Long Beach now has Cambodia Town

There are only a few hundred Thai living in the Twin Cities, so I doubt very much we'll ever have our own business district. Not so in Long Beach where there is now a Cambodia Town. The Los Angeles Times has a nice write up including a picture gallery.

I promise I won't promote Cambodia very often, Thailand and Cambodia having a relationship much like that of Sweden and Norway. Both Thailand and Cambodia think of each other as the junior kingdom. In Cambodia's case that means a history going back to the 3rd Century AD; Thailand traces its development as a nation back to 1238, but archeologists say that people have lived in Thailand for 500,000 years!

There have been numerous wars between Thailand and Cambodia, but now Thailand is home to many Cambodian refugees as a result of their recent troubled history.

As a Thai I am happy to see Cambodians in American earn this recognition, much like the long-established Thai Town in Los Angeles. Southeast Asians may never come to dominate the United States like Germans and Italians have, but we promise keep working to improve the quality of American restaurant food!

Any buffet requests?

I know many of you miss having us post the weekly buffet menu on our website, and I'd like to explain why we no longer do so. Finding and having fresh produce, meat and fish on hand each day isn't always easy, especially when you're fixing Thai food in Minnesota. Our cooks need some flexibility with the buffet menu because we don't always know a week in advance if there will be a shortage of Thai eggplant or kaffir lime leaves for our curries.

As a result, sometimes there were changes in the buffet not on our website. We didn't think this was a big deal but we received many complaints until finally we took down the menu. We still plan our buffet menus in advance, but now that Chef Noi is fixing daily dishes based on available ingredients, it's even harder to guarantee what will be in the buffet each day.

But it bothered me that so many of you wanted to know what we were serving. Then I thought, why not take requests? If there is a standard buffet item you'd like to see on any given day, email me and put BUFFET REQUEST in the subject line. Give me at least a day's notice and I will do my best to honor your request.

Part of Thai culture that I most want to keep alive at True Thai is that we are here to make you, our customers, happy. So if you have plans to visit us for lunch next Tuesday and want to be sure we'll have green curry for your friends to try, just email me by Monday morning and I will do my best.