first visit to Thai Aree tonight - must haves?

[claudia]

Based on the recommendations here (and the fact that it's close to home), we're making our maden voyage to Thai Aree tonight. What do we need to try?

[Vital Information]

I am not that keen on Thai Aree's curries although others like them a lot. What I have liked best are the grilled beef dishes, like the beef salads and the broiled beef with garlic. The larbs can also be good. Do ask for them hot, or you are missing tons of flavor.

I looked at my notes from Thai Aree dinners, and unfortunately, nearly everything I really love at the place is "off-menu", so see if you can finagle some of these dishes:

- Sour curry
- Catfish curry
- Stir fried water spinanch (ong choy)
- Nam prik

[bryan]

One that is on the menu is Nu Num Tak. Thai beef salad, it's intensely good.

[Claudia]

we didn't end up going. But I will keep all your recommendations for when we get there (soon I hope!). Thanks!

[Aaron D]

That Garlic Beef is easily my favorite Thai Aree dish, though having missed the group events at Thai Aree, my range of experience is somewhat more limited.

We went last night as well, and the beef was really top-notch. The panang curry ordered by my wife was good, but not as good as usual--it seemed less creamy and a bit less heat, though it's always hard to order spice-wise for my wife. A full-powered heat is too much for her, but typical Thai is far too weak. We've had success when Eddie takes our order, but we did not see him last night.

We also ordered pad thai, and there is a bit of back story on this. I had never had pad thai prior to a month or two ago, and not for lack of Thai restaurant going. When out with our realtor recently, she mentioned a killer pad thai at a place just around the corner from our current residence (Thai Thai on Elston). Based on one previous visit, this place was terrible. But our realtor seemed eager to convince us that realtors know all the best places to eat, she offered up some interesting stories, and I really wanted to like Thai so close to home. So I ordered shrimp pad thai takeout one evening, and it was a spectacular failure. I took two bites, threw it out, and went to pick up a burrito from The Burrito House. Needless to say, my curiosity about pad thai had been piqued. My wife, a fairly conservative, mostly repetitive restaurant eater, assured me pad thai could be good. In the spirit of Spring World's kung pao chicken, we have in the last couple weeks tried pad thai at both Spoon Thai and Thai Aree. Both were better than Thai Thai, but I must say that Spoon Thai's far outstripped the Thai Aree offering, a bit to my chagrin since I like liking Thai Aree better. Spoon Thai offered a dish teeming with sprouts, offering the perfect textural complement to good fresh flavors. Thai Aree's (ordered without chicken) was more noodly and eggy and a bit more tired tasting.

By the way, I prefer Thai Aree's panang curry to Spoon Thai's, but they are quite different dishes.

I'd be curious to hear how any other Thai favorites hold up with Thai-American classics. Although after this two-time experiment, I think I'm also ready to stop ordering pad thai anymore.

Cheers,

Aaron

[YourPalWill]

I'm convinced that Pad Thai is the roast chicken of the average Thai menu. It's there as a safe bet for the less adventurous eater.

During my days in New York, many of the Thai places offered a flat noodle dish (think papardelle ribbons) that was xerved with shrimp, chicken, and bits of onion, sweet and hot peppers, in a really spicy briuny sauce.

It provided nice contrasts in both texture and heat that Pad Thai can't deliver. Of course, i've always found that Pad Thai is dramatically improved with a big spoonful of that red pepper paste they have on the table at most Thai places.

On another point, I second your endorsement of Thai Aree's Garlic Beef.

[foodfirst]

I cannot stand by and see the general idea of phad thai denigrated. The problem is not the dish, which when well-prepared is anything but boring, but the insipid versions offered at most Thai restaurants. A proper phad thai is akin to a masterpiece, demonstrated by the fact that in Thailand there are vendors who specialize in it.

It should not be sweet nor should it be too eggy (in fact egg hardly detectable at all), and not with big ol' hunks of chicken! --- shrimp only (choose fresh or dried -- the former must not be overcooked and should be fresh enough to lend a noticeable note of the sea to the dish). Small pieces of tofu, a *few* bean sprouts thrown in at the last minute to soften but many more fresh, uncooked sprouts served on the side along with chives (diner tears into pieces) to mix in. Peanuts yes, but not so many as to overpower the mix. The texture should be dry, not the slightest bit gloppy, as most diners moisten the concoction with a squeeze of lime (really top-notch vendors, recognizing that some of us much prefer sour to sweet, offer lime juice in a bottle for generous shaking). No chili paste or red pepper paste (Sriracha?) please! Anoint only with plenty of ground, dried roasted chili, sugar if you like, and and a dash of fish sauce, in addition to the lime juice. Like all thai noodles except for khee maow, phad thai is purposefully on the bland side spice-wise so that diners can tailor to their taste.

The perfect phad thai, after mixing with condiments, does indeed offer all of the texture (crunchy bean sprouts/soft noodles/shrimp with a bite) and taste (sour lime, wicked heat from the ground chiles, a hint of sweet from the sugar, a whiff of garlic stench from the chives) contrasts found in other Thai noodles.

It is so hard to find a decent phad thai in the US that ordering it at a Thai restaurant should be considered risky rather than safe. (I think another problem is that many Thai restaurants don't offer the quartet of sugar/phrik namsom/phrik namplaa/dried ground chili alongside.)

(BTW -- perhaps what you had in NY was phad kee maow?).

[jblagg]

So, is there anywhere in Chicago you like the pad thai?

[Vital Information]

Some Thai women once told me (well actually they did not tell me, I overheard them say this), that in Thailand, pad thai is strictly a lunch dish. That ordering it at dinner was a sign of culinary philistinism, almost, I got the impression, the same as ordering a pbj for dinner at a nice restaurant. True? And if so, does this explain some of the crappy pad thai?

Rob

[bryan]

I think that has creedence as Eddie once mentioned that to me and my ex a looong time ago. Sorta like Italians only drinking cappucino in the morning and laughing at us for drinking it after a meal rather than espresso?

Foodfirst - you may want to try the spicy crazy noodles at Spoon Thai, it sounds exactly like your description.

[RST]

bryan and jblagg,
foodfirst is an "honorary friend of the Chicago board" and has done a lot for us in the past by given specific pointers/lessons in connoisseurship on various dishes as well as detailed translations of various secret menus (Yum Thai's, Spoon Thai's etc). She doesn't live in Chicago, has not been here in a while and calls Bangkok (and currently Saigon) home. She has lived and taught (English) in Mainland China, can also read Chinese and has offered to help with Chinese menus. You can catch many of her long detailed posts on various Asian cities on the International Board (there's a current one of Dalat Aw Taw Kaw in Bangkok and one on Kuala Lumpur not too long ago). But she has also travelled extensively beyond Asia and has also spent time and posted on Piemonte. We promised to take her around town when she does make it to Chicago, in gratitude for her help and friendship. Unfortunately she snobbed ( ;) ;) ) us by choosing not to schedule even a short layover here on her way to see relatives in the Midwest this October. If she had scheduled even a couple of hours' layover, we might have at the least brought her a spread of Keralan/Malayalee dishes/goodies from Malabar (I think that she would love the erachi) to enjoy right at the airport or taken her to a simple Polish buffet nearby. Maybe she would reconsider...

[bryan]

Actually, I knew that but screwed up. I should have said that to YourPalWill, instead. Apologies. Foodfirst rocks.

[RST]

Also, if anyone knows a bit about the Dearborn Michigan and Lansing areas, pls post some recs for her on the Midwest board. I think that she said that she won't have much time of her own away from the family but who knows, maybe some of the recs might come in handy. We have been speculating a lot about Dearborn Michigan specially. We know that it has the largest Iraqi-born population in the country. We are guessing that there are top Middle-Eastern restaurants (as well as "support": groceries, butchers, sausage-makers etc) out there-perhaps among the very very best in the whole country. Could someone help with coordinates, tips or specific names. Incidentally, I have a gut feeling (which I cannot prove bec I have not visited in a while) that Detroit is hiding an amazing treasure-trove of chow-worthy places in far-flung and less-trodden neighborhoods. No one has simply bothered to go and look. Pls post recs on the parallel Midwest board.

Richard

[Vital Information]

I am hoping, all things considered, that as been suggested before, by C2, that there will be a chowhound roadtrip to Detroit some time this fall.

[foodfirst]

Wow, thanks for the write-up, I sound way more impressive on the written page than I come off in person. ;-)
I'd have to send my thanks right back to this board for providing a forum in which to ramble on about my Thai food obsession. Nowhere else have I been able to engage so happily in written exchange about the intricacies of sour curry, cha-om, and nam plaa. (Which explains why I often butt into your locale-specific discussions.)
RST-- OK, don't rub it in, I obviously booked flights without thinking clearly!! Reconsider I would if I could. But home leave is unfortunately way too short and relatives are rather possessive of my time so .... next year for certain.

[RST]

Incidentally, talking of cha-om (Acacia pennata), Thai grocery has some very beautiful bunches on the shelf at the moment. They cost about $2.85 a handful (we say in Spanish: manojo) or about a third of a lb. There was quite a bit of discussion with foodirst by email about cha-om. I hope that aol hasn't zapped those away-I'll try to find them and post them here. The lady who cooks at Thai Grocery uses cha-om a lot in her cooking, sometimes using frozen (always available in the freezer) when fresh is not available. Make a cha-om omelette tonight!

Also saw beautiful bunches of cha-ploo (cha-poo, cha-phloo etc Piper sarmentosum, betel leaves). These are called la lop in Vietnamese. They are used (among other things) as wrapper for Mieng Kham. We should try to urge Spoon to start using this leaf as much as they can!

And foodfirst, I found out: those flowers are called Dok kae. But I gotta run. More later.

Richard

[RST]

In December of last year, at about the time of the Keralan/Malayalee take-out dinner from Malabar at MikeG's house, I posted on discovering an edible white flower among the vegetables at Angkor Wat Cambodian Market on Broadway at Leland.

(The post is at http://www.chowhound.com/midwest/boards/chicago3/messages/18513.html)

I recognized it at once as a leguminous plant bec the shape of the flower is reminiscent of the shape of pea-flowers, acacias/robinias etc. I assumed that it came from a tree or shrub although it could just as well have grown on a vine. The pure-white, crescent-shaped flowers came separately in the box although I thought that they probably grew in clusters. Lili, the owner of Angkor Wat Market, told me that they come from Florida. I tried to listen as closely as I could to the name which sounded to me something like angkeas dei or perhaps more exactly (e)ng-keh-a(s) (r/d)ei the vowels/consonants in parenthesis being barely sounded or sounded in a way that has no equivalent in English. Lili told me that I could simply stir-fry the flowers or eat them raw with prahok (she had just made me a little bag of wing beans, long beans and little round eggplants to snack on with prahok). I enjoyed the flowers' mild vegetal taste and the slight, not-unpleasant bitterness very much. Since then, I have searched high and low through all kinds of books on Cambodian cooking/culture but have never found a reference to this flower. I did several google searches on variant spellings of my transliteration (angkeas dei) but never managed to pin down a scientific name. I had also seen these flowers on the produce shelves of Thai Grocery in previous years and yesterday, I decided to ask if they still carry them and what they are called. They recognized the flower immediately from my description and said that it was called dok kae. (It sounds a bit like dok hey, which made me transliterate the name at first as dok ke-a; but the standard translit is dok KAE as I found out from a search later on). The folks at Thai Grocery said that they get this flower in from Florida now and again and to check back next week. A google search yielded the ff webpages:
http://www.gifu-u.ac.jp/~miya/plant084.htm
http://www.doa.go.th/botany/table4.html

I am linking the first of these two pages below bec it has a picture. A further search on "Sesbania" revealed that this shrub is common throughout the world and is used as food in virtually every continent (inclg the South Pacific Islands!!!)

I had asked Foodfirst to keep an eye out for these in the Bangkok markets. From my description, she said that she thought that she had eaten it before in a gaeng som (curry). Now, I wish she would post a recipe so that I could try out these flowers in a gaeng som myself... ;
)
(Not food-related:
I had sent foodfirst a couple of webpages with pictures of my favorite flower in the world as a reference. The jade vine has inflorescences that are reminiscent of the "ng-keas dei" and I thought that sending these would help her picture the flower I was talking about. The jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) flower is spectacular bec of its magnificent (wisteria-like) clusters and bec of the unusual and very rare "jade/aquamarine" color (but there is also a variety with orange-crimson flowers). The vine is native to the Philippines. There are fine, very old specimens of this vine in all the great Southeast Asian botanical gardens: the Kebun Raya in Bogor, Java; the Botanical Garden in Singapore etc. Anyone travelling to Southeast Asia: keep your eyes out for these magnificent flowers!
http://www.floridata.com/ref/S/stro_mac.cfm
http://www.viridis.net/cubg/strongylodon.html

RST

Link: http://www.gifu-u.ac.jp/~miya/plant08...

[foodfirst]

Phad thai, like all noodle dishes, is considered a "snack", to be eaten for lunch or, if you're out at dinnertime and pass a vendor, for dinner .... or just in betw meals to tide you over! Noodle dishes, soupy or fried, are served in much smaller portions in Thailand than they are in Thai restaurants abroad, which is really a wonderful thing bec. you *could* conceivably have 3 full meals a day and *still* have room for a snack or two of phad thai or laad naa or soupy guaytiaow.
Thais would rarely order phad thai, or any noodle dish, in a restaurant as part of a larger meal. Generally, you either have rice and dishes, or you have noodles. (Unlike Chinese who might end a banquet with noodles or jiaozi.)

[Aaron D]

Thanks for the account, foodfirst. Spoon Thai's dish achieved most of these goals, for those who are interested. We did order it with chicken, though shrimp is offered. Also, I don't recall the chives. But it did provide the textural and flavor contrasts you describe, and I think it holds up the Spoon Thai standard quite well.

[YourPalWill]

I have to admit, Foodfirst, that my impressions of Pad Thai are drawn only from Thai restaurants that I have sampled here in the US, some better than others.

Those I've sampled on the west coast (particularly San Francisco) seem to be more complex and delicate in flavor than that which I typically find in Chicago or New York. Perhaps there is more authenticity in the preparation there thanone finds here.

[JeffB]

FWIW, while I am not a huge fan of the several Hyde Park Thai places, I do think that they serve pad Thai closer to the way Foodfirst describes, down to the proper condiments. It's the one dish down there that I prefer to the Lincoln Square Thais.

Also, for those who have not yet tried, Spoon Thai has as a dessert special whole Thai durian stewed in coconut milk and served warm over broken rice. I liked it, and my three year old declared it delicious. Tasted like scrambled eggs, slightly around the bend, mixed with guanabana.

[RST]

I guess that Pad Thai (like kung pao chicken which we just discussed on the Spring World thread) is one of those dishes that is almost impossible to f--- up, which explains its popularity. It's almost impossible to even imagine an inedible version-given a minimal attention and care in preparation. This generalized "deliciousness" makes it specially difficult to make distictions and to recognize nuances and hallmarks of quality between different versions. Sometimes, certain of these hallmarks can be identified and named: in the case of kung pao chicken for instance, we can easily denounce all the countless inauthentic versions with "extenders" (green pepper slices, canned bamboo shoots, even-horrors-carrots). But sometimes, one really has to experience a superior version oneself to grasp characteristics that are not as easily definable or pinpointed. One thing that surprised me a lot about the Spring World KPChicken for instance was the unexpected tenderness and moistness of the peanuts. They seemed to have come fresh from the ground and were so different from all the dry brittle peanuts used elsewhere. This said, "inferior" versions of Pad Thai can also be found throughout Bangkok, with "gradations" of quality starting at one end in the pad thai sold off ambulatory woks/vendor carts to tourists on Khao San Road and going on from there. The ironic thing is that people come back home thinking that these version are the real thing bec didn't they have it in Bangkok itself and didn't they buy it off a vendor's cart? In the same manner, people flock to gringo locales (resorts etc) in Mexico and come back vehemently insisting that that resort fare is how they eat in the country.

[foodfirst]

Disagree -- I think it's very possible to f-ck up phad thai (which to my mind means making something that is not especially tasty you know, thick and gloppy from too much added liquid, ketchup, whatever, too-big chunks of chicken or big chunks of egg that mar the textural harmony of the whole). I've had some nasty versions in the US and -- yes --- in Bangkok. I wasn't singing the praises of the "real thing", just of a well-prepared version, and my point was that it's anything but boring. But no -- you certainly don't have to be in Thailand to have the "real thing".
BTW Khao San is not a place I'd head to for food. ;-)

[RST]

Re: Btw Khao San is not a place I'd head to for food

;) Unless you did the so-called Khao San-to-Kathmandu backpackers' circuit and are jonesing nostalgically for the banana pancakes. I think that Alford and Duguid have a recipe for one of these such Khao San backpackers' specialties ;) Can't remember what it was: either the banana shake or a banana pancake.

[Vital Information]

Aaron, I forgot to ask you this yesteday, but why do you want to like Thai Aree more than Spoon (or are there 27 reasons...)?

I know that a lot of people like Thai Aree a lot, and I know it just seems like I am trying to be a contrarian, i.e. with such favorites as Thai Aree, Little Three Happiness, etc. But in my experiences, I have found Spoon Thai MUCH better than Thai Aree.

Rob

[Aaron D]

Good question.

Mostly because of the proprietor. Eddie is such a gracious and solicitous host, he really adds a great deal to the total experience when he's working. And how can you not have the very highest hopes for a place that grows their own chilis? I've also had generally better luck getting hot food at Thai Aree than Spoon Thai. Finally, when we moved in to our current place two years ago, Thai Aree was close and delicious. When I shortly thereafter discovered chowhound, and Thai Aree's stellar repuatation, I took a silly satisfaction in the stumbled-upon excellence of our adopted home-base Thai. When we move next week, we'll be just short walk from Spoon Thai, however, so this last bit of sentimentality will pass.

But I really have never found Spoon Thai's service to be nearly as warm as Thai Aree's, and I hope distance doesn't keep me from Thai Aree for too long.

[Vital Information]

So, how was the dinner?