Saturday, February 20, 2010

In praise of pad see eu



Pad see eu, gai pad king, larb, tom kha gai....

There's is SO MUCH good food in Thailand, as you can imagine, and it is everywhere. Any time of day or night, there are vendors lining the street selling everything from squid-on-a-stick to sticky rice to fresh smoothies to young coconuts. One of the first words I learned here was khanom (kan-OHM), Thai for "snack." I definitely understand khanom culture, since I definitely thrive on frequent snacks, especially when they are savory little treats like this. And especially when most street or small restaurant meals cost about 25 bhat, which is approximately 80 cents. Four of us can order enough amazing food to stuff ourselves silly for under $6. It will be hard to go back to my home country where a good Thai meal costs upwards of $20 for one person.

Also, Thailand is definitely like a little taste of heaven regarding my gluten-free diet, you can imagine how awesome it is for me to be able to eat everything on the menu because 98% of the food here is based on rice.

One of my new favorites is pad see eu, a dish made of wide rice noodles, stir-fried with greens and eggs and (optional) chicken, in a not-very-spicy sauce. I found a noodle stand on the street in the old city, and here is my pad see eu dinner being made:



Are you hungry yet? And here's a story to make my sister laugh (hi Tammy, I know you're reading!). Earlier this week I was eating some tasty leftovers, a spicy green papaya salad, and I chomped right into a very hot green pepper doing a very good green bean impression...my mouth hurt for an hour!

2 comments:

Gary's third pottery blog said...

oh MAN I wish I was standing at this stall getting some of that :)

BSOB said...

Yo - ghet mee sum of dhat! looks great! find any good recipes over there? more specifically, any that you might try at your place? And by that i mean can i come by for dinner - some pad see u?