Thursday, February 02, 2006

Eating Out: Pad Kee Mao

One of my friends is good enough to take me and another carless friend grocery shopping whenever she goes out. Today after work we hit in quick succession - Meijer (Midwestern version of Walmart without Walmart's bad reputation), the local chain health food store and the "Oriental" grocery store. I bought the usual ersatz assortment of food: roma tomatoes, deli ham, whole wheat tortillas, a mango, soy milk, iceberg lettuce, tofu, lemongrass tofu, lo mein noodles and yellow tofu. My grocery shopping habits are a combination of carefully scrutinizing what's on sale and impulse buying.

After that we headed out to dinner at one of the many Thai restaurants in town. After Chinese there are more Thai restaurants in town than any other Asian cuisine. Had pad kee mao with chicken which I requested extra spicy. This restaurant (like so many other Thai restaurants in the US) tends to make dishes sweet and spicy is never spicy enough for me. Today it was finally spicy!

Amazingly enough the best Thai restaurant I have eaten in is in Columbia, SC - Baan Sawan in Five Points. It's owned by a Thai family who takes tremendous care with the food they serve - no dumbed down food or compromises on the spicing. A small herb garden outside the restaurant supplies the flavourful spicing for their carefully presented and served food. Their salads and three-flavour fish are particularly good.

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