Mouse shit peppers
It's taken me a while to write about Thai food primarily because it's just been so different from what I expected. Thai food is plentiful in Seattle and there must be 12 Thai restaurants within a half mile of my house. I've had lots in my day and planned to come to Thailand and order my favorite dishes and set my mouth on fire on the hot peppers (the most common of which is actually called "mouse shit pepper) and chilis.
But farang - white people - can be spotted a mile away and when one orders Thai food they must remove all hot things completely out of the kitchen and down the road before preparing your food. I imagine plenty of Thai cooks have been frustrated over the years by farang who can't handle the heat. But without the tongue-numbing spiciness, the food's just not as good. So a typical exchange at a restaurant might go:
Me: Hmmm, does the pahd kee mao come with beef?
Waiter: Ohhh, pahd kee mao. That is so spicy!
Me: That's okay. I'll have the pahd kee mao with chicken.
Waiter: The pahd see iew - that isn't so spicy.
Me: Yes, that looks good too. But I'd like the pahd kee mao with chicken. Spicy is okay.
Waiter (dubiously): Pahd kee mao with chicken?
Me: Yes.
Food arrives. It has zero spice and thus little flavor.
It's also been difficult to tell exactly what my favorite dishes on the menu are. While I'm used to ordering pahd see iew and tom yum goong, I'm not sure what the English translation of those dishes are - and the menu generally sports the Thai name in Thai characters or the English translation. Pahd see iew is thick noodles with a sweet soy-based sauce and broccoli. So on the menu, it might be listed as "noodle with sweet sauce" or "thick noodle with broccoli" or "stir fried noodle with soy sause" and there's not a whole lot to distinguish it from the next item on the menu listed as "Thick noodle with sweet sauce".
Finally, the food always seems to defy expectation. Order pahd kee mao - noodles with basil - and it may come without noodles. Order a banana pancake and it may be the best tasting pancake cooked with bananas you've ever had or it could be a fried (with oil, then margarine, then more oil) crepe folded around some bananas. Order a spicy salad with pork - which you might expect to be the typical Thai spicy papaya salad topped with some pork - comes as a mix of three different kinds of processed meat with some onion thrown in.
By now you may have noticed that I haven't strayed too far off the beaten path when it comes to food. I've been a little worried about trying food from the ubiquitous stands for sanitary reasons as well as a complete inability to determine what anything is. I have gotten a few things that looked like they'd been fried or steamed to oblivion and then it's kind of fun to bite into the thing. It could be sweet or savory, it may hold bean paste or spicy chicken or something you can't really identify even after having a few bites. I generally get something and tentatively take a bite or two. Hmm, this is pretty good. Then a couple more bites and I run into something crunchy. Well it tasted kind of sweet, so maybe it was some sort of egg and the crunchy bit is egg shell? Another bite. Or maybe it's not supposed to be crunchy? Another bite. Or maybe it's something mixed into the sweet thing and - oh my god, it must be a bug! They must have added grasshopper or cockroach! And then I can't eat any more of what's probably a perfectly good bun. Of some sort.
But I have been lucky enough to eat at some good restaurants of the spare-the-farang-no-pain variety. And even better, I took a cooking class in Chiang Mai where I learned to make a number of the dishes myself and could add just as many mouse shit peppers as I could stand. So I may not be able to boast that I've had some of my favorite Thai food ever while I was here, but I plan to go home and learn to make it.
But farang - white people - can be spotted a mile away and when one orders Thai food they must remove all hot things completely out of the kitchen and down the road before preparing your food. I imagine plenty of Thai cooks have been frustrated over the years by farang who can't handle the heat. But without the tongue-numbing spiciness, the food's just not as good. So a typical exchange at a restaurant might go:
Me: Hmmm, does the pahd kee mao come with beef?
Waiter: Ohhh, pahd kee mao. That is so spicy!
Me: That's okay. I'll have the pahd kee mao with chicken.
Waiter: The pahd see iew - that isn't so spicy.
Me: Yes, that looks good too. But I'd like the pahd kee mao with chicken. Spicy is okay.
Waiter (dubiously): Pahd kee mao with chicken?
Me: Yes.
Food arrives. It has zero spice and thus little flavor.
It's also been difficult to tell exactly what my favorite dishes on the menu are. While I'm used to ordering pahd see iew and tom yum goong, I'm not sure what the English translation of those dishes are - and the menu generally sports the Thai name in Thai characters or the English translation. Pahd see iew is thick noodles with a sweet soy-based sauce and broccoli. So on the menu, it might be listed as "noodle with sweet sauce" or "thick noodle with broccoli" or "stir fried noodle with soy sause" and there's not a whole lot to distinguish it from the next item on the menu listed as "Thick noodle with sweet sauce".
Finally, the food always seems to defy expectation. Order pahd kee mao - noodles with basil - and it may come without noodles. Order a banana pancake and it may be the best tasting pancake cooked with bananas you've ever had or it could be a fried (with oil, then margarine, then more oil) crepe folded around some bananas. Order a spicy salad with pork - which you might expect to be the typical Thai spicy papaya salad topped with some pork - comes as a mix of three different kinds of processed meat with some onion thrown in.
By now you may have noticed that I haven't strayed too far off the beaten path when it comes to food. I've been a little worried about trying food from the ubiquitous stands for sanitary reasons as well as a complete inability to determine what anything is. I have gotten a few things that looked like they'd been fried or steamed to oblivion and then it's kind of fun to bite into the thing. It could be sweet or savory, it may hold bean paste or spicy chicken or something you can't really identify even after having a few bites. I generally get something and tentatively take a bite or two. Hmm, this is pretty good. Then a couple more bites and I run into something crunchy. Well it tasted kind of sweet, so maybe it was some sort of egg and the crunchy bit is egg shell? Another bite. Or maybe it's not supposed to be crunchy? Another bite. Or maybe it's something mixed into the sweet thing and - oh my god, it must be a bug! They must have added grasshopper or cockroach! And then I can't eat any more of what's probably a perfectly good bun. Of some sort.
But I have been lucky enough to eat at some good restaurants of the spare-the-farang-no-pain variety. And even better, I took a cooking class in Chiang Mai where I learned to make a number of the dishes myself and could add just as many mouse shit peppers as I could stand. So I may not be able to boast that I've had some of my favorite Thai food ever while I was here, but I plan to go home and learn to make it.
posted by Imle at 3:55 AM
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