Squid Eggs on a Stick!

It's State Fair time here in Minnesota! Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the "the great Minnesota get-together":

The Minnesota State Fair...may be the largest state fair in the United States in terms of average daily attendance....Residents of the state and region come to the fair to be entertained, exhibit their best livestock, show off their abilities in a variety of fields including art and cooking, learn about new products and services, and enjoy many different types of food—often on a stick.

All I know is that satay is the original food on a stick, and that it was invented by the Javanese in the early 19th Century, well before there was a Minnesota State Fair. I do not know the exact year, but I do know that the year after the Javanese invented satay, the Thai were serving satay and our satay was better because we served it with peanut sauce! Also ours was made with pork and chicken, unlike the Javanese who used mutton. Mutton on a stick tastes as bad as it sounds. You could dip it in chocolate and wrap it in bacon but you still could not sell it on the Midway except maybe to tourists from Iowa or Wisconsin.

Chicken and pork are not the only Thai foods you can buy on a stick, although they are the only ones you can buy at True Thai. In Thailand, food I have eaten on a stick includes squid, squid tentacles, insects, jellyfish, quail eggs, and every part of a water buffalo including spleen, kidney and testicles.

I have also had chicken eggs on a stick and they are very tasty. Maybe someday we will add them to True Thai's menu. Thai Food & Travel Blog has a picture of many other kinds of Thai food on a stick, none of which have been dipped in chocolate or molested by bacon. But who needs chocolate when you can have your pick of hot dogs, fish balls, sausage, pork wontons or squid eggs on a stick!

Mmmm, squid eggs on a stick — I am getting hungry just thinking about them.

I was happy to discover that Minnesotans approve of food on a stick. When Anna was little, her mom got her to try new foods by putting them on a stick. If it was on a stick, little Anna would eat it. Little Anna was a very active child and as any Fair goer can tell you, food on a stick is the very best food for when you are eating and moving at the same time.

As good as Thai food on a stick is, it is considered to be street vendor food and not restaurant food, and that is why True Thai sells only chicken and pork satay on a stick (#6 on our menu).


Delicious with peanut or cucumber sauce.

The Land of 10,000 Smiles!

Did you know that Hubert Humphrey visited Thailand? This picture is based on a famous photo of Hubert Humphrey when he visited a refugee camp not far from my home. Well, maybe more famous in Thailand than it is here in Minnesota.

Famous people eat at True Thai but you will never see their pictures on our walls or in this blog. Thai hospitality is based on the belief that every customer should be treated like a V.I.P. We also believe that truly famous people deserve respect, and should be allowed to enjoy their meal in peace and privacy.

Thanks to the internet anyone can be a restaurant critic and I try to read every comment and online review written about True Thai. Most of you are very complimentary and I thank you for that (ขอบคุณ)! But sometimes you don't like the food and I immediately try to figure out what went wrong, if maybe one of the cooks is not making a dish the correct way, or a wait person is not taking orders accurately. Criticism is very important to a restaurant because even True Thai is not perfect and we are always trying to do better.

But sometimes I read that someone came to True Thai and received bad service. When I read that I just want to die. Rude or bad service is unforgivable to Thai people. We take great pride in our hospitality and believe that no meal is satisfactory if the service is anything less than excellent.

Please do not hesitate to tell me personally if you receive poor service. I am as loyal to my employees as I am to my customers, but in Thailand customers always come first!

Hubert Humphrey was famous for smiling. Had he not been a world famous statesman I think he could have been a great Thai waiter!

Happy National Lemonade Day!

What could possibly taste better on a hot muggy day than a tall glass of cold lemonade? No wonder August 20th has been designated National Lemonade Day. I am excited to promote this day of recognition because little Anna's first money making enterprise was — you guessed it! — a lemonade stand!

OK, technically it was a limeade stand, there being no lemonade stands in Thailand. But, like in America, Thailand has churches, and churches have youth retreats, and Thai moms tell their kids that they have to earn their own money if they want to go to camp. Ten-year-old Anna wanted very much to go on retreat and was determined to earn the money to do so.

To this day my cousin Vanna is one of my favorite people in the whole world because it was she who suggested a "lemonade" stand to me. More important, she gave me the recipe for great limeade (limes, water, sugar, ice and a special secret ingredient). Cousin Vanna told me to wear my cutest outfits and to smile at all the passers-by, especially the ones who looked hot and thirsty. That proved to be a very good marketing strategy.

Little Anna was not the only Thai kid with a limeade stand but mine was closest to the Cathedral and there was a lot of foot traffic on our street. In no time at all little Anna was selling fifty to one hundred glasses of limeade a day. My sister the nun was very impressed and told me I was making as much money as a school teacher. That made me very proud and even more determined to sell even more limeade.

Everything else was just like it was here in America. Mom let me put an old table and a chair in our front yard and I made a big big sign that said LIMEADE ONLY 20 BAHT. Our neighborhood was sort of like a big marketplace already so it was always full of shoppers and people passing through.

Each morning I would go to our fruit farm and I would pick one hundred limes for that day's limeade. My mom taught me how to pick the very best limes because the best limeade is made from the best limes. I was learning to make money but like all little kids my limeade stand was subsidized by my mom who let me use one of her pitchers, some glasses and sugar from the family sugar canister. It also didn't hurt that she did not charge me for the limes!

One difference from an American lemonade stand was that back then Thai people did not make ice cubes in their refrigerators like Americans do. We had an icebox and bought blocks of ice from the ice vendors who came by every morning. A big block of ice was cheaper and lasted longer. One big block would be enough ice for an entire day's limeade sales. All day long little Anna would hit the block of ice with her ice hammer — tap, tap, tap — breaking off ice to put in the glasses of limeade.

Little Anna ran her limeade stand for every day for two weeks and sold over 1,000 glasses of limeade, making enough money to go on retreat with my classmates. As with most things you eat or drink, the secret ingredient cousin Vanna shared with me was . . . salt.

But the most important thing was that my mom and my cousin Vanna loved me and taught me that you could make money selling people what they want. On a hot humid day in Thailand people are thirsty and little Anna sold them what they wanted: a big glass of limeade served by a little kid with a big smile.

We can do it!

Some time ago I wrote about True Thai and frugal dining. As a public health nurse working with lower income clients, I appreciate that times are very hard for some, and not easy for hardly anyone. Increasingly, eating out is a luxury and not just a treat.

But True Thai keeps doing good business. Why? I think you already know why. True Thai is very affordable. Yet our costs are the same as those of other Thai restaurants, and in some cases even higher because of our insistence on authentic ingredients. So how does True Thai stay in business?

We stay in business because of you, our customers. Because of your loyalty we don't have to spend money on marketing or advertising. Instead of running ads in City Pages, I post to this blog. Instead of 4-color ads in glossy magazines, I tweet. Instead of trying to sell you an extra beer or upgrade you from a glass to a bottle of wine, we encourage you to economize so you can visit us more often.

Whether you knew it or not, you're part of the True Thai family, and being part of a family means you have privileges. You can order your food the way you like it, not the way some restaurant critic insisted was correct. We don't have any ketchup on hand, but if you bring in your own, we won't stop you from using it.

True Thai is your restaurant and my refuge. When I go to True Thai each night, it's like going home to Thailand. As a Thai American, I thank you for sharing my dream of introducing Minnesota to quality Thai food. And, as a public health nurse, I thank you for making the decision to eat healthy food prepared in the Thai style.

Together we can beat this recession!

New Queen of All Curries!

How do you like the new Queen of All Curries photo? Sonali at Rich Photos has taken some wonderful photos of me in the most beautiful costumes. This dress is from the Tang Dynasty and it was even more gorgeous in person than it is in this photo.

If you know your Asian history, you know that the Tang Dynasty was the most famous of all Chinese dynasties and lasted almost three hundred years. During that time the Chinese invented gunpowder and printing but they did not invent curry so maybe it is a little silly that I am using this for my new Queen of All Curries picture but this dress is so fabulous that I cannot resist.

If you are a faithful reader of Anna's True Thai News, you may remember that I wrote about the Queen of all Curries last May, but if you are new to this blog you may not know that I am speaking about Green Curry. How good is True Thai Green Curry? It's one of our most popular dishes. Some of our customers find it so addictive they order nothing else.

Does it make sense to wear a Chinese dress while talking about Thai curry? Why not? This is America and these things happen. And here in Minnesota you can do things you would not or could not do in Thailand. You could eat at every restaurant in Thailand from Phuket to Chiang Mai and you would not find anyone who serves Wok-fried Green Chilis & Fresh Sweet Basil with Walleye. (#38 on our menu).

True Thai tongue-twisters

Most people who understand the restaurant business know that it is not an easy way to make a living, but I don't think they appreciate how much harder it is to run True Thai than it is your average restaurant.

At True Thai our staff have conspired to have very confusing names. Over the years our employees have been named Na, Nok and Nuk; Pupe, Paul, Por, Ped, Phet, Phut and Pum; Leanne, Annaliese, Anna and Annie; Vanna and Vanny; Manuel, Mel, Mim, Map, Muk, Myamon, Mayu, Maya and Maria; Anousone, Sone, Sonh, Saw and Somo; Tien, Tun, Tui, Toi, Goi and Joy!

Try to repeat that payroll list three times quickly!



As True Thai continues to grow, I'm sure we'll hire some more employees with names that rhyme (Yada, Golf and Third all need to get rhymed), but sadly I doubt we will find any rhymes or alliterations (สัมผัสอักษร) for Szavio, Chaniga, Boutsady, Souksavanh, Rungravee, or Pollop!

Mom! Mom! There's a crocodile in our living room!

This is a fake crocodile from this guy's website, but it's a good illustration of what happened to me when I was seven years old and I woke up one morning to discover a fully grown crocodile in our living room!

It was a morning like any other morning during rainy season. Koon Tong woke me up (Anna Anna Wake Up Anna!) and I went downstairs, half asleep, to have breakfast. Except I found the ground floor of our house was full of water!

During the night a dam in northern Chanthaburi had burst and half the province was flooded. Our house had never been flooded before and I could not figure out why there was a foot of water everywhere. I was standing in the water looking around when I looked down and I saw next to my feet a tail. A big tail. A big tail attached to a big crocodile.

I retreated back up the stairs and yelled, "Mom! Mom! There's a crocodile in our living room!" My mom came down and we stood there on the stairs watching the crocodile in our living room. He eventually left but then we heard on the radio that the Chamsom Crocodile Farm and Zoo had been hit by the floodwaters and that there were hundreds of crocodiles loose in Chanthaburi.

For three days we lived like prisoners in the upper part of our house, eating dried beef (#16) while we waited for the flood waters to recede. While we waited, we listened to the radio for news that the crocodile infestation was under control.

It was almost Christmas so I will save the rest of this story for December, but seeing that picture on Flickr reminded me of the time Little Anna met a crocodile.

Thank you Heavy Table!

I LOVE HEAVY TABLE AND SUSAN PAGANI!!!

Be sure to read Susan's profile of me. Wow! I've never felt so famous!

I was very nervous about this because I've never been profiled before. We've had many, many great restaurant reviews, but that was always more about the food. Heavy Table's "In Their Own Words" articles are more about the person and less about the food.

Thank you thank you thank you Susan for your kind words and the respect you showed to my family and Thai culture.

And thank you to my wait staff and kitchen staff for working so hard to keep up with all the customers who will be coming in tonight and this weekend to check us out.

Congee

Sorry about the lack of posting but I've been under the weather lately. When I don't feel well, I have the kitchen make me congee, Asia's answer to chicken noodle soup.

Although it has been served in our buffet, congee is not on True Thai's menu. If, however, you are not feeling well, we can make you some to take home with you. Like chicken noodle soup, congee is best eaten at home in your pajamas in an easy chair in front of the TV.

Thai congee is rice soup with with egg and minced beef, pork or seafood, topped with garlic, ginger and onions. I was taught that the name congee itself is the Chinese word for rice soup, but Wikipedia thinks it is Tamil. In Thailand we call it Kao Tom or Jok (โจ๊ก). But, as with chicken noodle soup here, Kao Tom is best when it's made by your mom.

My mom's Kao Tom saw me through the measles, chicken pox, Bangkok flu, and countless colds and fevers. With the exception of Bangkok flu, I'm sure you can say the same for your mom's chicken noodle soup.

Unlike chicken noodle soup, many Asians eat congee for breakfast. It is on the menu in most Chinese restaurants but if you ask, you can get it at almost any Asian restaurant.

Like a mother's love, congee's good for what ails you.

How the tamarind tree saved Little Anna's life

When I moved to the United States I was surprised to discover that no one I met had ever heard of the tamarind tree, or tamarind fruit. I was shocked because tamarind trees are everywhere in Thailand, and play an important role in our culture and cuisine. In fact, it was a tamarind tree that saved little Anna's life.

Phetchabun province is located in the very middle of Thailand. Its official provincial tree is the tamarind but I'm surprised tamarinds are not the official tree of all Thailand. My family home in Chanthaburi has a tamarind tree in the front yard, as do many Thai homes. As you can see from the picture above, fully grown tamarind trees put the mighty English oak to shame.

OK, OK, you are thinking, get to the part about how the tree saved little Anna's life! I remember everything very clearly. It was the dry season and six-year-old Anna was running around in her yard playing when she saw a dog approaching her. The dog didn't look right. It was walking stiff legged and it seemed to be very angry. Little Anna was scared and began running. The dog ran after her, stiff legs sticking out all over the place.

I still remember how scared I was, and how relieved I was to reach the tamarind tree in a neighbor's yard. I climbed up it as fast as I could. Catching my breath I watched as the dog circled the tree. After a while my neighbors saw the dog and chased it away. My mom told me the dog was rabid and that I was lucky I didn't get bitten.

For that reason alone I really like tamarind trees. But even if a tamarind tree had not saved little Anna's life, I would still like them because they are an important part of my favorite Thai foods. Pad Thai would not be Pad Thai (#53) without tamarind. Likewise our Chili-Tamarind Stir Fry (#45) or Chili-Tamarind Fried Rice (#59).

I have told you many times that Thai food tries to be sweet and spicy and sour and salty all at the same time. Tamarind provides much of the sour. There is, however, another kind of tamarind that is sweet, and it is used in candy.
This has been your Thai food lesson for today.

The case of the missing fish sauce

No, this is not a story about fish sauce disappearing from True Thai's storerooms. This is a story about how it came to pass that Europeans stopped eating fish sauce, which is why you can only get fish sauce from Asia now.

If you go to Wikipedia, they tell you this about fish sauce:

Fish sauce is a condiment that is derived from fish that have been allowed to ferment. It is an essential ingredient in many curries and sauces. Fish sauce is a staple ingredient in Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, and Filipino cuisine and is used in other Southeast Asian countries.

But if you scroll down, you will find the story of European style fish sauce.

A similar fish sauce was ubiquitous in Classical Roman cooking, where in Latin it is known as garum or liquamen.... It was made of a variety of fish including tuna, mackerel, moray eel, and anchovies. This attitude derives in part from ancient authors who satirized the condiment, but mostly from the fact that fish sauce was generally unknown in the Western world until very recently. The truth is quite different, and in fact garum only smelled when it was being made. Once the process was complete it had a pleasant aroma for as long as it was usable.

In English it was formerly translated as fishpickle. The original Worcestershire sauce is a related product because it is fermented and contains anchovies.

I bet you did not know that Worcestershire sauce was a variation of fish sauce!

The ancient authors were not kidding when they said fish sauce smells bad when you make it. The area between my part of Chanthaburi and Bangkok has many businesses that make fish sauce. If you have air conditioning in your car, you roll your windows up when you drive by a fish sauce processor. Once the fish sauce is ready to eat, it loses that smell.

It's too bad Europeans gave up on such a healthy condiment just because it smells bad when you make it. That's better, I think, than if it smelled bad when you eat it. At True Thai, we like Squid brand fish sauce.

But there is another point to this story. I am reminding you of how much Asians love fish sauce because I want True Thai's vegetarian customers to remember to tell us that they are vegetarians. If you do, we'll be sure to help you with your order. Many appetizers come with fish sauce or a fish sauce based dipping sauce, but we can substitute that if you like.

A secret most Americans don't know

I cannot believe this. I've had three customers come in over the past two weeks to tell me about this "incredible" YouTube video that taught them the proper way to peel a banana.

Believe me, I already know how to peel a banana. In fact, in Thailand, before I moved to this country, I attended an orientation class and one of the things they warned us about was that "Americans do not know how to peel bananas." I was told it was impolite to correct Americans and so I have never told anyone here the right way to peel a banana. Except once, and that was a mistake.

I taught a friend and his family how to peel a banana, but when I told them the rest of the orientation story they got mad. The orientation teacher told us, yeah, in Thailand even monkeys know how to peel a banana but the Americans can't figure it out!

I think they forgave me but I didn't see them eat many bananas after that. If you would like to peel bananas the Thai way (the correct way — the way monkeys do it), watch this video.

You can thank me the next time you eat at True Thai. (The picture, by the way, shows a banana that's been peeled from the wrong end.)