the photo caption, too – Bite of Bangkok.  The article follows:

Thai-Style Feasting

“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 Solomon in The Thai Cookbook:  A Complete Guide to the World’s Most Exciting Cuisine.”

I decided to see how My Thai Restaurant fare in Marina held up to her standards after just a few months in existence.  On a recent visit for lunch, I ordered Panang Curry with shrimp over rice. 

There is a major difference between Indian and Thai curries.  Notably, the chile paste used to prepare Panang Curry is made with fresh ingredients like cilantro roots, lemon grass, galangal, and kaffir lime zest whereas Indian curries rely on dry spices for flavor.

I have perused many cookbooks at home to make Panang Curry, my favorite Thai dish.  I asked my waiter if My Thai uses peanuts as a thickener in its version.

“Absolutely not,” he responded.

“We thicken our curry by letting it simmer a long time.”

My Thai takes no shortcuts in the kitchen, but does not keep customers waiting long for their food.

My Panang Curry arrived piping hot within minutes, tickling 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 and contrasted with the flavor of the green beans and 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 leaf of Asian basil and shrimp with bites of flavorful jasmine rice.

The carrots and green beans were crisper than what I 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 fried tofu, mushrooms, and slices of galangal in it.  The Thais use galangal like the Chinese use ginger, which galangal resembles in appearance.

End of Part 1.

To be continued…

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Sampling Thai Cuisine with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

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, leaf 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

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Sampling Baan Thai Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Baan Thai Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved Seaside, California, my family’s first neighborhood, when we moved to the West Coast for its variety of ethnic restaurants.

I wanted my daughter Florence to try Thai food, so we went to Baan Thai when it was just opening up in 2000.  (It is still open 17 years later.)

On our first visit there, the walls were painted white and the glass over the pale green tablecloths gave off a slight glare, because there were no curtains on the waist-to-ceiling high windows that covered two walls of the restaurant.

I chose a corner table and studied the only decoration in the restaurant – an 8 ½” by 11” photo of what I thought was a seated Buddha or a person.  A tall, tapering crown that resembled Thai temple towers topped off this personage.

When the waitress came to take my order, I asked her, “Is that a man or Buddha in that picture?”

“Both,” she answered.

“He is our king.”

That was my first inkling that India had influenced Thai culture as well as that of China.

I gave her my order for panang curry not quite knowing what that was.  A series of five peppers at the bottom of the menu served as a spiciness (hot) guide for your order.

I chose the three-pepper variety.  The panang curry served with ridged carrots, corn, bits of chicken, and green pepper filled half of my plate.

A mound of white rice sat next to it with a twisted orange slice next to that for decoration.

The taste was citrus and hot.  It left a pleasant tingling taste in my mouth, but I was too busy at the time as a salesman selling Tibetan art, Russian icons, Ghandaran Buddhas, Thai and Vietnamese Buddhas, Indian Ganeshas, and Persian carpets in Carmel to delve into the ingredients in this delicious dish.

What I did do one night when I should have been researching another story was to look Thailand up on my computer’s encyclopedia.  I discovered that the Thai practice Theravada Buddhism, derisively called Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) by the Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhists of China and Japan.

In a nutshell, Theravada Buddhists seek Enlightenment for themselves whereas Mahayana Buddhists endeavor to become a Bhodsattva, one who can achieve Enlightenment, but who puts it off to help others attain Enlightenment.

Young Thai men I read in this article usually spend some time as a monk in the same way that young men in many countries spend some time doing military service.

I wondered if this was why the servers at Baan Thai seemed so unflappable even when it was busy.  Then, I went back to my other story and let my interest in Thailand hibernate.

I went back to Baan Thai and decided it was time to try something new when the waiter saw me and said, “Panang curry?”

I changed my order several times to yellow, green, and red curries.  They were all good and contained peppery, anise-flavored Asian basil.

I progressed up the chile chart for spicy additions to the dishes I ordered.  Sugary Thai iced tea made with condensed milk put out some of the wildfire situations I willingly undertook.

I read the cookbook Cracking the Coconut by Su-Mei Yu, who had “attended an exclusive boarding school founded by the Royal Court of Thailand,” according to the book’s cover. 

I made panang curry once at home to know how to make it, but preferred eating it in restaurants to support ethnic communities, especially my neighborhood.

In 2002, I took Florence out to Baan Thai for an early dinner after I had picked her up from her charter Waldorf School in Pacific Grove, California.  Baan Thai had prospered and had received excellent reviews in the local newspapers.

Landscape paintings were lined up along the windowless walls.  Lace curtains kept the sunlight’s glare at bay and big, color pictures of the King and his consort decorated the dining room.  Smaller pictures of dancers in tall, conical hats, boats in Bangkok, and elephant tapestries decorated the walls.

Behind my daughter was a picture of the one-tusked elephant God from India called Ganesha.  At the Asian Art Gallery, I sold tons of these little, bronze statues by saying, “Ganesha is the remover of obstacles.”

Everyone in business knows these are people who mess up mailroom procedures, invoicing, and inventory control in companies.  I think everyone in Silicon Valley has one of these statues by now.

Florence asked me, “How do you remove obstacles?”

I told her the kiddie version of Ganesha, “Ganesha gave up one of his tusks, so humans could read.  Basically, if you read well and know math very well, you will have a good life.  Lawyers have very big vocabularies.”

End of Article

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Teen in China, and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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