gleam wrote:Now if only someone could tell me the secret to getting the thai/japanese fusion dishes from the kitchen at Silver Spoon!

You know, I haven't been back since my first (delicious) lunch there...

I guess they never moved some of that stuff to the menu...that's really too bad it's not available. Has anyone had luck stopping at Silver Spoon and ordering off-menu specials without giving the kitchen advanced warning?

What do they say when you ask about those dishes?

Ralph Wiggum wrote:My confusion lies in the fact that the paper menu they delivered, and the one they have online, are oddly limited in options and rather pedestrian. This is going to make future experimentations a bit difficult.

LOL!! This should alleviate any further confusion.

Erik M.

Thanks to my homies at Studio312, and BIGMAJORPROPS to Pauly and CrazyC.

Erik M. wrote:LOL!! Not any more.

Erik M.

Thanks to my homies at Studio312, and BIGMAJORPROPS to Pauly and CrazyC.

Erik:

*damn* nice work on that. Studio312 did a great job on the design, and your pictures are beautiful as always.

One thing that would be very nice is either phonetic pronunciations or a guide to the special characters.. I don't want to mispronounce kra-phrao kai raat khao, after all.

gleam wrote:Erik: *damn* nice work on that. Studio312 did a great job on the design, and your pictures are beautiful as always.

One thing that would be very nice is either phonetic pronunciations or a guide to the special characters.. I don't want to mispronounce kra-phrao kai raat khao, after all.

Thanks alot, Ed.

If you've got comments or questions, tell the "contact" at the site, whoever that is.

Erik M.

Aaron Deacon wrote:This isn't Erik's translation (is Erik's at the restaurant now?), but it gets the job done, and may allow you to order for takeout.

nice. I completely missed that. Thanks.

Erik M. wrote:

Ralph Wiggum wrote:My confusion lies in the fact that the paper menu they delivered, and the one they have online, are oddly limited in options and rather pedestrian. This is going to make future experimentations a bit difficult.

LOL!! This should alleviate any further confusion.

Erik M.

even better! Looks like I have plenty to choose from now.

Aaron Deacon wrote:Has anyone had luck stopping at Silver Spoon and ordering off-menu specials without giving the kitchen advanced warning?

What do they say when you ask about those dishes?

That's what I tried.. walked in and looked at the menu. I asked if they had muu ping futomaki, or maybe the shrimp roll with green curry, but was told no, no.

I ended up with sushi, she with banana blossom salad and a soup. She likes the banana blossom salad at spoon thai more than at silver spoon, and the sushi was just average, so unless they get fusion stuff on the menu there's no reason for us to go there.

-ed

A thousand thanks, Erik.

It's sort of an admission of gluttony and laziness, but I doubt that any one household will make better use of your work than the JeffB residence.

Ralph, FWIW, I was once very long ago (10 + years) a devotee of PS Bangkok, particularly the brunch and it's a la minute noodle and dumpling bar. Long before Erik, RST and others showed me the light, I had given up on PS. I recently ordered some of my former favorites from PS Bangkok to recalibrate things and to see how it has aged.

I have to say, everything was quite dismal, both by my current LTH-enhanced standards and my former standards. Grilled coconut chicken was really old and bad. Pad kra praw, made with ground pork as a special accommodation that I did appreciate, was just awful. Especially unfortunate because it was a huge portion of food. My only disclaimer is that this was a one-off experiment that will not be repeated.

I'm not trashing PS Bangkok just for kicks. I have a serious soft spot for it and I like the busy kitschy room. I had hoped it would be better than remembered. Instead it was much worse. This is consistent with my observation as a passer by that the place is always barren, even when other Thai restaurants in the immediate area, none of which do much for me, are packed.

You are in for a treat from Spoon and several others.

Back to the original subject of this thread, namely, nãem khâo thâwt, I would like to draw your attention to this "NEW" review of Spoon Thai, at the Mama-Marias.com website.

Can you guess who plagiarized whom?

04.04.05 EDIT: The Spoon review at the M-M site has since been changed.

Erik M.

Erik,

At least they had the professional courtesy of acknowledging the trademark status of MaMa instant noodles!

Regards,

I stopped into TAC last night for takeout and ran into Erik there as he was dropping off menus. His voice was going, no doubt from talking about the site so much

I got my usual pork neck, nam tok, and chicken satay for the kid. Erik suggested the braised pork belly with hard boiled eggs and tofu. It was ok but a bit sweet to my taste. Everything else was superb as always.

I finally had the pleasure of tasting the Naem Khao Thawt at Spoon last night, and I'd like to add my voice to crowd. This is a truly fantastic dish. I am hard-pressed to come up with any "drinking food" that I've enjoyed more.

From looking at Erik's photo you'd imagine there's a lot going on in this dish, and you'd be right. Contrasting textures and bright flavors, each little bite was better than the last.

I forsee quite a few meals of Naem Khao Thawt, Spoon's fried chicken, and a six pack of beer.

Thanks again, Erik.

Best,
Michael / EC

eatchicago wrote:I finally had the pleasure of tasting the Naem Khao Thawt at Spoon last night, and I'd like to add my voice to crowd. This is a truly fantastic dish.

Michael,

And do I hear an amen!

As many times as I've been to Spoon I'd not had this dish. Really terrific, I agree with Michael, thanks Erik.

Enjoy,
Gary

Tonight I called G Wiv for the name of the shrimp dish I'd liked so much at Hoanh Long, and he informed of two things: the name, and the fact that Hoanh Long was closed on Mondays. (This last he knew because he'd just written the Reader capsule review.) Flailing about for a substitute, I asked him for an idea of somewhere else to eat, and he suggested having the very similar phla kûng at Spoon.

Spoon! There's an idea. I hadn't been there in months, maybe even a year, which is ridiculous since it's (slightly ambitiously) walkable from my house. But my Thai jones had been well served by TAC Quick lately, with a little assist from Elephant and others, and I'd just not made it back in a good while. So Spoon it was.

I was handed the three menus-- the American one, the Tribune Thai menu recommendations, and Erik's more complete two-page Thai menu (not sure if it's everything that he's posted here, but it's a lot of it at least). And while perusing it I was reminded of something else I'd tried long ago and had really liked, which would be good for offering my wife something less likely to blow her head off-- nãem khâo thâwt, aka "that thing with ham in it."

We ordered the shrimp dish, phla kûng:



For the first time, my wife seemed to genuinely enjoy something pushing her heat threshhold, even using it as the occasion to regret having ordered pad thai from our (serviceable) neighborhood joint a few nights earlier. We'll make a chilihead out of her yet. Bright, eye and sinus-opening, this is different from Hoanh Long's dish, but excellent all the same.

We also ordered banana blossom salad (didn't really need another picture of that) and kai thawt, Thai fried chicken (didn't strictly need another picture of that either, but took one anyway):



I've always liked Spoon's kai thawt and dipping sauce as the gold standard for Thai fried chicken, but I have to say that good as it is, I now find the grilled meats at TAC miles beyond any of that, when it comes to savory meat and a multidimensionally flavorful Thai dipping sauce.



Finally, the nãem khâo thâwt, first introduced to me by Erik's post above. (I isolated a few of the key ingredients, it's not normally that spartan-looking.) What a great, comfy, easy-to-love dish-- the little nuggets of deep-fried rice are insanely scarfable, the bits of ham or sausage (looks more like sausage now) and lime flavor and chili all add up to an irresistable dish that couldn't be more accessible, yet stands up as real Thai food. I could see as my wife dug into it that I'd chosen well.

On the way to our next stop I spotted this remarkably well-preserved painted billboard, probably teens or 1920s, uncovered by the demolition of a building on Lincoln a little north of Lawrence. What a great slice of urban archeology. What a great meal of urban cross-cultural discovery. What great finds in this great city.

Mike G wrote:

Finally, the nãem khâo thâwt, first introduced to me by Erik's post above. (I isolated a few of the key ingredients, it's not normally that spartan-looking.)

That looks like Alinea's version of nãem khâo thâwt. ("I want you to eat the rice first, then the pressed ham, and then the peanut. The fork will spray lime juice directly into your mouth....")

Erik also translated a more recent, much longer menu (here). I wish they'd make it available in the restaurant, as they do the previous translation. (Maybe they do if you ask? But they've never mentioned it to us and they know we only order from the translated Thai menu.)

cilantro wrote:Erik also translated a more recent, much longer menu (here). I wish they'd make it available in the restaurant, as they do the previous translation. (Maybe they do if you ask? But they've never mentioned it to us and they know we only order from the translated Thai menu.)

I don't have need for it, so I wasn't even sure that it was there, but I watched a waitress present it to a curious couple just last week.

E.M.

Mike G wrote:I've always liked Spoon's kai thawt and dipping sauce as the gold standard for Thai fried chicken, but I have to say that good as it is, I now find the grilled meats at TAC miles beyond any of that, when it comes to savory meat and a multidimensionally flavorful Thai dipping sauce.

I've "agreed" with you for nearly four whole years now.

E.M.

And now I finally agree with me too!

The dipping sauce did not seem as vibrant as it has in the past, but I don't know if I'm just recalibrated toward TAC's style generally now or what, having been there a bunch lately ("bunch" being relative to each individual, of course). Anyway, yeah, in the category of hunks of meat to dip in spicy funky sauce, if there's anything that beats the grilled pork neck at TAC, I'm all ears to know what it would be.

Mike G wrote:The dipping sauce did not seem as vibrant as it has in the past, but I don't know if I'm just recalibrated toward TAC's style generally now or what, having been there a bunch lately ("bunch" being relative to each individual, of course). Anyway, yeah, in the category of hunks of meat to dip in spicy funky sauce, if there's anything that beats the grilled pork neck at TAC, I'm all ears to know what it would be.

I cannot speak to that of Spoon, but the dipping sauce for the fried chicken at TAC has always been the same, and, like a number of other offerings, it carries Andy's distinct signature: the perfect resonance between sugar-sweet and tamarind-sour.

Of course, the fried chicken itself is the real star, but I think that you said that.

--------

When you used the term "grilled meats," I thought that you meant all of them...

chicken/pork satay (sa-te kai/muu)
pork skewers (muu ping)
Isaan sausage (sai krawk isaan)
grilled pork neck (khaw muu yaang)
grilled calamari (plaa meuk yaang)

...and, in which case, I agree.



E.M.

atually what has bothered me (slightly) recently at spoon has been the somewhat downward slide of the banan blossom salad.

In the past I have received it presented upon its own doily of lettuce topped with a few poached shrimp and crispy shallots

recently it has lost its shrimp and its more formal composed nature, also the flavor (and this is possibly my imagination) seems to have less of the roasted chili jam flavor

if folks know of other good version of this salad, I'd be happy to hear of them

Mine had shrimp and doily of lettuce yesterday, fwiw. Can't remember if crispy shallots were on it, though-- I think so.

Erik, right, TAC's sauce is sharpened to such a fine point, it made Spoon's seem a little muddy by comparison, though I don't know if it's changed or I have. As far as TAC's grilled meats, I don't think I've had the calamari, but I've liked all of those others. The pork neck, though-- I had that and the crispy en choy two days before leaving for Spain, just in case my plane went down.

LTH,

Absolutely killer lunch today at Spoon Thai, deep-fried rice salad with Norther Thai-style pressed ham was a study in flavor/texture contrast, Thai fried chicken juicy, crisp meaty, Northern Thai-style spicy red sausage, fragrant lemongrass, kick of red curry, Pork Laap, asked for Thai-hot, hot, salty, sour, herbal, light funk, dynamic keeps coming to mind. Meaty, plump, crisp fried soft shell crab in red curry, a menu board special, attractively presented and chart topping in a Spoon top ten lunch.

Added bonus was running into Nick/Unbeknownth who is in from NYC for a short visit.

Enjoy,
Gary

So I am now 3 days past my due date and pretty desperate to evict the little one.

What's very spicy and best ordered thai spicy?

I am planning on nam tok neua, naem kao that, phla kung, muu ping and kai thawt.

Any other recs?

papaya salad, thai spicy, can be blisteringly hot if they actually bring you thai spicy.

kafein wrote:Any other recs?

Get some sleep.

I tried Naem Khao Thawt the other night based on Erik M's recommendation and it was, in one word, sublime. A perfect balance of flavor's. It reminded me of Thailand. If only I'd had a Singha or Elephant beer on hand...

Erik, do you know if this dish is offered at Siam's House, which is close to me and has become my go-to place for excellent Thai food? I didn't see it on your translated menu, but I wonder if this is the sort of dish that would be commonplace at most "authentic" Thai restaurants, even as a non-menu item. If not, it's worth the trip to Spoon for that dish alone, although I love just about everything I've had there.

Best,

Jeff

Leela, at the great Thai food blog SheSimmers, has posted the recipe, with video, for Spoon's Naem Khao Tod.

thanks for that, one of my favorite dishes anywhere