Thailand's worst flood in 75 years has killed 500 people and displaced countless animals. As waters recede in the ancient Thai city of Ayutthaya, volunteers and elephants join forces to clean up the streets (BBC). This event still causes confusion about our dream of setting foot at Amazing Thailand this summer. The usual scrutiny about if the elephants are still alive are one of the to-die-for inside jokes that we have.
It is our last day of having our normal today-I-am-not-doing-anything lifestyle. We decided to have dinner at our soon-to-be destination, Peppy Thai Deli. It is owned by the Gequillanas and since it was an early linner (post-game lunch and dinner), we had Pandan Chicken, Fried Tofu, and Thai Fried Rice.
Thai pandan-wrapped chicken (gai ob bai toey in Thai) or (pandan chicken in Phil) is marinated in sauces and spices and wrapped in aromatic pandan leaves and fried until crisp and browned. You could smell aroma literally and the marinade zest leaves the chicken very juicy.
The balance of the fried tofu is made by the sweet cilantro and peanut sauce. The complexity of the spicy and tangy tastes are superb. It is topped with crunchy pork cracklings (chicharon in Phil). We really do hope to find fried tofu and fried taro sold together as street foods at Thailand.
Peanuts. Let us talk about nuts. Thai Peanut Beef Satay can be compared to the Philippines’ Ox Tail Stew or the Kare-kare because of its very nutty taste. Thai Peanut Beef Satay are skewers of grilled marinated beef in a spicy-sweet peanut dipping sauce. Look at Ms. Aquino enjoying her stick.
In general Thai food consists of meat and/or vegetables and sauce served over rice. Thai cuisine blends five fundamental tastes: sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and salty. Some common ingredients used in Thai cuisine include garlic, chillies, lime juice, lemon grass, and fish sauce. The staple food in Thailand is rice, particularly jasmine variety rice (also known as Hom Mali rice) which is included in almost every meal. Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice, and Thais domestically consume over 100 kg of milled rice per person per year. Over 5000 varieties of rice from Thailand are preserved in the rice gene bank of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), based in the Philippines. The king of Thailand is the official patron of IRRI (Wikipedia).
Thai fried rice or khao phat is a variety of Fried rice typical of central Thai cuisine. In Thai, khao means "rice" and pad means "of or relating to being stir-fried". This dish differs from Chinese fried rice is that it is prepared with Thai Jasmine rice instead of regular long-grain rice. It normally contains a meat (chicken, shrimp, andcrab are all common), egg, onions, and tomatoes. Green onions, coriander, and fried garlic are then mixed in (Wikipedia).
The One and Only Thai cuisine is within your reach. Visit and enjoy their paper squid. See you on summer, PaThailand. Let us hope that it is not PaThai.
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