My first professional restaurant experience was in the kitchen of the legendary La Panetiere in 1971. In that kitchen I cooked French and shared staff dinners with many Thais, who were kitchen co-workers. Since that time, the Thai palette and culinary vocabulary have strongly influenced my cooking.
At the end of March I spent a week eating my way through Chaing Mai, a northern Thai city and Bangkok. I traveled to Thailand with my fourteen year-old son Noah, and his friend Jake. Most significantly, a Thai woman who I call Pon guided us. I first met Pon thirty years ago in La Panetiere’s kitchen and she has worked for me on and off for much of the time since. It seemed appropriate to begin this endeavor with a focus on Thai food and restaurants.

What’s going on here?
With Thai food, the answer is, “a great deal.” In the guise of an inexpensive, so-called ethnic cuisine, the preparation and flavoring of Thai food is/can be among the most complex and subtle of all the world’s cuisine. The genesis of Thai cuisine rests, as is always the case with ethnic cuisine, with the native country’s geography and its social and political history.

Geography establishes the basic palette of ingredients and flavors. It is no accident that rice is the primary grain of Thai food. Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice by virtue of its fertile river valleys and monsoon climate. Combine geography with its political history and you get influences like trade routes, invading neighbors and immigration. Chiles are one example. So closely associated with Thai food, the Portuguese brought them to Siam in the 16th Century.

While Thais are a distinctive ethnic people, Chinese have immigrated to Thailand for centuries and today ethnic Chinese make-up ten percent of Thailand’s population. Though very different from Chinese food, there are many Chinese influences. On the other hand, Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia never to have been colonized, so it maintained purity different from, for instance, a French-colonized Vietnam or a British-colonized India.

The growth of Thailand’s restaurants can be traced to its proximity to Vietnam and the role Thailand played as a base for rest and recreation during the Vietnam War. In a very direct way, it was the political and social unrest in Thailand in the early 1970’s that brought a first wave of Thai’s to the United States and to the kitchens of Philadelphia’s restaurants, much as restaurants provided low skilled jobs for other waves of immigrants. Most of the Thais who came to the United States during this time and went on to work in and open Thai restaurants came here only modestly able to cook Thai food. Though hardly an affluent group, in most middle class Thai homes, cooking was done by domestic help and not by the young men and women working in Philadelphia restaurants. Because there were no Thai restaurants for them to dine in, if they wanted to enjoy their native cuisine, they had to figure out how to cook it. It was this first wave of Thais who eventually opened the first Thai restaurants in Philadelphia including Thai Royal Barge on Sansom Street, Bangkok House on Pine Street and Siam Cuisine on Arch Street and laid the foundation of today’s bustling Thai restaurant community.

Thai Culinary Vocabulary
At its best, Thai food is extraordinarily varied and sophisticated. Much of the sophistication comes not so much from cooking technique; rather, it comes from a complex combination of flavors and textures. Some of this sophistication has been lost in modern Thai cooking where there is great temptation to open a can of curry rather than spend the considerable amount of time it takes to make a more distinctive “house curry” with mortar and pestle.

The foundation of the Thai culinary vocabulary consists of varying degrees of hot, sour, sweet and salty. Hot comes from a wide variety of fresh and dried chilies. Sour includes citrus, tamarind and vinegar. Sweet comes from sugar including palm sugar. Salty comes from sea salt and fish sauce. Built upon this foundation are a staccato of herbs, aromatics and spices that lend the distinctive character and complexity to specific Thai dishes. Principle herbs are coriander, basil in a variety of distinctive forms, and, to a lesser degree, mint. (Mint is much more prominent in Vietnamese cooking.) Aromatics include lemongrass, garlic, shallots, ginger, galangal and kaffir lime.

Specific spices are less obvious than the herbs and aromatics. Unlike Indian cuisine where there are generally very strong accents of individual spice, Thai seasonings and curries are built upon the layering of small amounts of lots of different herbs, aromatics and spices including white pepper and coriander. It is this layering of flavors that provides much of the complex richness of Thai cuisine. Coconut is an important ingredient that adds in its various forms sweetness, richness and texture. Jasmine rice is the principle starch. In Thailand, the distinctive sticky rice is preferred in the North. Sticky rice is sadly missing from most local Thai menus. Noodles are primarily the result of Chinese influence. Broad rice noodles are used in the familiar Pad Thai. Clear bean threads or vermicelli made from mung bean starch are often used in soups.

Ovens are not a part of the typical Thai kitchen. Most everything is made in a pot, on a grill or in a wok. Woks are used for stir-frying and deep-frying. In Thailand, a typical Thai meal is one with lots of participants sharing a variety of dishes all served, more or less, at once. It is food meant to be shared. Thais do not use chopsticks except sometimes to eat noodles. Food is eaten principally with a spoon, with the fork used to push the food on to the spoon. A typical Thai meal will consist of a clear or broth based soup, a coconut based soup and/or stew or curry, a stir-fry or two possibly including one with noodles such as the ubiquitous pad Thai, probably some sort of fish, a variety of salads, and smaller side dishes along with lots of Jasmine-scented rice. Ideally, condiments are provided so diners may adjust to their individual preference for hot, sour, sweet and salty.

These are the things you should stop and look for when dining Thai: Think about the flavor of what you are eating. Think about the balance of hot, sour, sweet, and salty. Look for the accents and contrasts. Take in the fragrance that emanates from the aromatics. Can you identify lemongrass? What about the citrus accents? How spicy do you like your food? Add some spice? Maybe a little more sour? Experience contrasting textures. Focus on the complex layering of ingredients in the sauces and curries. It’s all there waiting for you. Don’t just talk. Eat. Dine. Talk about the food.

The Restaurants
In addition to Thailand travel, I visited six area Thai restaurants in conjunction with this piece. Accompanying me on my restaurant visits were: a restaurant-savvy brother and sister-in-law from New York, my mother and a friend; my son Noah, his mother, Noah’s friend Jake and Jake’s parents; the Thai women who lead us around Thailand and her daughter, both of whom work for me, my pastry chef who came to Philadelphia via Vietnam; this magazine’s editor; a group of friends; and, my team of catering account managers. A good time was had by all. Highlights follow.

Diners generally approach Thai menus in traditional Western fashion with a first course selection followed by an entrée. Frankly, ordering as a group planning to share is a better approach. While sorting out the menu, it’s a good to start with a Thai “snack food.” Mieng Cum, is a sort of Thai mini-make-your-own soft taco that combines an exotic sweetness and texture. Taste of Thai provides diners with small circles of lettuce cut from romaine leaves, match-sized sticks of fresh toasted coconut and a delicious sweet sauce with the consistency of honey. The sauce combines dried shrimp, shrimp paste, ginger, lemongrass, fish sauce and palm sugar.

A goal of putting together a Thai dinner is not only finding a balance of flavors in individual dishes, it consists of combining those dishes into a shared meal that, taken together, provides both contrast and balance. If your party includes enough diners, start with the two classic contrasting soup styles, clear and coconut milk based. If not enough diners, opt for the clear. Because coconut milk is so seductive – much like the cream sauces of French cuisine, there is a temptation to order too many dishes with coconut milk. You can get your coconut milk later with a curry. Lighter and more refreshing are the crisp sour citrus notes provided by the key ingredients in the clear soup including lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf and fresh lime juice. Limes are the citrus of Thai cuisine. At Thai Singha House, the clear shrimp soup is a summary of Thai food in a bowl. The seafood and onion provides the sweetness, fish sauce the salt, chiles the spice and lemongrass and lime the sour.

A personal favorite is squid salad. Thai dressings are made without oil. It is sugar balanced with vinegar or lime juice that provides the dressing’s viscosity. Ideally, the squid is cooked just before the salad is prepared so that the squid is slightly warm and provides a contrast to the cold lettuce and tomato. At Siamese Princess the tiny whole squid were just grilled and served with a chile accented dressing. At Nan, an extraordinary squid salad was served with an absolutely crisp lime dressing perfectly balanced to maximize the lime essence without making you pucker.

Soft-shell crabs are de rigeur in Thai restaurants. At Thai Singha House they are served on a nest of angel hair pasta in a rich coconut milk-based curry topped with sautéed green peppers and loaded with fresh basil. The flavor of Thai curries has little in common with Indian curries as they are built on an entirely different set of ingredients. A variation on soft-shells at Silk Cuisine offered a ginger-coriander dipping sauce. A half dozen fried miniature fish cakes served with a sweet-spicy cucumber laden dipping sauce often topped with peanuts is a familiar Thai dish. At Silk Cuisine, the chicken cake provided an unusual alternative. Two other distinctive dishes at Silk Cuisine included a stir-fry of ground chicken lush with Thai basil leaves and Crying Tiger, a spicy cold grilled beef flavored with fish sauce and lightly coated with rice flour.

Salmon is the most common fish found on local Thai menus. At Nan, the salmon was prepared with a crust of red curry that was almost delicate and allowed the taste of the fresh salmon to shine. Thai Singha House’s version was called Spicy Triple Flavor Salmon and was the most compelling item sampled with its wonderful balance of sweet, sour and spicy. The salmon at Siamese Princess was a menu special served with an unusual sauce accented with fermented black beans. At Silk Cuisine, a whole crisp-fried pompano was the catch of the day and glazed with a spicy, clear curry sauce.

In general, Thai restaurants do not specialize in Thai desserts which, in Thailand, are usually fresh fruit or fruit served with sticky rice. Some offer a selection of rich, Western-style pastries, which seem out of place.

By in large, local Thai restaurants are classic mom and pop enterprises and mom and pop work very hard. A seven-day workweek is not unusual and vacations few and far between. Décor is pleasantly similar and indistinct. You don’t go to Thai restaurants to be knocked out by the décor. At their best, servers are knowledgeable and efficient order takers and food deliverers. Prices for appetizers and salads are generally in the $5 to $9 range. Entrees generally run between $10 and $16. Most Thai restaurants serve dishes family style clearly meant for sharing. This is not the case at Nan or at Thai Singha House where to share you needed to barge onto a plate clearly intended for a single diner. Beer is the beverage of choice with Thai food.

Final thoughts: It is hard to find bad Thai restaurants. Depending on your budget, one of our local eateries will serve you well.


Thai Singha House
3939 Chestnut Street Philadelphia 215.382.8001

Taste of Thai
101 North 10th Street, Philadelphia, 215.629.9939
(Formerly known as Thai Garden)

Silk Cuisine
656 Lancaster Avenue Bryn Mawr 610.520-2470

Siamese Princess
Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore

Kamol Phutlek and Nan
I met Kamol thirty years ago. Kamol was one of a number of “Thai guys” with whom I worked in the kitchen of La Panetiere. When I opened Frog in 1973, Kamol was my first dinner chef and held that position for Frog’s first four years.
It was with Kamol by my side that I developed Frog’s distinctive blend of French-Thai flavors that served as Frog’s culinary foundation throughout its fourteen years. From Frog, Kamol went to La Terrasse and then to his own restaurant, Allouette. Nan opened in 1997. Kamol is the reigning Thai king of the Philadelphia restaurant scene though Nan is hardly a traditional Thai restaurant. As the menu notes, Nan offers Modern Food, “Great traditions from East and West, blended in updated, exquisite flavors without fads.”

As billed, the menu is a mix. There are a few straightforward Thai dishes, a few straightforward French influenced dishes (including sweetbreads) and mostly items that blend Asian, not just Thai, flavors with a French touch and technique. Of all of the Thai dishes that I tasted, Kamol’s were the best. Their flavors were lightest, clearest and cleanest. The Thai menu items had a certain flavor crispness.

Named for a river in Thailand, Nan seats about one hundred diners in a modestly formal dining room of pale colors that is a cut above the typical Thai restaurant on the elegance scale with nary a shadow puppet in view. There is no liquor license
.
Appetizers $3.95 - $6.95, Entrees $15.95 - $19.95

Nan
4000 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia 215.382.0818

Pad Thai Shack
18 South 20th Street

Pad Thai Shack is a tiny carry out shop featuring modestly priced Southeast Asian foods. It is open weekdays from 11 AM to 5 PM. Loaded with informal charm, the “Shack” serves Center City office workers in search of a lunch alternative or take-home dinner. A small menu of stir-fries, grilled items, salads and snacks is supplemented with daily specials.
Sampled items included hearty Asian seafood chowder, a sturdy Pad Thai, grilled chicken with shallots, ginger and lemongrass, and a chicken satay salad with basil, cilantro and mint pesto.

To learn more about Thai food:

Thai Food
David Thompson
Ten Speed Press

This 600 plus page book is by far the most comprehensive compendium on Thai food that I have ever seen. Part One includes long discourses on Thai history and culture as well as an overview of the regions of Thailand and the role rice plays in Thai life. Section Two gets into the recipes after first looking into the Thai kitchen and a review of ingredients and basic preparations. This is for very serious Thai cooks. It would also be a great book to read before a trip to Thailand. Thompson is a well-known chef - to Australians.

Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking
Su-Mei Yu
William Morrow, Harper Collins

Rich in detail and culinary lore, this is a very challenging book well suited to provide a comprehensive feel for the complexity of Thai cooking.




Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia
Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
Artisan, A Division of Workman Publishing, Inc.

Coffee-table worthy, this travelogue was written by a couple, which set out to eat their way through Southeast Asia. It is filled with authentic recipes and gallery-worthy photography. It puts Thailand in the context of other Southeast Asian cuisine.