I love Vietnamese food!!!!!

every thing try everything vietnamese!
[Edited 10/25/09 20:11pm]

Evvy said:

Penang is an island in Malaysia. Good place for food actually - Thai, Indian, Malaysian and Chinese.

CarrieMpls said:

I have no idea what egg foo is

ZombieKitten said:[quote]

CarrieMpls said:

CalhounSq said:

Yup. I swear I live right down the street from the best Thai food restaurant ever! They have the best Pad Thai.

BklynBabe said:[quote]

ZombieKitten said:

cat?

then why isn't it called Cat Foo?

violator said:

We had Thai last night at Doy Tao Thai, and I got Stir Fri Lamb with Vegetables and Cashew Nuts. My daughters had Satay Chicken, Pad Thai and steam Rice

violator said:

I have a good one near me too. It's all I can do not to go in there every single day LOVE IT!

ultrablue said:

I bet they are just called restaurants where you live, like Danish pastries and Dutch Ovens

ZombieKitten said:

Yes, and they're not bad at 'Thai food'.

CarrieMpls said:

I don't know that I would eat Chinese in London.
The best Chinese food I've ever had was in a Parisian Chinese restaurant.
And I've eaten Chinese in Chinatown's in Oakland and San Francisco. My preferred location for Chinese.
I never eat any place advertising Chinese and _____ American, Thai, whatever.

SUPRMAN said:

I've had some good chinese there too- couple blocks from the eiffel tour-I knew it would be good 'cause when I walked in there was a family of 10 chinese folk sitting there eatin'

Y'all don't know Thai food. Call me a snob or whatever, but I've never had proper authentic Thai food outside of Thailand. I did have a tasty massaman in Ireland once, but then that's not Thai and it was made using lamb, which is never used in Thai food. There's no beating a proper phad thai or khao phad with lime juice and fish sauce.

In England we don't have any good Chinese food. It is just below McDonalds in the take-out food rating. If someone can prove me wrong I'd be happy.

English Chinese food = salt.

iloveannie said:

But it's more expensive than McDonalds right?

I always remember every time I'm back in the UK and my grandma comes to stay one of the nights will be Chinese takeaway night and the food's so unsubtle and odd, but still quite pricey.

Same goes for Indian. For every Indian restaurant in England, which for 90% of them means Bangladeshi, food is basically a fucking stew with or without lesser or greater amounts of the ten same ingredients. General consensus is that the balti started here in Birmingham. Which is great if you like stew, shit if you'd like something of interest to the palate.

Buy a decent cookbook and you're on the right track. Anjum Anand's is very good.

ultrablue said:

Yes McDonalds is cheaper but then again you don't really get full on a McDonalds burger do you. Or sit down at the end of a night on the piss to be served by a race that nearly every Brit now thinks is somehow involved in terrorism and wanting to blow up your nan. Pun intended.

ultrablue said:

Have you had Thai food in Minneapolis? NYC? How about in Amsterdam? How can you say it's not "proper authentic" if you haven't dined where we have?

There are a handful of really good Thai restaurants where I live and I have no way of comparing if they are "properly authentic" (not yet anyway) but since they are Thai owned and there are Thai chefs cooking in them, it would lead me to believe it's close. Now, it's quite possible it's westernized somewhat but I don't think you get that as much these days, especially if the restaurant is to be considered of good quality.

PS - I make an AWESOME massaman myself, but I make it with tofu. And I add yams and carrots. So it's not authentic at all. But it's damn good.

Sticky rice

CarrieMpls said:

I know, I know! I haven't sampled every Thai restaurant outside of Thailand. I go on my reaction but more so Mon's. The owner can be Thai, the waitresses Thai, the chefs Thai, and she'll order her meal in Thai and get something unrecognisable to her, using different ingredients, substituted elements that are similar but not the same, different meats, weird uses of sugar, different parts of the animal used and lawd knows what. I'm not as fussy, but I usually notice the differences too. Here you notice the difference if you get a noodle soup in a different district of Bangkok to your usual and for Thai people there really is nothing more important in life than their food.

We have plenty of English pubs selling "Good English Grub". My advice to foreigners is to steer well clear of them unless you like eating microwave/deep fried crap.

And "Traditional Sunday Roast"... has anyone ever seen a sign advertising "Modern Sunday Roast"?

How about pubs that say "...cooked just like your mum used to."? Well my mum's not a great cook so when I see that I just keep walking. I'm also scared that I may be forced to eat my boiled carrots before I can have any pudding so that puts me off too.

Oh, I like Thai but having an English rose for a wife and being under forty and not a kiddie-fiddler I have yet to venture to Thailand to experience the cuisine on its home turf. It's a sweeping generalisation I know

I always order shrimp fried rice,sweet and sour pork,fried prawns and egg rolls I should be more adventurous and try some of the other items.

iloveannie said:

ultrablue said:

Yeah, I know there are some substituions that HAVE to happen, as the same ingeredients just aren't available or are slightly different simply for being produced in a different place, or vegetables even taste somewhat different for growing in a different soil and climate and so on.

But when you're talking about what something tastes like on one side of Bangkok to the other, you're talking about your personal preference, one isn't more or less "authentic". It could also be regional - northern Thai food and southern Thai food are going to be different, ya know?

CarrieMpls said:

Yep, you're right, and I should add, though such places tend not to last that long in such a food crazed placed as Thailand, you can get a really poor khao pad sometimes here, or an overly greasy phad Thai. In general there seem to be a LOT of fantastic cooks. Basically everybody's mum is one. But like anywhere, in Thailand you still sometimes get poor Thai food. Everybody knows their favourite spots though. There are popular places in Bangkok for certain dishes that are absolutely RAMMED at certain parts of the day. One may be known for khao man kai for breakfast and like a spidey sense Thais find out about it, tell others and people flock there. Just for little street side restaurants if a Thai stops by for lunch and finds a certain dish is particularly good chances are they'll talk about it when they get home and recommend it to friends and family. They remember where all the hundreds of different places are to get different dishes too. Amazing really. One little duck noodle soup restaurant my look like hundreds of others, be tucked away somewhere, but different people living in different parts of Bangkok will know about it if it's really good. Those are the places I think you get the most authentic, most delicious Thai food. Thais don't mess about with their food!

ZombieKitten said:

I'm willing to bet you're right.

That's for amateurs. Aren't you in the San Francisco area? From what I've heard from some folks, y'all have some of the best Chinese food in the country. Since you like egg rolls, I'm assuming you like cabbage. Try the moo shoo dishes. They are made with shredded cabbages, green onions, some other ingredients and your choice of either chicken, pork, or shrimp. There is a new Chinese place up the street from my house and they haven't become too "Americanized" yet, notice I said "yet". I had the moo shoo shrimp this evening and it was delicious. I'm enjoying the restaurant while I can because it won't be long before they change also. The last time I was in there, I heard two country heffers yelling...."Y'all ain't gonna bring out no more fried chicken wangs?".

Evvy said:

I wonder if this was the same place? This was off the Champs Elysee.
Most of the clientele was Chinese and there were goldfish in the floor. Koi.

meow85 said:

Can you imagine if the ham was raw? I would be scared to order that.