My favorite Thai restaurant in San Francisco closed (Lapats) and so I am trying to cook my way through their entire menu to try to replace that hole in my life
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Adrianna Tan last edited by [email protected]
I think I get 90% there (untold story is I learned cooking from Thai chefs a long time ago hehe)
It was the first cuisine I learned for cook, even before Chinese
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My second and third fave Thai spots in SF are Sai Jai Thai and Zen Yai
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Adrianna Tan last edited by [email protected]
Lapats was unique to me in that it had the most obviously Thai Chinese menu
Thai Chinese is largely Teochew
If you see olive pork and beancurd crab rolls (hoijor) and ba mee haeng it tends to learn Teochew Thai
This video (middle part) talks about this in a Bangkok context
At this point indistinguishable from regular Thai to me, but because the Thai words are the same as in Teochew it jumps at me as being more obviously Thai Chinese
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@skinnylatte Oh! We have a star Teochew restaurant in Portland: https://www.yaowaratpdx.com/
Lemme know if you ever wanna come up here and visit it.
Is Thep Phenom still around?
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With Thai restaurants in America, my shorthand for ‘Will I like it’ is ‘do they claim to specialize in one dish or one region?’ If not, it tends to be generic Thai American, which isn’t something I enjoy
Sai Jai Thai specializes in NE Thai food, like bbq pork; zen yai in boat noodles
In LA I LOVE Lacha Somtum in Thai town (huge menu of papaya salads, as spicy as food in Isaan!)
I just don’t like generic pad thai very much
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@fuzzychef nice!! Good name too (yaowarat is where I’d get Thai Chinese food in Bangkok)
No thep phenom closed a long time ago
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my thai american friend and i always gossip about how we really don't like the 'generic central thai food' which is kind of too sweet
thai food from the deep south and northeast tends to be my preferred ones, over and over
with rare exceptions: central thai food done well that's not too sweet
but i also think sometimes the 'too sweet' bit is a localization for the US
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@skinnylatte Isan all the way. I remember reading that it has a gigantic Laotian influence which also is excellent.
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@fuzzychef just checked their menu! i literally just made the black olive fried rice for my own lunch
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@petrillic there's a Lao restaurant near me now and they have to pretend to be Northeast Thai basically coz no one knows Lao food
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Chris Petrillireplied to Adrianna Tan last edited by [email protected]
@skinnylatte there was a Laotian walking distance from my house here in Seattle. It was amazing. Cash only. Lots of Thai families. One of the few times anything has tasted like what I had in Thailand.
Their nam khao was dream-worthy.
Sadly they closed about 18m ago. The pandemic really hit them hard.
