3 posts tagged “thai food”

I first read about Nong's Khao Man Gai cart in the Oregonian, the article is now posted online at the Oregon Live website, and there's a great review of it at Portland Food Carts Website. Her cart is located by 10th and Alder, right across essentially from Jake's Grill, which I had visited for a happy hour on Wednesday. When I spotted the cart, I vowed to go back the next day to grab my lunch from there.

The cart is just as pictured on her website: a small 2-person operation with her dishing out the rice that was steamed using a chicken broth for more flavor, and then a man in the back efficiently chopping the poached chicken into individual servings. She scoops the rice from the giant rice cookers into a neat dome, he tops it with chicken and adds the garnishings of cucumber and chinese parsley, meanwhile she is scooping the winter squash soup broth into a container or wrapping the package up in the paper, securing it with a rubber band, and slipping the plastic fork wrapped napkin underneath before taking your $6.

The chicken? 4.5 stars- I only don't give it 5 because I've had the fortunate experience of having home-cooked version of this from a Thai mom in Chicago who is known for this dish, and her chicken is much more flavorful- though the bones are still there to pick through, and Nong's chicken pile on the rice is boneless and very tender and moist.

The rice? 3 stars. Again, same comparison, and even some of the rice I've had with this dish in Thailand have had more flavor. Maybe my rice came from the rice cooker that was a bit older- but this trip, definitely nothing special.

But, the sauce- that is one of the keys to this dish. And Nong definitely gets 5 stars on this one, and the soup broth is a great addition to the whole lunch package to cool down the tang of the garlic and giner. I could go for a bit more chili, but I know as a standard baseline this is a fine flavoring sauce to the dish given this is Portland.

Good simple food- not necessarily the kind that should have a cult following like some of the carts in Thailand, but still a good choice even in Thailand of basic good food, and definitely still a great choice from a cart here in Portland!

I'm happy to announce that finally, I found a Thai restaurant in Portland that just blew me away. I finally was able to get a driver and dining friends to Pok Pok. Pok Pok is pretty famous in Portland and is on the "Best Restaurant" local list, but is a bit more of a pain to get to via public transportation. I know that the chef is known for specializing in Southeast Asian street food, not the fusion stuff of Typhoon or the regular cooking found in a myriad of many other Thai establishments offering pad thai and fried rice, and non-spicy curries which have been tamed with coconut milk.

And most exciting for me, there is a lot of Northern Thai cuisine offered. So when I went, my eyes went immediately, after trying to understand the english transliterations of the Thai food dishes, to Kaeng Hung Leh, a curry withsweet pork belly and pork shoulder curry with ginger, palm sugar, tamarind, turmeric, Burmese curry powder and pickled garlic. It was marinated just to the right falling off the bone tenderness, and the curry was very savory and rich- more rich than I had in Chiang Mai, but I had no problems with this upgrade.

My drink of choice, a bloody mary with Thai chili vodka, didn't have the fruitiness of the Kickboxer from Saucebox, but did have the tell-tale recognizable taste of those little Thai hot peppers, so it was good enough for me. I would have liked a bit more tomato though.

As for the Het Paa Naam Tok, a Spicy Isaan forest mushroom “salad” with soy sauce, lime and chili powder dressing, shallots,lemongrass,mint, cilantro and toasted rice powder (basically the vegetarian equivalent of the traditional Waterfall Thai Beef dish), it was ok. The Khao Soi with tofu, a vegetarian version of my usual nothern style curry with egg noodle dish, was described as being made with their "secret curry paste recipe, natural chicken on the bone and house-pressed fresh coconut milk. Served with pickled mustard greens, shallots, crispy yellow noodles and roasted chili paste. Chiang Mai specialty, with Burmese origins." The curry itself had great flavor, though I admonished my companions for not using the sides, but the noodles were not fresh egg noodles (though the crispy noodles were right on), so I will have to look elsewear for Khao Soi. I have noticed that other normal Thai restaurants also offer this dish, not just ones that specialize in Northern Thai style food, so there is still potential for me to find a substitute for my fix back in Chicago that I only got from my favorite Thai restaurant Sticky Rice. This dish would taste a lot better with the chicken too instead of being vegetarian (the soup itself of the curry is good), but the noodles are too important for me to forgive.

The Khanom Jiin Naam Yaa, a ground fresh fish curry with krachai, lemongrass, chilies and glangal, served over rice vermicelli with herbs, pickled mustard greens and boiled egg, did not have enough daring fish parts and I was able to tell. Passable, but not remarkable.

A nice surprise was a Vietnamese dish of Ca Muc Nuong, with nice squares of large calamari, grilled whole over charcoal, chopped and served with lettuce and herbs served with a spicy lime/garlic/chile dipping sauce. That dipping sauce was awesomely spicy.

 
I tried to challenge Pok Pok by ordering a dessert which sounded like an improvement of normal breakfast food: Pok Pok Affogato, which they offer as condensed milk ice cream drowned in a shot of Vietnamese coffee, served with a Chinese fried donut. I thought the donut was fried too crispy rather than being doughy on the inside and crisp on the outside-it would shatter as we tried to break it, almost like a chip. But it tasted perfect, and the bowl of ice cream and coffee was perfection.

I also tried the Coconut Ice Cream Sandwich, which is coconut - jackfruit ice cream served on a sweet bun with sweet sticky rice, peanuts, condensed milk and chocolate syrup. The sweet bun was not sweet enough though, not like what you would get in Thailand. But, I was still impressed by the Pok Affogato and am ok with it. I smile because they did get the size of the scoops of ice cream right!

Next time I go, I already have ideas on what I want. I would try the Kai Yaang (roasted chicken), Papaya Pok Pok (which is one of their specialities and namesake because of the sound made when mashing ingredients with morter and pestle), the Sii Khrong Muu Yaang which sounds like its been fancied up slightly (Carlton Farms baby back ribs marinated in whisky, soy, honey, ginger and Thai spices. slow grilled over charcoal and served with 2 spicy dipping sauces), and Yam Khai Dao, described in the menu as a salad of crispy fried egg,Thai chilies, Chinese celery, onions and carrot with lime, palm sugar and fish sauce dressing. Yams are all based on their balance of acidity, so it is delicate mixing and not just a salad of ingredients thrown together.

Until we meet again, Pok Pok...

Portland, OR was founded by two people, one from Portland, Maine and one from Boston, Massachusetts. Both wanted to name this new city in Oregon after their hometown, and it was a flip of a coin that coined Portland, Oregon. I previously talked a little bit about things being in the northwest or southwest, and I wanted to explain that a little like Chicago, Portland is on a grid system. Fortunately, their grid system is easier to figure out than using the city block coordinate numbers like Chicago. Here, they actually just use literally the letters NW, NE, SW, SE in front of the street names to denote where in the grid you are.

Also useful is that they bring the numbers more to the forefront. While in Chicago you had to always look at the numbers underneath the street names that were words, here in Portland all the streets that run north/south all use numbers that radiate from the meeting point (Burnside divides north and south and the Willamette river divides west and east). 

Portland grid map for street prefixes

So now when I say I live in SW Portland, you know what I actually mean. I don't live that far south of Burnside though- close enough in fact that although by the grid system I live in the SW, by the neighborhood I basically live in, the Goose Hollow neighborhood, I am still considered to be living in a northwest Portland area. The main things I have to characterize where I live when I describe it to people is

1) the Goose Hollow Inn, which is this neighborhood bar/restaurant which I have been told has an excellent reuben sandwich. You know you're in Portland because not only is there a meat version but also a vegetarian version. The founder of this pub used to hear about people's woes and worries so much that the story goes that he decided to do something about it and ran for Mayor-- and was the mayor for 8 years. The family still runs the place.

2) This is also close to PGE Park. This would be like living by Wrigley Field, except Portland doesn't really have any major sports teams or say, even any known sports teams outside the local area (ok, the University of Oregon Ducks being the recent latest exception). Not only that, but it's a park that not only hosts football (Portland State Vikings), but also minor league baseball (the Beavers) and soccer (Timbers), and are available for various other high school and college level teams as well. So, it's an all-purpose stadium. So, it's not at all like the kind of atmosphere you would find at Wrigley, though it does have similar age occupants and housing options in the neighborhood compared to Lakeview.

3) The Tri-met Max (light rail- they run on the roads here alongside the cars) stop here and then start going through a several mile run through tunnels of the West Hills. In other words, I'm living just where the big hills start. I literally can look up and see steeply sloping streets going up the Hills and houses built on what looks like foresty cliffs.

When I go to work in Beaverton, I have to go west, past the hills, and into the suburb of Beaverton where I then walk through a campus almost like a college campus to my building. Door to door, it's about 45 minutes- 6 minutes to walk to the Max stop, and then another 6 minutes from that Max stop to the doors of my building. I usually don't have to wait long for a train. One thing I've noticed is that every stop actually has a map with times all day so you can see how long until the next Max train (or bus), and it has been mostly correct (maybe 1-2 minutes off) so far. Besides the schedule, I also like how every train station has an automated machine where you can purchase your ticket for one ride, multiple rides, or a monthly pass using your credit card.

 

The only weird thing is that no one really checks your ticket on the Max when you get on. Once in a while someone will walk down the car asking to see your ticket and if you are not able to produce a valid ticket, you can be written a ticket for $115. But otherwise no one sees your ticket when you ride the Max. On the bus you show your ticket to the bus driver like you would on any other bus, but they don't have an automated reader or touch pass- they still use paper punched ticket when you pay in cash if you don't have a pass from a machine.

Well, that's enough about Portland for now. What have I been eating? I've been mostly making swiss cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner. I attended a Chi-foo meeting (an association for those in my career line) on Wednesday and ate dinner at Nature's Harvest with other team members who were attending the same meeting. Nature's Harvest is similar to a Whole Foods, but their food court section is not quite up to par to what I've seen in LA yet.

I also tried two outposts of Thai restaurant chains that are famous in Portland. On Friday, I took my immediate team of interaction designers to Typhoon. This reminded me a lot like Vong's in Chicago, but with much better food because although it had been modernized to tastes here, it still tasted good and had recognizable good Thai taste. Can't say that about Vong's fusion food, in my opinion. Also, Typhoon has an extensive tea selection, which I really liked. Thanks to that lunch, I'll get to do my first expense report next week. I ordered a chef special, which was battered tilapia in a sticky sweet but spicy sauce with basil and bacon and chili fried rice. All it needed some ability to spritz  lime and it would have really been excellent.

Yesterday I also signed the lease to my apartment on the actual triplicate form at the office, and then went to an outpost of Thai Orchid, another chain based on Thai food here in Portland. I thought it was just ok- everything has a sweet taste to it rather then the complex taste it should have had combining more salt, sour, and spiciness. It just couldn't compare to Typhoon, which at least still brings those flavor profiles to the table, literally. I definitely want to try Typhoon again.

Last night I also went with F to walk along Hawthorne. We walked all the way there, and Hawthorne is on the Southeast area. We walked up to basically 37th street in the SE grid and we started out at 16th street in the SW grid. Unfortunately we stopped at the first pub we came across, Roots, for a little taste of their beer. The Oregon Beavers were playing USC, so we watched the first quarter. I had a walking map of the street, and I also reviewed that and circled places I wanted to stop. When we started walking though, I naturally with my baby bladder had to stop at Safeway to go to the bathroom. Then, when we finally got to where the interesting things were (the walking map describes this neighborhood as similar to San Francisco's Haight district, but I have no comparison), everything closed at 6pm. So, we ended up killing time at the Bagdad Theater and Pub, where we caught a showing of Wall-E (yes, my 3rd time seeing it) for just $3 a ticket. I like the Bagdad because they have a little bar table in front of each row of theater seats for your beer (or wine) that you can enjoy during the movie. On the 2nd floor, they actually have a more loungey atmosphere with cushioned couches, loveseats, and chairs.

Despite not being able to see as much as I wanted on Hawthorne street, it was a fun walk (hopefully next time we will be a bit more efficient on time and also not walk all the way there). On our walk there, we crossed the Hawthorne bridge over the Willamette, which is a cool vertical lift bridge. The panoramic photo is not mine, it's from Wikipedia

Hawthorne bridge

I also passed on Hawthorne some houses that cracked me up. The first one... I guess they really value their privacy, thus the bamboo forest in front. The other ones didn't even seem real- they look like playhouses to me.