For anyone not an LTH event regular, it is highly recommended to bring cash, exact change if possible. With 30-35 people attending, this will definitely speed up the check out at the end of the evening!

Is it going to be $30/pp as stated in the original post?

Yes, cash will definitely be nice for the restaurant. They would probably end up spending a good half hour or more just running cards instead of cleaning up our messes.

It is $30 pp, including tip and tax.

And...my +1 just pulled out!

I'll still be there with bells on...and cash.

My +1 is also probably out now as well, but I will be there to enjoy the meal enough for the both of us.

Cool, thanks for the updates! Gary wanted to bring a couple extra people, so it works out great.

Have a great time everybody. I wish i could be there. Please take lots of pictures!

Have fun tonight. Remember...pictures or it didn't happen.

The dinner was truly fantastic. Thanks again to laikom for organizing. My favorites were the seemingly endless and truly addictive fried larb, the deeply flavorful pork knuckle, the frog legs with lemongrass, and the taro with coconut milk, ginko nuts, and quail eggs. The bamboo was the only dish I didn't care for, but for the most part, I can't want to get back to order this stuff again. The fried larb especially feels like one of those "can't not order" dishes.

Anyone else have a food hangover? I'm moving a little slow this morning ...

What an amazing dinner! Thanks laikom for organizing this! I was stuffed, but glad I managed to fit some of the delectable coconut milk, taro, ginko nuts, and quail eggs in. I think my favorite was the green curry with the rice noodles, but the turkey soup was a big surprise. It was so fragrant with dill, an herb I hadn't had in thai food before. The tripe was so spicy and tangy, it was the best tripe I've ever had I think,

What a meal! 35 people signed up and 35 people showed up. Pretty sure they are all glad they did too. I got a few pics, all cell phone so no nit-picking the quality. Hard to believe that we had 35 LTHers at a dinner and no one brought a camera

So here goes...

And our wonderful hosts!!

Here is the final menu, more or less in order as I remember it.

1. Fried Larb
2. Tom Zab Tripe and Tendon
3. Green Curry Chicken with Thai Round Noodles and Salty Egg
4. Kang Om (Turkey and Dill Soup)
5. Kang Plu (Bamboo and Mystery Squash Vegetable, possibly a Luffa)
6. Grilled Pork Neck with Chili and Rice Powder Sauce
7. Plar Kob (Frog Legs with Lemongrass)
8. Pork Knuckle
9. General Eggplant Salad
10. Tiger Cry
11. Eel Dish (I didn't catch the name)
12. Taro Pearl in Coconut Milk, with Ginkgo Nuts and Quail Egg

If there are any omissions, please let me know, and I'll edit.

Can someone explain what fried larb is? Also what kind of preparation was the tripe?

Meal looks awesome!

turkob wrote:Can someone explain what fried larb is? Also what kind of preparation was the tripe?

Meal looks awesome!

It was basically a larb flavored deep fried meatball. It was the color and texture of a falafel on the outside but like the best sausage or meatball on the inside. The tripe and tendon dish was a soup, tom saep, spicy and sour soup.

I'm going to use teresa's list and make a poll, but I'm probably going to use another website becuase the integrated poll only allows 8 entries and doesn't allow ranking.

Here is a link to the survey. Please rank dishes from favorite to least favorite.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7LKJ9TZ

Teresa's list is missing the pork neck with the insanely awesome chili & rice powder sauce.

boudreaulicious wrote:Teresa's list is missing the pork neck with the insanely awesome chili & rice powder sauce.

Put on your glasses, lady. It's #6.

Though I didn't mention the sauce.

Oops--not sure how I missed it--was my favorite dish!!!

Thanks laikom for organizing last night's dinner - many interesting dishes last night. Six dishes really stood out to me: the frog leg dish had every positive Thai note you could ask for in a dish - it was herbaceous, spicy and tart. The only issue with the dish was the frog itself and as good as everything else in the dish was, I wonder whether they wouldn't just be better off using some easily sourced protein, be it fish, shrimp or something else in the dish. But it absolutely has to go on the menu.

The braised pork hock was also excellent and it's a dish you'll find at many other Thai restaurants. It's just a perfect winter dish of rich pork in a fragrant sauce. What I most appreciated about Rainbow's version last night was the complexity of the sauce and the fact that the star anise got along well with every other ingredient without dominating and standing out.

Between the pork neck and the grilled beef dish, I thought both were excellent - but it was the pork itself that really stood out in the pork dish and the sauce that really stood out in the beef dish. That's not to say there were issues with any aspect of either dish - just aspects that really stood out.

Then there was the fried larb. I loved it, but it has the same flavors as tod mun (fish cakes) and hor mok (fish custard), that being red curry, kaffir lime and hot pepper. And I prefer those two dishes to this fried larb so I would prefer that they offer their regular larbs along with the two similar fish-based dishes.

Finally, I absolutely loved the dessert . . . almost like hot custard when you successfully fished out quail eggs. I thought it could have used a couple dashes of salt, but it was outstanding as it was.

Aside from the food, what a great crowd. I enjoyed meeting a few new people I hadn't previously met. My only complaint is that I ate so much that the three or so minute walk home felt more like 30 minutes. Thanks again laikom and Rainbow.

My favorite dish (as most agree so far on the survey) was the fried larb. I think while it had similar flavor as the tod mun and hor mok, it was its own thing for sure, and IMO it blew both of those away, way more fish sauce, big chunks of shallots and spices, and better texture than the tod mun set it apart. Judging by the survey so far I'm pretty sure this one will make the menu cut.

My 2nd fav was the turkey/dill kang om. For me, almost all tied for runners up are tom zap, pork neck, tiger cry, general's eggplant, pork knuckle, frog lemongrass, and the taro in coconut milk.

It was really all around an outstanding meal and an amazing group of people,. I'm so pleased by the turnout and like Jen already mentioned, there were zero no-shows but everyone brought cash! This may be an LTH first! The whole thing couldn't have gone more smoothly. Dinner was a bit delayed but to anyone who's been to dine in at rainbow, it was speedy by comparison. I actually quite enjoyed the delay, it gave us a bit of a cocktail hour to walk around chat before getting down to business.

As a whole I was blown away by how many of the dishes I thought were huge hits. As nervous as the two were I thought there would be a few misses. The bamboo soup was the only problem, and if done properly next time I'm sure would be great. I asked Pen and Mote after everyone left, and they agreed that it must have gotten burnt at some point. I found a chunk of bamboo which was black burnt on the bottom. Burnt funky bamboo comes off as tasting really bizarre and chemically tasting, so it turns out..

[quote="BR"]The only issue with the dish was the frog itself and as good as everything else in the dish was, I wonder whether they wouldn't just be better off using some easily sourced protein, be it fish, shrimp or something else in the dish. But it absolutely has to go on the menu.
/quote]

I'm a huge fan of fresh frog dishes in general, and I agree that the frog itself wasn't as great as fresh frog would have been. I haven't asked yet, but i'm 99% sure it was frozen since the texture of smaller animals really suffers from a freeze. I think the flavors of the dish really went great with the flavor of frog and hope they can find a source for fresh frog if they add this to the menu. It's surprisingly difficult to find fresh frog in Chicago. I knew one place in Chinatown, but it was too far for them to drive for the dinner since they had so much to plan. I know Mote looked when he went shopping on argyle, but I guess he couldn't find any. Personally, I'd rather them have the frozen frog than have them not include this dish on the new menu. It just wouldn't be the same to me if it wasn't frog.

FWIW, there is a very similar shrimp lemongrass dish on the menu. It doesn't pack the same sour punch, and sometimes can be a bit more sweet, but way more spicy. It is cooked with the shrimp being lightly poached to medium rare, I actually like it better than the raw shrimp salad when I order "less sweet". It's one of my go-to orders there.

I forgot to mention, on visuals alone the frog dish was a work of art, putting some of Jazzfood's creations to the challenge.



for those of you who are still curious what fried Larb looks like. Not as beautiful a picture, but it'll do. Did anyone get a picture of the middle of one of these balls?

laikom wrote:My favorite dish (as most agree so far on the survey) was the fried larb. I think while it had similar flavor as the tod mun and hor mok, it was its own thing for sure . . .

Don't get me wrong - I thought it was terrific . . . hell, I probably had 50 of them . . . just personal preferences though in terms of dishes.

So far we have 15 votes in. So far looking good, but nothing too surprising.

There is still time to voice your opinion. You don't have to completely fill in the survey but a no-vote on a dish is the same as voting it as zero, skewing the ranking for that one unfairly lower than the others.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7LKJ9TZ

Laikom,

There is a methodological problem here. If you didn't eat all of the dishes (and I missed three), how can one rank them. So I left before dessert, and this means that I "ranked" the taro as zero, but that is only because I don't know what my evaluation might be. Rankings only work when people are able to rank all choices. Otherwise we could have rated them on a 1-5 scale, which would have prevented the problem of zero rankings.

P.S., Thank you for arranging this. The best dishes were really enjoyable, and all (but one) worth trying.

Or you could have fulfilled your obligation to try all of the dishes! We had a very simple job to do. Just teasing Gary, thanks for the input.

I'm on a "taro-free" diet.

Actually there was a simple solution that I failed to include. There is a N/A function, but I cannot go back and add that after the survey already has participants. This still gives us a good idea about the favorite dishes, none of which were surprises. Overall the survey was still useful. I'm pretty sure the dessert will go on the menu, as even though it was ranked low, most people probably put it lower on the list because it was a dessert.

Forget what I said before. Looking back at the results, a blank answer is not weighted into the average at all. It is the same as N/A. Crisis averted, GAF can get some sleep tonight.