Food and I.Q.

A new study finds that children who eat diets high in processed food (junk food) have lower I.Q.s. I am not surprised.

My family always believed there was a connection between intelligence and the food you eat. I have written about My Mother's Salmon before, so maybe you already know that when I was little, my Mom fed me salmon for breakfast on days when I had to take a test.

Very few ingredients used at True Thai are processed. I have not done a formal study, but I have noticed that the children who come here to eat on a regular basis seem to be very bright kids. I also think our adult customers are smarter than average, but maybe I am wrong about that.

In years past, True Thai has always had a good crowd on Super Bowl Sundays. I attributed this to our not having any TVs at the restaurant. I cannot say that any more. Last Sunday night it seemed as if there was one person at every table who was watching the game on their phone. I do not think there is enough salmon in the world to help these people.

Please do not think that I dislike all sports. If a Muay Thai boxing tournament is ever held in the Twin Cities, you will not find me at the restaurant watching on my phone. I will be sitting in the front row cheering.

And maybe eating some salmon.

Eating your way through the menu

A friend sent me a link to an incredible story about JoAnn Stougaard, a blogger who is eating her way through the menu at a Thai restaurant in Los Angeles.

Today, Stougaard will eat her 148th, 149th and 150th dishes from among the restaurant's about 300 mostly southern Thai specialties — the halfway point toward her goal of working her way through the entire menu, curry by curry, pad see ew by pad Thai, miang khun shrimp by yala tiger prawn.

"I'm tying my hair back to get ready," she says, getting down to business. She pulls out her trusty Leica D-Lux 4 camera, which she has used to document via Flickr every Jitlada dish she has eaten, and takes a photo of the plate in front of her — deep-fried soft-shell crab in a dry curry with pumpkin. "OK, let's eat."

Stougaard, an infectiously perky 46-year-old with a white-bright smile, doesn't have to ask before a server brings to the table her preferred beverage — Singha beer. When she wants an extra glass of water, she dashes to the waiters' station and pours it herself. And when customers walk in but the harried staff is too busy to notice, Stougaard will get up, seat them at a table and start recommending dishes.

Wow, I wish True Thai had more customers like Stougaard, although I'm not sure I like the idea of customers bussing their own tables and seating other customers!

I was also impressed that the Jitlada Restaurant has 300 items on their menu, so I tried to find an online copy of it. Their website was not helpful (score 1 for True Thai!), and Menupages.com's Jitlada menu only showed less than 120 dishes. True Thai's menu has 80 items on it, so 120 did not sound like too many to me.

That got me to thinking, maybe they count Chicken Satay as one dish, and Pork Satay as another? If you approach True Thai's menu that way, we have 300 dishes you can order!

But my friend did some more online detective work and found Jitlada's actual online menu. It is a very big menu and they serve some Thai dishes I have never eaten except in Thailand. True, Los Angeles is much closer to Thailand than Minneapolis is, and I'm sure it helps that there are more Thai in L.A. than the rest of the U.S. put together. It also helps that it's warm in southern California. Their farmers can grow things Minnesotans can only grow in heated greenhouses.

How many different True Thai menu items have you ordered? And no, we do not serve kaeng phuung plaa kun sap (fish kidney curry), but if you ask nicely, we will make some special just for you.

Happy New Year's!

2010 was the Year of the Metal Tiger

True Thai Restaurant will be open on New Year's Eve, but we will be closed on New Year's Day. The Western calendar's New Year's Day, that is. Not everyone celebrates the New Year on the same day.

It used to be that you had to be an Asian astrologer to figure out which day was Thai New Year's, also known as Songkran, but now Songkran (สงกรานต์) always falls on April 13-15. In Burma they call this celebration Thingyan, in Lao it is Songkan, and in Khmer (Cambodian) it is called Chaul Chnam Thmey. Nepalese New Year's fall on April 12-15. In the Indian state of Assam, they celebrate on April 14-15, which is the same as the Bengali New Year.

Tamil New Year's (Puthandu) comes on January 14, the same day as the Punjabi/Sikh New Year in Punjab.

But it is not just Asians who celebrate different New Year's. Ancient Babylonians celebrated in March, and the Iranians still party in March as do many parts of India. The Coptic Church in Africa celebrates Neyrouz in September.

Did you know that Rosh Hashanah is really the Jewish New Year's? And that it's always in the fall? The Vietnamese (Tét), Koreans (Seollal) and Chinese still vary New Year's from year to year due to their use of a lunar calendar, but the Japanese went Western in 1873.

Fortunately, few other cultures drink on New Year's like Americans do, but with the adoption of the Western calendar by most of the world that is changing. Even Thais have been partying on December 31st since 1941.

But even the British didn't agree on New Year's Day falling on January 1 until 1752, 152 years after Scotland picked that day.

And, if you are Muslim, you already had your New Year's on December 7. I'm also pretty sure you didn't have any alcohol to celebrate Ras as-Sana al-Hijreya.

In any language you like, Happy New Year's!

2011 is the Year of the Metal Rabbit

(the bell is optional)

Closed December 24 & 25

Just a reminder that True Thai Restaurant will be closed all day December 24 and December 25 for Christmas.

Are you looking forward to Christmas? I know I am! Two days off? I think I will spend my vacation time sleeping, eating and reintroducing myself to my cats.

True Thai gift certificates

Yes, it is that time of year again and my sister Mem has been busy making pretty envelopes for our True Thai gift certificates. The certificates are cleverly designed so that the "amount" is left blank, meaning you can spend as little or as much as you like! No matter how much or how little you spend, you get one handmade envelope with each card. We can also mail them out for you if you can give us the name and address of the recipient.

You can even give yourself a gift certificate if you like!

Happy Chanukah

Chanukah is almost over, but I thought I should mention that it is celebrated in Thailand, just as it is in most countries. Monday night there was a giant Menorah lighting at Infinicity Hall in the Siam Paragon in Bangkok featuring "world renowned singer" Gad Elbaz.

Personally, I think this menorah looks very Thai....

Why True Thai does not accept coupons

I see in the newspaper that Groupon is the biggest thing out there right now. Good for them but we do not participate in Groupon's coupon program. They asked, we declined.

In 2011 True Thai will be entering its sixth consecutive year without any menu price increases, even though the price of our ingredients keeps going up. If we started accepting coupons, we would have to raise our menu prices.

As for me personally, sometimes I use coupons for grocery items, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'll use a coupon to try a new product but mostly I use them to get discounts on products I do use. But True Thai is not a grocery store, and we have no trouble getting customers to try new dishes. Salt & Pepper Mussels with two kinds of sauce (plum and hot sauce), for example. It's not on the menu yet but everyone who's tried them has liked them.

Deep-frying mellows the taste of mussels, making them taste more like oysters except maybe with just a little more "oomph."

No, there won't be a coupon for True Thai's Salt & Pepper Mussels appetizer, but that doesn't mean you can't order them.

Think beyond the coupon.

Much to be thankful for

Some people see only negatives. They would look at this last year and say, 'Oh Anna, you are too busy, you have too many jobs and are always running around. And you got mugged — how horrible!' I prefer to be thankful that I am busy, and even more thankful that I survived a mugging.

There is always, always, always something to be thankful for. I am thankful that True Thai is doing well but more than anything else, I am thankful to all of you who sent me a get well card after my mugging. Your cards came at a time when I needed reassurance, and nothing is more reassuring than to learn that you are loved by others.

Six months ago I was writing notes to myself about this year's Thanksgiving post, but they were all about thanking my trainers for the new body they helped me to find locked up inside my old body. Thanks to Carla and others I'm more fit than I was when I came to this country years and years ago.

I cannot say that a mugging is no big deal, but being fit helped me to survive and recover from being beaten by a much larger person. There is more to surviving than just living through bad events, though. I was very depressed immediately after the mugging. Depressed that I had lost so much money, depressed that my fitness didn't make me a match for a mugger, depressed that I was a victim.

Then you started coming in and asking how I was feeling. Many of you left cards for me. More cards came in the mail and then still more cards. A TV station came to the restaurant. More people started reading this blog to get progress reports on my recovery. Altogether I received over 600 get well cards and more bouquets of flowers than I had gotten in my entire life before getting mugged.

Yes, this year Anna has much to be thankful for, but mostly I am thankful to all of you for your support and your love of Thai food. And somewhere I believe that my Mom and Great Grandmother Mai are looking down on all of us and smiling.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I think this is the best holiday of the year, even if it is one I had never heard of before moving to America.

Aaiiieeee!!!

No, not another mugging. I told you about Stitch, the dog who came to visit me. Well, in addition to Stitch, I was also visited by a zombie. This confused former person thinks he is a vampire and is trying to bite my neck!

There is no dress code at True Thai and you can come in wearing anything you like, but whether you are a dog or a zombie or a vampire — you are not allowed to bite the owner!

Anna's new best friend

This is my new best friend Stitch. He comes to see me every week and loves to hang out at the restaurant. His owner swears it's not because we give him free #16 (Bangkok Crispy Sweet Beef) which I think is true because Stitch also likes Thai fortune rolls.

I've been told Stitch gets excited whenever he's driven past True Thai. I like Stitch because he likes me. I'm really glad he likes me. I'm glad because he weighs more than I do!

Green Papayas

We have not been buying many green papayas lately and that makes me suspicious. Thai women eat papaya salad like Americans eat potato salad. Whenever there is a get together one or two people bring the papaya salad, and it's always the same people. Others who volunteer are discouraged from doing so in the future. Papaya salad is serious business!

There are as many ways of making papaya salad as there are ways of making potato salad. There are even more ways of making it wrong. Wrong papaya salad, like bad potato salad, is something to be avoided at all costs.

The correct way of making papaya salad is, of course, the way your mother made it. If your mother did not teach you how to make papaya salad you should probably stick with take out. Papaya salad is not easy to make. In fact, it is the hardest dish to make on True Thai's menu. Which is why I am suspicious.

I am suspicious that maybe our wait staff is not mentioning papaya salad when customers ask for suggestions. They do this as a favor for the kitchen staff who would rather make spring rolls instead of papaya salad.

The truth is papaya salad requires so much time to make I am not sure we really make any money from it, but money is not always the point. Serving good papaya salad is a must for a Thai restaurant. If you do not make good papaya salad, tom yum or pad thai, why would anyone want to come to your restaurant?

The mystery of the curious customers

I am sorry. I know that I have not been posting very much stuff lately but I have a good excuse: I am very busy!

Lately it seems that everyone who visits the restaurant wants to meet the owner. At first it was because of the attention the media paid to my mugging (I am fully recovered and doing fine — thanks for asking). Then, two weeks later, WCCO ran their mugging story, and people starting coming in and asking to see my teeth. They were mostly dentists (I hope).

Now customers ask to see me because of this picture. It is a picture my Flickr fans have seen, but for some reason now that this bit of True Thai history is framed, everyone wants to see me!

No, I am not going to tell you anything else about the picture, but I will say that most of the customers who ask to see me are older. I do not know why that makes a difference, but it does.

The new picture is sitting in the hallway between the old dining room and the new addition in an alcove where a Buddha statue is protecting it. Next time you come to True Thai, be sure to take a look.