Erik M.'s Thai menu and culture site (and Time Out piece)

Well, Erik M. has just slipped the notice in here unobtrusively, so let me be the one to make a bigger noise about it-- though within the next day or so, Time Out Chicago will do the same.

His announcement represents the debut of Erik's site devoted to Thai food culture in Chicago, specifically containing new, improved and standardized versions of six "secret" menus which Erik ferreted out, extensively tasted and tested (it's a tough job but someone's gotta) and translated and typed up. Though one or two of these restaurants has had its menu translated before, Erik's menus are from scratch, the result of his extensive work with the restaurants to document and taste everything they offer.

In addition to the menus, which are in PDF form and thus easy to download and take with you (soon, one would hope, the mere fact of coming in to the restaurant bearing a copy should tip them off to what sort of customer you are), there are some very fine photos of many of the dishes, all showing the extraordinary richness and bounty of Thai cuisine in Chicago.

Many people here have done wonderful work on this board and others in opening up the world of "secret menus" at our local Thai restaurants, but as the beneficiary of his hard work on multiple occasions, I can say that Erik has done more than anyone to explore this world and generously make its very best offerings accessible to our whole community. I highly urge that you check out his new site, print off a menu and give one of the restaurants a try. Oh, and then be sure to post about it...

This is truly fantastic! Thanks a million Erik!

Beautiful work all the way around. A genuine boon to everyone trying to broaden their culinary horizons.

What a fantastic labour of love. Thanks so much, it will be a great asset to all of us:)

Just got the mag. Props to Erik!

Erik,

What a wonderful resource, incredible attention to detail. Thank you.

Enjoy,
Gary

Postscript: I started to go into full-on hyperbole mode, but realized a simple, sincere, thank you summed it up perfectly.

Thank you, everyone, for the kind words. And, a special thanks to those that have been so supportive of me and my food-related endeavours over the years.

If you would like to show your appreciation, do your part to keep these restaurants in business. It was with great sadness that I learned--just this week--that several Thai menu offerings from various restaurants are no longer on offer.*

Oh, and just in case you didn't notice, move your cursor over the word, Silapaahaan, on the Home Page. It's a "rollover" translation.

Regards,
Erik M.

* These should be clearly indicated on the menu pdf files. They generally read, "No Longer Available." Pure economics --> Insufficient demand.

Erik M. wrote:If you would like to show your appreciation, do your part to keep these restaurants in business. It was with great sadness that I learned--just this week--that several Thai menu offerings from various restaurants are no longer on offer.*

Oh, and just in case you didn't notice, move your cursor over the word, Silapaahaan, on the Home Page. It's a "rollover" translation.

Thank you so much! Khop Khun Mak Hopefully the menus will expand...
Is sadeo(?) served in any of the places? I didn't notice it in any of the menus.

What's the ChiliFlameDragon graphic on the webpage

sazerac wrote:Is sadeo(?) served in any of the places? I didn't notice it in any of the menus.

I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. Would this be the item in question?

sazerac wrote:What's the ChiliFlameDragon graphic on the webpage

Pauly, my Thai pal and graphic designer, did a couple of really ingenious things with the design, IMO.

1) The dragon was actually an outline of a photo image that he found. The colour array inside, though, is actually a manipulation of my khanõm jiin náam yaa photo from T.A.C.

2) The border pattern for all of the pages is actually a repeated abstraction of the Thai alphabet letter, sâw sâalaa, which is the first letter used to spell "sìlàpaahãan" in Thai.

Erik M.

The piece is also available online.

Looks great. The lede alone is a lot of fun:

Trannies, snakes and a seafood hotpot: These are the childhood memories of Erik M., the guy behind the Thai restaurant menu translations your foodie friends have been buzzing about.

Erik:

That is absolutely fantastic. Your work has really broadened my horizons where Thai Food is concerned.

Thanks for your devoted effort.

Erik,

For all your efforts, were you ever rewarded by finding the seafood hot pot of your memories?

Wonderfully enchanting story of how you came to be where you are today. Nothing is a straight line, is it?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm with our community.

Regards,

Erik,
If I could make a suggestion: Could you please create a pronunciation guide for all those wacky diacritical marks and dipthongs?

I'm pretty sure I'm OK when I order "pod tie" but some of those other combinations I'm less sure of.

Thanks

JoelF wrote:Erik,
If I could make a suggestion: Could you please create a pronunciation guide for all those wacky diacritical marks and dipthongs?

I'm pretty sure I'm OK when I order "pod tie" but some of those other combinations I'm less sure of.

Thanks

I thought that I clearly stated my intent to do exactly such in the site's Intro., but apparently I did not.

Now, if anyone else has any other suggestions or criticism's about the site, please direct them to the "contact" at the site.

Regards,
Erik M.

Erik M. wrote:I thought that I clearly stated my intent to do exactly such in the site's Intro., but apparently I did not.

Pffffft, as at least two others* have shown, people don't read documentation


* one of those is me

gleam wrote:Pffffft, as at least two others have shown, people don't read documentation

It is the story of my life.

Maybe I should chuck the menus and just leave the pictures.

Erik M.

Erik M. wrote:Maybe I should can the menus altogether, and just leave the pictures.

Please don't. The site is both beautiful and useful, a combination that should be prized by all.

Many thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

A

I am tempted to make many more trips to Sticky Rice to try out some of these unique creations.

Thanks for posting the online link. I made a web archive of it to send to friends who visit Chicago. And of course, there's always the link to Erik's site now.

Congratulations.

(Erik, you weren't one of the people making fun of me for always including some story about shemales or hookers in my travels, were you? At least in mine, I'm of age. )

Indeed, a great article (and a great-looking site too, Erik). I appreciated the sidebar with some suggestions for standard dishes closer to the Thai style -- maybe now I can get some of my curious but nervous friends to check out these places.

Did this website (Erik M's) get moved?? Or is it gone forever?

jlawrence01 wrote:Did this website (Erik M's) get moved?? Or is it gone forever?

I've had that same question about Erik M himself.

Hi,

Unfortunately, Erik's website is long gone. At some point the website got messed up at server level and never quite returned. It was interesting and full of promise, then it went poof.

It's been a while since I last heard from Erik, though he was fine last time.

Regards,

Thanks.

I was doing some research on secret menus and wanted to link to the master.

Erik's well, just not posting so much (anywhere). Silapahaan (sp?) went poof. Server crash from a host that apparently didn't adequately back up completely wiped it out a number of years ago, and I think the domain has now been snapped up by somebody for SOE. I know the photos were lost (hence all of the dead links in his posts here), and the menus may have been as well. I think he never summoned the will to redo everything, and I can't blame him. That's a brutal blow.

Or we can let Erik speak for himself (I just found it)

Subject: Translated Menus

Erik M. wrote:

sti3 wrote::(

Is there a thread with the reason?

As I mentioned yesterday, my web-hosting service "accidentally" deleted my site, and, for reasons which are still not clear to me, they do not have it backed up.

What am I going to do about it, you might ask?

I am going to encourage folks like you to pretend that it is gone for good.

E.M.

If you look on the Translated Menu thread, there is still quite a few there to reference. Granted they are eight years old or less. Not all was lost when his website went 'poof.'

Regards,