Tag Archives: chilies

Rarn P Dam (Mae Hong Son, Thailand)

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Across the street from P Nik’s, and next to the CP Fresh Mart, is my favorite Thai food vendor in Mae Hong Son. The setting is basic, though on the larger end for a rarn ar harn dtarm sang, and the food is fantastic. It’s run by a friendly Thai lady, P Dam, and her family. She serves all of the Easy Thai dishes at their finest, and the lunchtime the operation is a sight to behold. Customers come up and give a verbal order, and somehow P Dam keeps all of the requests in her head, even when the queue is more than a dozen people long.

I’ve been going to Rarn P Dam for lunch almost every weekday since I discovered it, and I’m usually the only farang eating there. P Dam also knows that I like spicy food, so I can be assured of ample chilies. Unfortunately, Rarn P Dam is not open for dinner, and they are closed on Sundays, so Lauren wasn’t able to try their food for a few weeks (she lunches with her NGO during the week).

Over Songkran I was finally able to introduce Lauren to Rarn P Dam, and since then we’ve been going for Saturday lunches and the occasional weekday breakfast. All of the dishes are 25-30 Baht (less than $1), the vegetables are fresh and generously portioned, and P Dam is an ace with the wok.

Today, in preparation for this writing, I finally found out the name of my “Thai food stall across from Nik’s.” If you are in Mae Hong Son, you should definitely pencil in a lunch or two at Rarn P Dam. Lauren’s family ate here three times while they were visiting, and I’ll be stopping by for my daily fix until we leave next week. Yum!

P Dam frying up pad thai sen yai

The happy family at work on a bulk lunch order of pad kra pao moo

Fresh ingredients on display

The best pad thai (sen yai) I’ve ever had

Pad kra pao jay kai dao (spicy vegetables with chili, basil and a fried egg on top), my favorite dish at P Dam

An assortment of other dishes available for 25 Baht

Lauren enjoying her first P Dam experience

Rarn P Dam
SE Corner of Singhanart Bamrung and Phadit Joncume
Mae Hong Son, Thailand
Daily: Breakfast, Lunch (7:00AM-4:00PM)
+66 (0)84-3688533

Easy Thai

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While living in Thailand, we’ve discovered the amazing phenomenon of “Easy Thai” (the phrase came from the back page of a menu at Rom Jinda, one of the few restaurants we frequent that actually has an English menu). “Easy Thai” is a set of dishes that can be found at just about any rarn ar harn dtarm sang (“food to order” stall) in town, whether they advertise it or not. It is a subset of Thai food that consists primarily of stir-fry dishes, mostly served khao rad (over rice), including:

Pad Prik Giang	Stir-fried with red curry paste, Thai eggplant, lime leaves
Pad Kra Pao	Stir-fried with chili and basil
Pad Thai	Rice noodles fried “Thai style”
Pad See Iw	Wide rice noodles with morning glory and other vegetables
Kratiem Prik Thai	Stir-fried with garlic and pepper
Pad Mit Monmuang	Stir-fried with cashew nuts
Pad Prik	Stir-fried with fresh chilies
Pad king	Stir-fried with ginger and mushrooms
Kai jiao	Thai omelet with tomatoes and onions

You can also specify the base of your dish, otherwise you will likely wind up with pork (the usual default):

Jay	Vegetables
Moo	Pork
Gai	Chicken
Ta-hoo	Tofu

For noodle dishes, you should request the width of the noodles: sen yai (wide), sen lak (medium, fettuccini-width), or sen mee (thin, vermicelli-width). Otherwise you may get a surprise when your Pad See Iw shows up sen mee.

Finally, frequenters of Easy Thai often add other modifiers, such as kai dao (with a fried egg on top), pet prik (spicy), or sei gong (to go). It’s kind of like ordering coffee in Seattle.

Easy Thai has become a staple of my lunch-runs, as it is cheap, fast, fresh, and delicious. At a rarn ar harn dtarm sang, an easy Thai dish runs 25-35 Baht (~$0.75-$1; meat and fried eggs can add a few Baht to the cost). My current favorites are pad prik giang, pad thai sen yai, and pad kra pao. I’ve never seen pad prik giang on menus at home, but when I return to Seattle I’ll have to ask Jamjuree if they’ll make it for me!

Pad Thai sen yai – a delicious new twist on an old classic

Pad kra pao jay kai dao – spicy vegetables with basil and a fried egg

Bon Kitchen (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

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When we were last in Chiang Mai for orientation, Lauren looked at TripAdvisor’s restaurant recommendations, even though they are usually a bust for restaurants. While most of the top-rated spots sounded underwhelming to us, the number one restaurant at the time got raves for fresh, tasty, organic food. Bon, the owner, was frustrated with the difficulty in finding healthy Thai food without MSG, so she decided to open her own restaurant to fill that gap.

Enter Bon Kitchen, a small, informal restaurant with simple decor and some of the most artfully presented food in Thailand. Our first dinner there consisted of a spicy three mushroom salad and penang curry, both of which were delicious. The mushroom salad was a variation on yam talay, with mushrooms instead of seafood. We ordered our penang curry “spicy,” and Bon delivered. Her penang had a generous portion of kaffir lime leaves, a modest hand on the coconut milk, and used a homemade curry paste that is Bon’s family’s recipe.

During AJWS orientation in February, we took the other volunteers to Bon Kitchen for a huge family-style meal, where we got to sample most of the food and fruit shakes. While some people raved about the chicken teriyaki, for Lauren and I, the great new discovery was the wing bean salad. We ordered ours with tofu instead of pork, and really enjoyed the sweet and smoky dressing of tamarind, and burnt chilies. A sprinkling of peanuts on top added extra joy and crunchiness. The rest of the dishes were good, but not in the league of the spicy three mushroom salad and penang curry.

This afternoon, even though it was just the two of us, we had to order all three of our favorite dishes for a mid-day feast. They were just as delicious as we remembered, and we lingered over the meal and took advantage of Bon’s free wi-fi. Overall, we’ve enjoyed a lot of tasty, and artfully presented food, at Bon Kitchen. Definitely stop by when you’re in Chiang Mai, we always will!

Enjoying fresh fruit shakes before our meals

Spicy three mushroom salad

Wing bean salad with tofu in a tamarind, coconut, burnt chili dressing

Penang tofu

Beautifully presented organic brown rice

Bon Kitchen
71/10 Sridonchai Road
Chiang Mai, Thailand
+66 08-7800 5410

Daily: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Tamarind (Luang Prabang, Laos)

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In a quiet northeastern section of the old city, near Wat Nong, is Tamarind, a small restaurant that is famous for its Friday night fish feasts and cooking classes. We didn’t manage to make it to either of those events (they were catering a wedding so the weekend cooking classes were cancelled), but we did have a relaxing lunch there yesterday.

Tamarind specializes in Lao food. Though our first Lao restaurant experience was a complete bust, we decided to give Lao food another shot after reading the many raves about Tamarind. We ordered two of Tamarind’s specialties. The first was an assortment of dips, accompanied by an explanation sheet with pictures and descriptions of the dips. From the sheet we learned that the “purpose of the dips is to add flavor to the sticky rice that is the staple of Laos food.” The platter consisted of:

Jeow Mak Len – a tomato-based dip that tasted like a chunky salsa without the jalapenos.
Jeow Pak Hom – a coriander dip that was my favorite of the bunch. It had some chili-kick, and reminded me of a chunkier form of coriander chutney.
Jeow Mak Keua – a smoky eggplant dip that tasted like a good baba ghanoush
Jeow Bong – my least favorite, a garlic based dip where “buffalo skin adds texture”; for us the buffalo skin only added an icky flavor.
Khai Pene – sold all over the streets of Luang Prabang, Khai Pene is made from a vegetable that grows in the river (known as seaweed, river moss, or Mekong weed), is pounded flat, laid to dry, and topped with garlic, tomato, and sesame seeds. Tamarind’s house-made version was delicious.

Our sheet mentioned that the dips are very spicy when eaten in a private home, though at Tamarind they are unfortunately served tourist spicy. However, it’s in Laos that we have become enamored with sticky rice, and the dips were reasonably tasty and fun to scoop up with the rice.

We also ordered lemongrass stuffed with chicken. This was by far my favorite Lao dish to date. The lemongrass is stuffed with a mixture of herbs and chicken, then the entire ensemble is dipped in egg and pan fried. It would be worth taking Tamarind’s cooking class just to learn how to make this dish.

Tamarind has a cute, cafe-style atmosphere, and friendly staff. While I’m still not a huge fan of Lao food, if you’re in Luang Prabang it’s worth considering a stop at Tamarind to get a taste of the local cuisine. And while you’re there, definitely order the stuffed lemongrass.

Vegetarian dips that we shared with little Vid

Lemongrass stuffed with chicken, kaffir lime, and coriander, with peanut sauce

Tamarind
Ban Wat Nong, Old Town
Luang Prabang, Laos
+856 20 7770484

Daily: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner