Awards season

We just ordered our Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine "Best of" award and will link to this year's Best Restaurants issue as soon as those links go up. MSP Magazine has always been very good to True Thai, and I know a lot of our regulars either subscribe or get their copy in the checkout lane at the grocery store every month.

The awards are nice, but the best part is knowing that our regular customers keep voting for us year after year after year. Thanks to you, True Thai has helped to raise the bar for Thai food in the Twin Cities.

Meanwhile, until I have a better link for MSP's award, you can always vote for True Thai online at City Pages' annual Best of Poll. Lots of stuff to vote for and I'd love to see us do better in the Best Takeout, Best Cheap Eats, and Best Place for a First Date categories! I know my easiest vote this year was for Best Villain, but I probably shouldn't say anything more about that.

Thank you again to Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, and to all of you, our loyal fans!

High priced Thai

I always mention lime leaves when I talk about some of the expensive ingredients we use at True Thai, but I don't think I've ever talked about our second-most expensive ingredient: Shiitake mushrooms.

As of this morning, dried Shiitake mushrooms are selling for $8 a pound wholesale in the Twin Cities. Thai eggplant might go for more than that at the moment, but only if you can find them (we can't). Baby Indian eggplant is a good substitute, but purple eggplant doesn't look the same as crunchy green Thai eggplants.

The good news is that thanks to all the Thai and SE Asian restaurants, it's easier than ever to buy hard-to-find ingredients here in Minnesota. And good oranges are finally back. Not just big Florida oranges — blood oranges are in season right now. Expensive, but if you buy them by the case (Seward Coop is our connection) you don't have to pay a dollar apiece for them.