(Jim Jones) wrote in message . com>...
> (Tina Mongkolsmai) wrote in message . com>...
> > Jim is correct about all the terminology and translation
> >
> > I'd like to add a few things...
>
> Thanks, Tina, for an amazingly thorough Thai noodle primer.
>
> I would add a couple of favorites.
>
> First, let's not forget khanom jin. These noodles with either gaeng
> kiaow waan (green curry) or nam ya (red, spicy fish sauce, preferably
> including luuk chin pla) are among my favorites. Phenomenal mae khaai
> selling these on north side of Sukhumvit between 53 and 55. Actually,
> great cluster of vendors all around there and in some blocks of
> Thonglor itself.
>
> Second, I also love guay tiaow rua. These "boat noodles" are
> traditionally served from boats moored by the side of some of the
> larger khlongs (especially out north of town), but they are now served
> by many vendors and food courts. Sauce can be had as "nam saai"
> (which literally means clear soup) or as "nam tok" (which literally
> means waterfall, but actually refers to the bloody liquid that runs
> from the grill as the meat is cooked in the traditional manner). In
> most cases today, the nam tok is not actually from grill drippings,
> but it is still a dark, blood-enriched broth. You can get the noodles
> with organ meats (especially good are liver and intestines), congealed
> blood, and/or plain meat.
> I love the sen lek noodles with nam tok and everything thrown in.
> Delicious!!
>
> Tina, I've never eaten kha nam paloh with noodels before. I always
> eat it with khao plao, bitter greens, garlic, prik ki nuu, and
> definitely sai sai (intestines in). One of my favorite things. This
> was my father's single favorite dish of the entire two weeks when my
> parents came to visit me in Bangkok.
>
> What kind of noodles do you like it with?
>
> Jim

Wow! You know more about the meanings in noodle dishes than I do!

One of my aunts lives near Soi Thonglor.. we used to get these
terrific soup noodle and lad na/pad siyiu there (they were next door
to each other) but it closed! Terrible. At least my husband got to
eat it twice! That was the place he remembered and wanted to eat upon
returning to Thailand for a short visit.

I like khanom jeen with nam prik or nam ya Lots of fresh bean
sprouts and long bean are gooood. I haven't had it in awhile. I can
get the fresh ingredients here, but I use nam ya out of the can.. not
nearly so good I don't think I've seen nam prik for khanom jeen
here but I'll have to look it up now. Grr I'm hungry

I like guay teow in general, but I'm not big on leurd... I'm not sure
I've eaten guay teow reur but I watched my aunties eat some when we
visited the floating market at Damnoen Saduak. That was my first and
only time actually seeing it. It was too quiet when we went; not very
realistic But that's ok..

I haven't had paloh except for the kind with pork, eggs and tofu. We
usually eat it with rice, too. But, I know I've had the soup kind at
least once. I just can't remember when or where...

Now I'm craving doo+dee+ noodle. (a particular noodle shop in
Thailand, a franchise). They do pretty good guay teow yum.

Haven't had pad woon sen in awhile but had yum woon sen sometime this
year.

Oh, I'm lucky now that my cousin is in the East Bay (Richmond, CA) and
there's a shop selling Thai desserts there. She brings me some
sometimes, gooood. I can make gluay buat chee at home but she brings
things like tao-suan and khao neow with stuff on it (sangkhaya,
plawarn). Reminds me, I should try again to make tub tim grob at
home. My husband really likes it but it always sticks like glue. The
first time I forgot to sweeten the water chestnuts. (eww). After that
I had to throw them in water a couple at a time (time consuming).

Oh well, back to work

Tina

(Tina Mongkolsmai) wrote in message . com>...

> Wow! You know more about the meanings in noodle dishes than I do!

Tina, you flatter me. There's no question you know more about Thai
food than I do!

>
> One of my aunts lives near Soi Thonglor.. we used to get these
> terrific soup noodle and lad na/pad siyiu there (they were next door
> to each other) but it closed! Terrible. At least my husband got to
> eat it twice! That was the place he remembered and wanted to eat upon
> returning to Thailand for a short visit.

Lad na is not one of my favorites, but I do enjoy it from time to
time. There was a place in Thonglor (not TOO far in from Sukhumvit)
that I used to get lad na. I wonder if it was the same. Last time I
was there was definitely no more recently than late 2000.

Further up Thonglor on the right hand side as you go toward the khlong
was my favorite khao man gai place. They also had great muu daeng and
laksa. In fact, it was the best laksa I ever had in Thailand. A
Singaporean friend turned us on to it. Alas, she says that it has now
closed. I'm afraid this will happen to a lot of places as Thonglor
continues to get developed and go upscale.

> I like khanom jeen with nam prik or nam ya Lots of fresh bean
> sprouts and long bean are gooood. I haven't had it in awhile. I can
> get the fresh ingredients here, but I use nam ya out of the can.. not
> nearly so good I don't think I've seen nam prik for khanom jeen
> here but I'll have to look it up now. Grr I'm hungry

These are the kind of things I can never get in Korea. I can get good
prepared curry pastes in the markets, but never the full array of raw
materials to do it myself. To do things other than basic curries,
forget about it. I can only by lime leaves, lemongrass, those kind of
things in dried form. I do now have a lemongrass plant growing at my
house. It was a gift from a friend and I don't want to know how many
Korean customs laws were broken to get it to me.

Our maebaan/ajuma/amma is Filipina. She goes to a church with mostly
Filipina domestic workers and sometimes she can get SE Asian
ingredients there at the impromptu market after the service. You
should have seen how excited I was when she brought me green papaya.

In general, though, it is pretty tough to do any real SE Asian cooking
of any stripe here.

My wife is taking an Indian cooking class now from a local Indian
expat wife because we have a hallal market here that tends to carry
most things needed for basic Indian cooking. For now, because of
availability, Japanese, Korean, and Indian are really the only Asian
cuisines we can cook authentically.

> I like guay teow in general, but I'm not big on leurd... I'm not sure
> I've eaten guay teow reur but I watched my aunties eat some when we
> visited the floating market at Damnoen Saduak. That was my first and
> only time actually seeing it. It was too quiet when we went; not very
> realistic But that's ok..

It took me a while to get used to leuat. I always liked nam dok, but
never really liked the cubes. I've learned to eat it and enjoy it in
Korean food so now when I go back to Thailand I enjoy the leuat in
guaytiaow reua, gaeng kiawwaan, etc.

There's an area out north of Bangkok near Nonthaburi (can't remember
the name, but it starts with a "P") that has a small river/large
khlong. It's near the children's science museum. This place is the
best I ever found for guaytiaow reua.

This is fun. Khit tung krungthep!

Jim

This really is fun.. I love talking about food.. especially Thai food
(and fresh ingredients)

Are you an MK Suki fan? I miss that kind of thing.. but it's somewhat
reproducible at home. Thai-style sukiyaki is pretty easy. Fresh pak
buung, packaged tofu in water, dried woon-sen, thin-sliced flank steak
with soy sauce and egg, fresh mushrooms, crack some egg in... I think
that's my basic. I buy the red fermented tofu and just blend it with
fresh garlic. My mom used pickled garlic but I'm not as fond of the
pickled garlic smell. Lots of fresh cilantro on top! Sometimes I've
done only an added egg and pre-made fishcake or fish balls for an easy
dinner addition for ba-mee nam. (packaged stuff)

I've got a lot of cravings for foods, but recently we've been doing
the low-carb thing. It's hard not to have noodles, pasta, potatoes or
bread as a staple of the meal. Any kind of carby thing is a treat.

I think I still have eggplant (thin purple Asian kind). I should cook
it if it hasn't gone bad yet! I always buy too many fresh ingredients
and then forget to cook something.

So, how long were you in Thailand, Jim? You learned a lot of the
language!

Tina

(Tina Mongkolsmai) wrote in message . com>...

> Are you an MK Suki fan?

I like Thai-style suki, but didn't eat it that often. None of the
people in my office would go eat it, because they were afraid they'd
smell like suki for the rest of the day. There was a combination
sushi-Thai suki place that opened on Thonglor sometime late 2000 or
so. I used to go there occasionally with my wife and young son. It
was really close to our house and was fun for a young kid. Suki's
good that way -- participatory food.

There's a Thai-style suki place here in Seoul, but I've never tried
it. It's a floor below a mediocre Thai place and has similar signage,
so I suspect it is common ownership. Since I've never been impressed
with the regular Thai restaurant, I haven't been inspired to try the
suki. I should make it at home. I've never done that, but it would
be easy.

Tried a new Thai restaurant last night...gaeng kiaow waan was too
sweet and not spicy enough...they served the pak chi on the side of
the tom kha gai because many Koreans don't like pak chi. Several
dishes had green pepper (bell pepper) where it shouldn't be. That was
really disappointing because Cathryn and I had been really excited to
try it. She had tasted a bit of their food at a food fair and had
been stunned at the authenticity...they even had the proper little
makeua in the gaeng kiaow waan at the fair. Then we went in last
night and it was like the owners had never tasted Thai food before,
much less prepared it.

> I've got a lot of cravings for foods, but recently we've been doing
> the low-carb thing. It's hard not to have noodles, pasta, potatoes or
> bread as a staple of the meal. Any kind of carby thing is a treat.

I could never do the low carb diet. My wife tried it for a while and
has sworn it off also. She's back to trying to eat decent balanced
meals -- not that either of us are that good at that either!

> I think I still have eggplant (thin purple Asian kind). I should cook
> it if it hasn't gone bad yet! I always buy too many fresh ingredients
> and then forget to cook something.

I have the same problem. I've just bought a bunch of new Korean
cookbooks and am heading out to the market this weekend to stock up
for a Korean cooking fest. The new books are in Korean -- I've found
the recipes much better that way. All the ones written in English
seem to have been adapted for western tastes. Also, the writers of
the English books seem to have assumed unavailability of some
ingredients and made substitutions without noting it.
I've found the same thing with most English-language Thai cookbooks.
Only my Thai language ones seem to have completely authentic
ingredient lists.

> So, how long were you in Thailand, Jim? You learned a lot of the
> language!

I was in Thailand for about a year and a half. However, you give me
too much credit. I always know more food vocabulary than general
language. Same in Korean, Japanese, French, etc. Poor to average
general speech and reading, but really good food vocabulary.


Jim