My 3rd Blogiversary!

I have been told that blogiversary is a word, and this is the third anniversary of my first post at Anna's True Thai News. (Hmm, seems to be very similar to a post I just wrote....)

Coincidentally, it is almost exactly sixteen years to the day since I started working for Ramsey County as a Public Health Nurse (PHN). While I am glad that True Thai Restaurant makes our diners happy, I feel a greater sense of pride and accomplishment with my achievements with Ramsey County. There are many good Thai restaurants in the Twin Cities now, but there is still a very real need for more public health personnel to work with young mothers, vulnerable seniors and individuals with mental and physical development issues.

When I started working for the county, young mothers and moms to be would see my designer purses and Mall of America makeup and they'd tell me they wanted to be a nurse like me so they could dress nicely. They saw a connection between the clothes and makeup and the job.

Later, after True Thai opened, many of my clients told me they wanted to be just like me because they thought I was rich. True Thai has given many people a good living, but it has not made me rich, just very, very busy. Again my clients were making assumptions not warranted by the facts. Young people often do that. They saw me standing by the cash register and thought my job was to take money from people. They did not see me arguing with vendors over shipments, scheduling staff or managing personnel disputes, but they always noticed my jewelry.

Lately, things have changed. Suddenly the pregnant teens and teen moms I'm working with are complimenting me on my physical fitness, and telling me they want to learn how to eat healthier food. This makes me very happy. I'm glad to tell them that yes, there is a connection between eating the right food, exercise, and success in life.

Not everyone who dines at True Thai is in great shape, but when you're there every day, it's hard not to notice that many of our customers who are overweight become less so over time. Thai food is healthy food. I also like to think that because we're just a few blocks from the Mississippi River, our customers sometimes take a nice long walk after eating. Thai food and a long walk? That's one secret for living a long and healthy life.

There are two kinds of success in America today. I have experienced both of them. When True Thai opened I actually gained weight. I didn't have time to cook and ate out way too often. I didn't have time to exercise, and drove everywhere because I was in a hurry.

Then Carla and the gang at Los Campeones Gym came into my life and I learned that by making time to work out, I had more energy and got more done. Instead of eating out, I ate only food from True Thai's kitchen and started carrying healthy snacks with me to eat while on the job for the county.

When the girls started asking me about diet and exercise the other day, I almost cried I was so happy. I hope this is a new fad and that more and more teens start worrying less about their clothes and financial success, focusing instead on their health and well being, and the health and well being of their children.

Yes, I have been blogging for three years now, but I have been giving sermons to young teen mothers for sixteen years. Best of all, those sermons are finally starting to pay off.

[As for the picture on the left, no, these are not my clients! They are my coworkers. And the county does not make us wear Red Cross signs on our heads! (Usually.) But I am including this picture because I know you like pictures, and because I thought it was time you saw one of Nurse Anna instead of the usual "Anna holding food" pictures.]

Thank you readers!

It is a good thing that Thai people like to say thank you, because I seem to say those two words a lot. Thank you today to all our supporters who read City Pages and who voted for us for Best Thai Restaurant.


And congratulations to Sen Yai Sen Lek for winning this year's critic's choice Best Thai Restaurant award. They now join the Twin Cities Thai Restaurant Hall of Fame along with two -time winner True Thai Restaurant, Sawatdee, Chiang Mai, Bangkok Thai, and Tom Rup Thai as well as winners in other categories King & I (Best Place for Romance, 2009) and Taste of Thailand (Best Egg Roll, 2009). I think it's safe to say that Minnesotans love Thai food!

As for the other awards out there . . . .


Sorry, I could only find this old photo but according to the list on the right, this is our 28th! fine dining award since opening in 2002. But the best recognition for a restaurateur is seeing familiar faces coming in every night.

On behalf of all the cooks, kitchen help, servers and hosts at True Thai Restaurant, thank you for your continuing support. (We love you too!)

True Thai cuts prices!

No, we haven't lowered our menu or buffet prices, but thanks to some very astute purchasing decisions by True Thai's wine staff we have just revised our Beer & Wine list, lowering almost all of the glass and bottle prices!

Bottle prices have gone down an average of $1, and most glasses of wine are now 50¢ less!

We also have several new wines for you to pick from:

REDS:
A. Mano Primitivo from Italy
Two Hands Gnarly Dudes Shiraz from Australia's Barossa Valley
Bodega Goulart Classico Malbec and Diseno Malbec from Argentina
Menage a Trois, a blend of Zinfandel, Merlot and Cabernet grapes from Napa Valley

WHITES:
Sherwood Estate Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand
Vila Verde from Portugal
Makulu Pinotage Rosé from South Africa
Apremont Jacquere from France
Clean Slate Riesling from Germany
Angove's Nine Vines Rosé from Australia

I do not know why there is a rosé in both lists, but I am not the wine steward!

I wish we could lower the rest of our menu prices but the cost of food has not gone down even though our commitment to serving the best Thai food at the lowest prices has gone up.

True Thai: trying to help you beat this economy one meal at a time.

Happy Songkran!

It's funny but the older I get, the more Songkran makes me think of my childhood. Thailand's traditional New Year's celebration runs from tomorrow, Tuesday, April 13th, through Thursday, April 15th. Given the current unrest in Thailand I hope you don't mind my talking about a Songkran that happened many years ago.

I was eleven years old and my friends and I were roaming the streets of Chanthaburi celebrating the big holiday. Traditionally kids and young people throw water at each other on Songkran but wise merchants shut off their outside faucets so as to keep the water fights away from their shops. One of my older brothers, however, owned a coffee shop and he told us that we could have "all the ice we wanted."

Ice?!!! This was taking Songkran to an entirely new level! Little Anna and her girlfriends grabbed all the ice we could carry and started throwing it at our victims. As it turned out, ice hurts more than water and the boys with us quickly discovered that their victims were not shy about swatting young behinds in retaliation. But not the girls. We would laugh and smile and run away to throw ice at new victims.

I do not recall exactly how this happened, but we ended up riding in the back of a pickup truck throwing ice at soldiers. The soldiers didn't laugh but luckily for us they didn't reach for their guns. It wasn't until years later that I realized how lucky we were not to have gotten into serious trouble.

Mostly I remember that my first "snowball fight" was on Songkran when I was eleven years old. It has always been a special memory for me as I did not see "snow" again until I moved to Kentucky many years later!

But I have not had my ultimate Songkran water fight yet. That will come when I finally get to have an elephant on my side!


Water fighters with elephants on their team always win!

Thank you

Thank you!

No special occasion, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for your continued support and interest in True Thai Restaurant.

I forgot to make reservations for Easter dinner for Sunday, but as it turned out none were needed. And as we drove to the restaurant, we passed many other restaurants, none of whose parking lots were anywhere near full.

Thank you for choosing True Thai. Because we make you happy and because you keep coming in every night, our food is fresh, our kitchen staff is inspired, and our wait staff are busy. That makes for a very happy Anna.

Closed on Easter Sunday

Just like Americans, Thai Catholics dress up on Easter. Especially when their older sister is a nun!

I wrote about my church in Chanthaburi earlier this year. I am sure this Easter will be a very big celebration for them. Easter is the biggest holiday of the year for many people.

Sigh. I like to dress up but I think I already know what I am going to do this Sunday.

Yes, Anna is going to sleep in. Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year makes for a very tired restaurant owner!

True Thai is not cheap! (just inexpensive)

I will admit to something many people do not like to confess to. I google myself. Not just me, but True Thai Restaurant. I google a lot. It feels good to read what others have written about True Thai.

Minnesota Monthly mentioned us a couple of weeks ago. We're on page six of their Cheap Eats story about "the 99 best splurges in the metro under $10."

No one likes to be thought of as cheap, but it's true — you can order our vegetarian red curry with Kabocha squash for only $8.95. Or you can get it with tofu or mock duck for $9.95. Animal protein will cost you extra but the important thing isn't the price. The important thing is that True Thai's red curry with Kabocha squash is good for you.

For starters, Thai curries are mostly made with coconut milk. Coconut milk got a very bad rap in this country because of high saturated fat content. Now nutritionists realize that the saturated fat in coconut is made up of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs). Meat and dairy products contain long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) which are not as good for you.

Too boring? Try this: "MCFAs...might help speed up metabolism and help promote weight loss." Do I have your attention now?

I thought so. And coconut milk is not even the healthiest part of this popular dish. The Kabocha squash [Japanese winter squash] isn't just healthy, it's revered as "an aphrodisiac"!

Add to that lots of beta carotene, iron, vitamin C, potassium and essential traces of calcium, folic acid and B vitamins and you have a very healthy meal.

For $8.95.

True Thai Kimchi?

I've been reading The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth and taking notes. While many Thai favorites are included (fresh pineapple, baby greens, spinach, green tea, cashews, bitter melon, persimmons, papayas, mangoes, limes, coconut, bananas, snow peas, tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, mushrooms — actually, it might be easier if I listed True Thai foods not in this book!), I am very intrigued by one item from Korea, kimchi (also kimchee, kim chee).

[photo credit]

Andrew L. Rubman: "This Korean fermented cabbage concoction spiced with capsicum provides healthy stimulus and therapy for the stomach and is often beneficial to those with gastritis, reflux . . . . "

Jonny Bowden, the Ph.D. who wrote this book, says that fermented foods are almost always good for you. Why? Because fermented food contains lactobacilli bacteria which boosts our immune system and fights inflammation.

"Kimchi is a superstar in the world of healthy foods....it has demonstrated antioxidant, antimutagenic, and anticarcinogenic activities. Pretty darn impressive for a sometimes smelly little cabbage dish. Kimchi also contains high levels of vitamins (vitamin C, the B vitamins), minerals (calcium, potassium, and iron) and dietary fiber."

I think by now you may have already guessed where this is going. Yes, this Friday we are putting kimchi-fried rice in our lunch buffet! We've been experimenting with it in the kitchen and have found that the flavors of kimchi blend very well with Thai fried rice. The only difference is that it is crunchier due to cabbage and extra onion.

But this is not a Thai dish so I do not know if we'll ever add it to the menu. Frying kimchi with rice is not my invention either. The Koreans have been eating kimchi for 3,000 years now, and have invented every kind of kimchi dish imaginable. They call their kimchi fried rice kimchi bokkeumbap.

I think I will call mine Thai-chi!

Green curry for St. Patrick's Day!

This year I decided to do some research into St. Patrick's Day to see if True Thai could get in on the action. I was very surprised to learn that St. Patrick's Day is not so much a drinking holiday in Ireland (where they call it Lá Fhéile Pádraig). I was not surprised to learn that my American friends are wrong about other aspects of this venerable Western holiday as well.

From 1903 until the 1970s, pubs were closed on St. Patrick's Day in Ireland! They did not hold a parade in Dublin until 1931 (the first U.S. St. Paddy's Day parade was in 1737). The Irish began to take this holiday a bit more seriously in 1996 and have since parlayed this once minor Irish holiday into a 4-day excuse for taking money from tourists.

Yes, the American version of St. Patrick's Day is about as authentic as Chow Mein is Chinese! But that will not stop St. Paul from having its 159th consecutive St. Patrick's Day parade this Wednesday.

To honor our Irish American friends, Anna O'Prasomphol Fieser will be featuring green curry, green melon, green beans and other green foods in our Wednesday lunch buffet. We will also serve green jasmine tea. Actually, jasmine tea is more yellow than green, but we will not be adding green dye to our tea!

Leeann Chin, rest in peace

Leeann Chin, 1933-2010

I do not think there is an Asian woman running a restaurant in Minnesota who has not been compared to Leeann Chin. From 1980 until now she was the gold standard for Asian restauranteurs. Everyone knew who she was, even Minnesotans who do not eat Chinese food.

Like Wolfgang Puck and Minnesota's Mama D, Leeann Chin is an icon. Her name will live on and her story will inspire countless more young Asians to introduce new food to buffet-loving Americans.

Leeann Chin opened her first restaurant after I came to America, and long before I got to Minnesota she was already famous. As a businesswoman she was a big inspiration to me and many other Asian women. At first I admired her for her legendary work ethic, but after opening True Thai I began to appreciate her business skills even more than her hard work.

Services will be held Saturday, March 27th, at Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina.


What others are saying:

The Star Tribune

KARE-11

The Pioneer Press

Found money

I found $4,000 today but don't get excited. It was my $4,000!

I sent my bank a check for $4,000 to pay on my credit card, but the payment never showed up on my balance. I called the bank and they told me they didn't know what the problem was. I knew what the problem was, I had paid them but they hadn't applied the money to my balance!

So last night several employees and I spent the end of the shift sorting through bank statements and receipts back in the party room. Some party! We found several interesting things and this morning I took our findings into my local branch. The manager pulled up my file and immediately figured out that there had been an entry error transposing two numbers, and that my money had been applied to another credit card account.

The manager apologized and straightened out my account, but the other missing $7,000 we identified from last summer he's still checking into. So I came into $4,000 today, but since it was my $4,000 it wasn't exactly a windfall.

Does your bank make mistakes? Mine sure does!

Another mystery solved

Sometimes things just happen, but usually I find that things happen for a reason. We have been selling more Tom Yum than usual for the last week and a half and yesterday, thanks to Google, I found out why.

City Pages had a Food Fight but didn't tell us. We were pitted against Sen Yai Sen Lek in a battle to see who had the best Tom Yum. That was not very fair to Sen Yai Sen Lek, a very good Thai restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis that specializes in noodle dishes. There are no noodles in Tom Yum. I think now you see why this was not a fair fight but thank you to Jessica Chapman for saying nice things about us:

You know the saying "Go big or go home?" True Thai definitely goes big. The product of going big is, logically, big flavor, and True Thai's got that too. Generous slices of chicken come with almost every bite and kaffir lime leaves show up about every third. Still, there's those dang mushrooms.

I also like the picture they ran but was puzzled by the fact that we have no purple tablecloths at True Thai. At first I suspected that they had adjusted the color a bit like I did when I was bragging about my cherry tomato plant last year (it's true — I boosted the color because the camera failed to capture the perfection of my awesome tomato plant!). But that does not explain why this picture shows sliced button mushrooms (we use straw mushrooms in our Tom Yum) or why I do not recognize that plate!

I think this is a stock picture. Here is our online menu picture of our Tom Yum:

See the straw mush- rooms? Notice that the bowl is not perfectly round unlike the serving bowl in the background of the City Pages picture.

I think this picture looks much more tantalizing than City Pages', but that is just my personal opinion.

I like personal opinions, especially when they come from bloggers who like True Thai! I recently found two new online reviews of our restaurant and because they say nice things about True Thai, I thought I should share them with you.

The Alchemist Chef likes our corn cakes and says that I am a "super nurse-restauranteur." I like her review a lot!

Blogger Red Pepper at Twin Cities Eats likes us too:

This is, in my humble opinion, the best Thai food that I have had in Minnesota. It is kind of shocking that I have never written about it but this changes that. I have simply never had a dish that disappoints. Apparently, many people think the same as the size of True Thai is at least double what it was on my first visits 5+ years ago.

I like that she brags about how long she's been coming to True Thai, and that she mentions our recent expansion. Friends have told me about how their friends all try to pretend they were the first to find us back in 2002. I think they are all correct. Each night I see faces I have been seeing on a regular basis for the last seven + years. True Thai has many loyal friends from across the Twin Cities and even Wisconsin and we love you all!

But almost every night I see many new faces as well and that also makes me happy. Thai people are very friendly and we like our new friends almost as much as our old friends.