Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
We begin the series with Daphne Domingo’s yearning for authentic Thai taste.
Admit it: there’s a certain “cool factor” dining in a restaurant knowing there are special items you can order that aren’t on the menu. What if you knew of an entire menu hidden from regular customers? This isn’t a novel marketing trick. In fact, this practice is typical in the more authentic Asian restaurants.
Growing up in San Francisco, I would sometimes receive a Cantonese language menu when dining at Chinatown restaurants. I initially thought the waiters didn’t think we read English, and I had no idea that there were tasty gems listed right in front of my eyes. It wasn’t until I was well into my professional career and having dinner with colleagues, one of who happened to be Chinese, that I realized hidden menu options existed. Jamie had been telling us of a place in Chinatown that served a roasted chicken stuffed with sticky rice. We all thought this sounded bizarrely genius, and we had to make our way to the restaurant and try it out.
We received both English and Cantonese menus and asked Jamie to translate. While there were some items that caused even my experimental taste buds to hesitate, Jamie pointed to an item that he got really excited about. He told the waiter that he ordered it ahead of time (24 hours, due to the extensive work involved and time to cook). A few minutes later, our dishes arrived, including a chicken with its crispy skin masterfully glazed with a hint of hoisin sauce, cut into perfect portions for the group, and with tasty sticky rice stuffed inside.
Chinese restaurants aren’t the only ones to keep such authentic dishes for native language speakers. Some Thai restaurants, like Bangkok Garden in Bethesda, keep a special Thai language menu available only upon request. While the restaurant is already revered for serving some of the most authentic Thai food in the DC Metropolitan area, the items on their Thai menu take it to a new level.
At the restaurant, I requested a Thai language menu and received a one-page bill of fare completely written in Thai. Sadly, it wasn’t a language I’m versed in, but I was able to translate with the help of the Internet. There is a translated menu (http://media.sfweekly.com/5093138.0.pdf) available thanks to SF Weekly (http://www.sfweekly.com/). While the menu is for a restaurant located in San Francisco, the dishes are similar. I asked the waitress here if she had a couple of the dishes that intrigued me, and she said they did, while pointing to the Thai menu.
First came the Kai Jiao Muu Sap, an omelet stuffed with minced pork, beautifully presented with slices of tomato and cucumber and topped with fresh sprigs of cilantro. The style of the omelet was done differently than the French strive for. Instead of a bright color and soft and creamy texture throughout, this Thai omelet was well done, almost crispy, on the outside, yet still fluffy on the inside. Quite frankly, I like the Thai version better. Inside the pretty package was a filling of ground pork, peas, diced potatoes and other vegetables simmered with a red chili sauce.
It was absolutely beautiful to look at and delightful to taste. It had all the salty, sweet, spicy, herby and fragrant components I love about Thai cuisine. The texture was comforting, especially with its meatiness and its heat. The dish was served with a side of jasmine rice that nicely complemented the sauciness of the filling. The fact this dish is not served on a typical English menu boggles my mind because I would order it almost every time.
The next dish was khao phad kha-na plaa khem, fried rice with salted fish and Chinese broccoli. This dish reminded me why certain things wouldn’t be on a typical American-style menu. You have to really like pungent food in order to like it, which, happily, I do. It was a lot like my stand-by lunch dish at San Francisco’s famous R & G Lounge in Chinatown, the salted fish and chicken fried rice, but the fish at Bangkok Garden was far chunkier and potent than I was used to. After putting a few of the larger chunks aside, I could barely stop eating the dish.
It perplexed me why some of these wonderful dishes would not be made readily available to the general public, so I asked owner Amnat Laohapant, who goes by “Ricky,” why this is. He has been in the restaurant business for 40 years , and opened Thai Room, DC’s first Thai restaurant. Laohapant said customers would sometimes complain about the food, primarily its spiciness. Over the last few years, however, many customers have been ordering from the Thai language menu, requiring assistance with translation, and resulting in rave accolades. Laohapant is now working on a translated menu and he shared a draft with me.
While there are a couple of dishes that I would first only want to try a taste of, like Kaeng Tai Pla (dark yellow curry with fish kidney) and yam chawp kradung(honeycomb tripe salad), there are several I can’t wait to return to try, such asmuu yang (grilled pork on skewer served with sticky rice and spicy sweet sauce),kaeng phet pet yang (red curry duck) and phat phrik khing muu krawp (chili and ginger stir-fry with crispy pork). Other customers also enthused over the fish cakes, which Bangkok Garden makes fresh to order, not frozen.
Bangkok Garden is located at 4906 St. Elmo Avenue, Bethesda, MD. For information, visit their website at http://www.bkkgarden.com/.
