My favorite food cart meal when I was in Portland, was at Nong's Khao Man Gai located in Downtown. The cart was started by a young lady, Nong, from Thailand in order to bring the spirit of Thai street food to Portland. She only makes one dish, which is common with food carts in her native country. That dish is Khao Man Gai, a simple staple dish in Thai cuisine. It is simply a boiled chicken with rice topped with a sauce made of ginger, chilies, garlic and spices.
Nong's is served wrapped in butcher paper with a small cabbage soup side. I ordered mine with additional chicken livers. The dish is incredible and so satisfying. The texture of the chicken was light and moist, the rice was sticky, and the sauce had many nuanced flavors that showered the chicken and rice. The livers were simply poached as well, and they were very good with the gingery sauce. I understand this dish is basically comfort food for Thai folk, and I can see why- it's unforgettable.

SW 10th & Alder St.
Portland, OR
(971)255-3480

I went to the Songkran, Thai New Year, Festival held at the Wat Thai temple in Silver Spring, MD this past Sunday. There were dozens of food stands serving different Thai dishes, and even though I arrived as soon as the festival opened, it was already crowded.
Since it was my first trip to this event, I decided to head to the food stand with the longest line first. I made a good choice because it led to my favorite taste of the day, a version of the floating market noodle soup. When I made it to the front, I could see a pile of roast pork as well as other pig parts. They asked me if I wanted everything, and I said, "yes, please".
I received a bowl of dark broth loaded with meat, a soy egg, and rice noodles that were square and came in small rolls. This was topped with cilantro & ginger. At a side table, they told me to add some fish sauce, a spicy vinegary sauce and chili powder. The resulting flavor was sweet and savory, and as I ate, it became more and more spicy.

For our last girls day, petiteseour had made reservations to eat at Kin Shop, Top Chef winner Harold Dieterle's new Thai restaurant. Then she unfortunately didn't feel well when dinnertime rolled around...

So it was up to me to try as much as I could without overdoing it. I started with the fried oyster and crispy pork salad. The oysters were huge, fat, and juicy, the pork indeed crispy, and the sauce was bright, acidic, just perfect with the fatty meats. Instead of greens for the salad, it was celery, which I usually don't like raw, but it worked in this dish.

The most that petiteseour could stomach was sauteed aquatic greens and jasmine rice. Excellent rice - which is not an easy feat.

Then my main course was off the list of specials -- Chiang Mai sausage and duck egg over congee with shallots and basil. The sausage was fragrant - a very different flavor than I was expecting - not quite Asian, not quite European... My main problem with this dish was that the egg was almost raw. I like my yolks runny, but my whites - not so much... I'm not sure if it was meant to be this way, but more than just being put off a little by the sliminess, I also think it made the congee cool down faster.

Still, I think it's worth a return trip with more people to try some of the housemade curries, noodles, etc. Oh, and we did see Harold there...

Kin Shop
469 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(212) 675-4295

On our last shopping and eating day, petiteseour and I had a day that was light on the shopping, but excellent on the eating!

We had lunch at Torrisi Italian Specialties where we very happily shared the house-roasted turkey sandwich (to die for - so moist and flavorful, piled high with a wonderful dressing, shredded lettuce, thinly sliced red onion and tomatoes), delicious chicken parm hero, and a variety of sides - broccoli rabe, brussels sprouts, and sweet and sour eggplant relish, which was delicious on bread. Unfortunately we had just missed the eggplant parm - which sold out just a few people ahead of us in line. Also, unfortunately, no pictures - super crowded squeeze and we were just too hungry! We will be back though to try the lasagna, house-made mozzarella and ricotta, and that wonderful-looking eggplant parm!

Next was a stop at old standby Il Laboratorio del Gelato where petiteseour and Anthony went with daring flavors like tarragon pink peppercorn, and basil, while I stuck with delicious fruit flavors of lychee and concord grape. Then off to buy beautiful macaroons at bisous ciao to give as gifts, with a pit stop for coffee and a couple of Robicelli cupcakes at Cake Shop. After visiting our friend and dropping off said gift of macaroons, another tea break at the Limelight Marketplace where I discovered the wonder that is Bacon Marmalade. So good I'm headed back this weekend to pick up more jars as holiday gifts!

But on to the final round - dinner at Pure Thai Shophouse. Being a regular at Recipe and a fan of Land Thai Kitchen, Petiteseour really wanted to try David and Vanita Bank's newest venture - a noodle house in Hell's Kitchen.

We started with the Crispy Shrimp Sesame Crepe - which was not what I was expecting at all, but was really delicious. My only complaint may be that I didn't get much shrimp flavor, though the kaffir lime curd on top was tasty. The actual slices of lime though were a little jarring at times, when you got one on its own. All together though, it was a really interesting dish and one I would definitely order again.

But the main star of this place is the homemade noodles. We got the house specialty Ratchaburi Crab and Pork Dry Noodles along with add-ons of pork cracklings and a sunny side up egg. The egg was a great addition - just gave a little bit of extra moisture to the tie everything together. The noodles were satisfingly firm. The roast pork was the color of Chinese char-siu, but much milder - a nice surprise for my Chinese palate - and the yu choy added a nice bit of crunch and bitterness. We finished the meal with some fruity drinks - chrysanthemum for me and roselle (a bit like cranberry) for petiteseour.

Pure Thai Shophouse
766 Ninth Avenue (bet. 51st and 52nd)
New York, NY
(212) 581-0999

My friend Nick recently organized a dinner at Little Spice in Hanover, MD that focused on Southern Style Thai cuisine. The chef-owner's mother came from that region of the country, and she was excited to make a few specialties from South Thailand.
We started with a set of appetizers. First, we had crispy rice cakes served with a warm shrimp dipping sauce. I've had a version of this dish with pork before. This shrimp version was also very tasty.
Our second appetizer was fish cakes, or Tod Mon, served with crispy Thai basil. We used a sweet chili sauce on top of the bite size cakes.

We followed a generous set of entrees. We had Gang Garee, a Thai yellow coconut curry, with chicken and potatoes. It was like Thai "comfort food" in that it was rich, warm and just pleasant to eat.
My favorite dish was crispy stir fried catfish with curry paste and fried basil leaves.

There are several restaurants that I love going back to again and again to try out new items on the menu, so even though we have posted on these places in the past, I wanted to provide some updates.
One of the true great discoveries in the past few years is Grace Garden in Odenton, MD. Chef Li's place has now been rated the Best Chinese restaurant 2 years in a row in the local City Paper, and just recently, he updated his menu to include some items he's made for special dinners only.
I last had the Szechuan Dan Dan Noodles, a dish with warm noodles with sweet sesame sauce, but then covered with Szechuan spicy pork and veggies.
The Phoenix Purse is an item Chef Li often made for Chinese New Year, but it's now on his permanent menu. It is a delicate dumpling that uses a thin sheet of egg white for the skin, filled with chicken and vegetables in chicken broth.
He's also added pork chops to the menu, including the savory salt and pepper pork chop. I'm going to need to get back to try several new seafood items including conch and Cantonese seafood treasures with shark fin, shrimp, & scallops.


After a couple more visits to Columbia, MD's Bangkok Garden, I've found a few more items on the menu that I just love.
The first is Pla Muk Pad Kra Pow, or squid cooked in spicy Thai basil. My favorite item is Yam Makheua Yao, a salad of warm smokey Chinese eggplant with shrimp. It is particularly good to eat on a warm summer day.



Yet another spectacular dish at Catonsville's Hunan Taste is their fish head with red chili peppers. It is a 1/2 head of large fish, so you get to have parts of the cheek, the collar and some of the neck- all the best bits.



I feel so lucky that the Bluegrass Tavern is walking distance from my place, and I surely take advantage of that. Chef Patrick Morrow continues to change up the menu weekly with local, seasonal items that respect the nose to tail ideology.
He's started making taco trios which include items like beef heart, pork cheek and tongue. One week, I tried a wonderful venison heart tartare for an appetizer.
One of the most impresssive dishes is his fried chicken. In the spirit of Airline chicken, his fried chicken is completely deboned, the white meat is wrapped by the dark meat, and the whole cut is fried, and served cut into 4 large slices. The result is meat that remains juicy and delicious with a wonderfully crispy skin. The feat is just awesome.


Grace Garden
1690 Annapolis Road
Odenton, MD
(410) 672-3581

Bangkok Garden
5810 Robert Oliver Place
Columbia, MD
(410) 992-9553

Hunan Taste
718 N Rolling Rd
Catonsville, MD
(410) 788-8988‎

Bluegrass Tavern
1500 South Hanover Street
Baltimore, MD‎
(410) 244-5101‎

I've been meaning to visit Bangkok Garden in Columbia, MD since friends reported that the restaurant has a Thai language menu available to try. Equipped with a makeshift photocopy of an approximate translation of the menu, we dropped in last weekend for lunch.
We started with their papaya salad. However, instead of the usual dried shrimp, we got a version that used padaek, or raw brined blue crab. The flavor was fresh, salty, spicy and very good.
Our second dish was a crudite dish with a dip called Naam Prik Gapi which was a sweet and very spicy shrimp paste. We dipped veggies like baby corn, thai eggplant, bamboo shoots, cucumber, and broccoli, and we got a small whole grilled fish to eat with the dip as well.

We have a severe lack of good Thai food in our area, so I was happy to go try Thai Tida in Lambertville. We only got to try a couple of dishes, but they were intriguing enough to warrant a repeat visit to try some more standbys.

We started off with a bunch of appetizers - chicken satay, spring rolls, and these stuffed chicken wings in which the wings were deboned, the meat removed, minced, and mixed with spices, then restuffed into the wing under the skin. You gotta love how the Asians "play" with meat.

I ordered my entree from the section of the menu subtitled, "Family favorites, requests from friends: dishes we can recommend for your kind consideration" -- Hoi Ob Song Kruang, steamed mussels with Thai herbs, with curry on the side for dipping. The broth was delicious and full of Thai basil flavor. Redneckhunter got a perennial favorite - drunken noodles (Pad Kee Miow Gai). This of course was not nearly as good as Sripraphai, but redneckhunter still enjoyed it. I want to go back again and try some other favorites -- larb, green papaya salad.

Since it was our friend's birthday, the restaurant brought out coconut pudding and sweet sticky rice with coconut milk for her.

Thai Tida
236 North Union Street
Lambertville, NJ 08540
ph: 609-397-6701

Been reading recently about a dish called the Floating Market noodle soup, so I found a place called Nava Thai in Silver Spring, MD to try it.
The restaurant is modest, in a small parking lot shared with a Thai grocery, but inside the food was incredible.
The floating market noodle soup had the highest spice rating on the menu, 3 lightning bolts. The waitress even cautioned us on the level of spice, but we elected to pull no punches.