no name thai restaurant

guest blog post by seth eli goldstein:
Well, this is embarrassing.  Jenner asked me if I would guest blog for this round of Pad Thai-o-rama.  Sure I would, and so I headed down to the Thai food restaurant located in the food court at Monument Square.   The embarrassing thing is I can't remember this place's name.

                The food court is a nice clean space and there is excellent people watching when all the suits downtown are released for their one hour recess.   The restaurant, whose name I cannot remember, is really a counter place.  The cool thing is that you can watch your food cooked to order before your eyes.  My Pad Thai went straight from the wok to my Styrofoam container and was piping hot.   It was a large portion and I felt like I got a pretty good value for the price.  I would have tried a couple of appetizers as well but I was all by my lonesome and although I am in the Guinness Book of World Records for most crab Rangoon eaten in a single meal I just went with the Pad Thai. 

                I thought that the spice was pretty mild, particularly as I requested a spice factor 2 out of 3.  Perhaps a tad bland as well, but still passable Pad Thai with wide noodles served with scallions and mung beans.  Sometimes pad Thai can be a bit on the sweet side.  The Pad Thai, from the restaurant whose name shall remain a mystery, was not too sweet, and that was nice.  If you need a quick and affordable Thai fix for lunch (I'm pretty sure this is a lunch only joint) that will leave you with leftovers for dinner, hit this place up.  It won't knock your proverbial socks off but it does the trick.

this was a guest posting brought to you by seth for the 12th round of thai-o-rama. the unknown name of this restaurnt is siam orchid and it is located at the one city center food court.

cumberland county fair

alpacas!

mini lop bunny

i grew up with guinea pigs and i heart them very much

midways are made for hipstamatic and cross process

stuff i see, portland streets 1

one of the best things about my new iphone is having a camera with me at all times.  honestly, while i am trying to get the cost of it covered by work because there are health care apps that i can use for my job, i really bought it for hipstamatic.

tamales for thai

for this round of thai-o-rama it was off to chiang mai-two at 52 washington ave.  while we were pretty sad to see loco pollo close down, it was fun to see what the new proprietors had done with the space.  it really felt very different from its previous incarnation as a tamale shop.  i thought it was tastefully decorated with a merciful lack of south east asian kitsch. 
there was only one other table the tuesday we went in but the young man who was cooking and serving all the food seemed a bit overwhelmed.  in any event he waited on us quickly, was very friendly, and all of our food came out fast.
for appetizers we ordered the crab rangoon and the thai dumplings.  if you have been following these posts, you know that seth loves crab rangoon.  i feel pretty ambivalent toward them -- i enjoy the creaminess of the filling contrasted with the crunchiness of the wrapper, but i never, ever feel like they taste like crab.  these crab rangoon actually tasted like crab and i could even see real pieces of crab in the filling.  served with a clear, sweet plum sauce and yum.  the thai dumplings, filled with minced pork and shrimp and topped with fried shallots, were two bitefuls and again a fabulous version of a standard thai appetizer.
the entrees are ordered by star for how spicy you want them on a one to three star scale. i asked the waiter if one star meant not spicy at all and he answered "i can make it not spicy if you want."  so really it should be a zero to three star scale.  we ordered the spicy duck as 2 stars and the green tofu curry as 1 star. 
the spicy duck was served in a creamy red sauces with lots of bamboo shoots, snow peas, green bell peppers, and basil.  the duck was suppose to be crispy and it was, a little, but it wasn't exactly what we expected.  and it was a bit of a small serving of duck.  but on a whole, it was delicious and spicy!  2 stars definitely gave it a great kick that made my nose run and my lips burn.
the green tofu curry was full of tofu, yellow summer squash, zucchini, green beans, bell peppers and basil.  the curry itself was creamy and flavorful and 1 star was a great level of spiciness for this dish. 
somewhere in the midst of this burning goodness i had an epiphany.  this is what is missing from so much thai food. thai restaurateurs have watered down their cuisine so much to make it palatable to americans that it has lost most of its flavor. thai food is suppose to be spicy. its from a country that is hot and the spice is there to make you sweat and cool you down.  unfortunately, the next morning seth paid for our spicy dinner, if you know what i mean.
the waiter, it ends up, is the owner and he was really excited to talk to us about the restaurant, local thai food, and even this blogging project.  he gave us some coupons for 25% of an entire meal (but which are only good for less than a month) and tried to give me like 10 take out menus, i think to hand out to friends.  i'm not gonna give you a menu but i do recommend that you check out chiang mai-two.  i have accepted, after 10 or 11 thai restaurant reviews, that there is really very little variation in the vast majority of menus.  so instead of judging on originality, i judge on quality.  i thought this place was great when it came to taste and quality.  in all honesty i think its gonna be our new go-to thai restaurant.

a little thai take out

we are not huge take-out people.  part of it is that i love the experience of eating out and the other part is that i hate the waste involved with getting take out.  of course there are exceptions, like pizza and i find it absolutely decadent to get indian take-out and eat it in front of the tv.  but with the assignment to go to ventiane for this round of thai-o-rama we made another exception.
and to be frank, vientiane has absolutely no ambiance for a dine-in experience.  unless you like to dine at bus stations, in which case this would be the perfect spot for you cuz you could get some tasty thai and not have to breath in diesel fumes.  there is a small selection of asian condiments that is fun to browse through while you are waiting for your food, so i think that's enough ambiance.
as far as the food goes, it really quite tasty.  we got fried spring rolls to start which were pretty average but the sweet, thin dipping sauce helped out.  for our mains we got yellow chicken curry that had lots of fresh veggies -- peppers, eggplant, green beans, basil -- but kind of scant on the chicken.  seth felt like the chicken was overcooked, but it was in a saucy curry so it wasn't really an issue.  the curry was creamy with a nice subtle burn.  we also got pad thai with 2 shrimp and scant chicken, but with lots of crunchy mung beans.  there was a good peanut flavor, and while it wasn't served with lime wedges (sorry dawn) i really enjoyed it.
they also have a really fun selection of canned asian beverages so we each got a can of thai iced tea and the cashier talked us into trying a can of jelly grass drink, which kind of tasted like tea w/ long pieces of jellied something.  not something i would try again.
we also got at jar of tom yum soup mix which reads: "remark: use fish, chicken or other meat also delicious."
i have heard rumor that there is something on the menu that is so spicy that it clears the entire shop as its being cooked.
after a summer break from thai food and blogging, vientiane was a great welcome back.  while they offer the average thai fare, vientiane does a good job at it.  its very convenient and we will definitely be going back for thai take-out.

the perfect morning

i initially started this post to describe a perfect day i had.  but i only made it to 11:30 am before i put it on hold to finish in a few days.  now i am coming back to it more than a month later.  so i think i will edit it a bit and post it as the perfect morning.  and truthfully, this is how most of my saturdays look, though i am not quite lucky enough to have a massage every saturday morning.
let me tell you what a perfect morning looks like in jenner's mind.
7:45am: okay so this was a little early for a perfect morning but i was getting up early for good reason.
8:00am: church tag sale just down the street from my house.  i have always wanted to be a regular tag sale go-er but i have only recently starting really started going.  i didn't have any unbelievable finds, but i still had a great time and spent $4 on 4 items.  and i got to indulge my obsession with cookbooks and add yet another one to my collection.
9:00am: massage w/ becca.  okay, i have been keeping this secret to myself for long enough.  the awake collective in the east end has massages for $40/hour!  yes, that is right, $40/hour!  and this is an AMAZING massage.  worth at least double what they are charging.  becca has gifted hands and she is truly a healing practitioner
10:00am: ice coffee and berry muffin from katie made bakery.  they have coffee ice cubes.  need i say more?  but i will say more -- greatest berry muffin ever!  i also really love their berry scones.  i have had a love affair with scones for years, probably made all the more intense because a good scone is hard to find.  my most favorite scone was from the original buckie's biscotti in dennis, massachusetts.  but ever since they moved locations (and the fact that seth works every weekend so we never make it to cape cod) i never get to indulge in this favorite.  finding these amazing scones at katie made is a happy discovery.
10:30am: farmer's market.  this is my saturday ritual and it really does make me happy.  this saturday i got to meet up w/ jen and her two kids.  one of my new favorite finds at the farmer's market is swallow tail farm's dairy products.  every morning i make a smoothie w/ their kefir and in season berries whenever possible.
11:30am: seth finally has a weekend day off ...
so that is what a perfect saturday morning looks like in jenner's mind.  not surprisingly, food is a major factor.

please stop

every time i post something here i get one, and sometimes multiple, comments in japanese or chinese trying to advertise their websites of young asian women in their under ware.  i have nothing against these websites or their content, but i always block your comments and i really don't think that anyone reading my usually about food blog is looking for information about your websites (not that they aren't in to the content but they know where to more appropriately look for that content).  i doubt you are actually reading the posts you comment on, but if you are can you please stop posting comments on my blog?  i will never publish your comments so you are really wasting both your time and mine.  please please please stop.