Songkran - Thai New Year in St. Louis

This year's Songkran Festival celebrating Thai New Year is coming up on Sunday, April 27, 2014. As in past years, the festival will be held at Wat Phrasriratanaram, the Buddhist Temple and Meditation Center in north suburban St. Louis. The flyer posted on their website promises Thai Music, Boxing, and a "Miss Songkran Beauty Pageant."



Last year's festival was two weeks earlier, and thankfully, spring was already well along during the second week of April. The day was warm, and the Thai community of St. Louis came out in force to welcome those, like me, who came to enjoy the food and festivities. It was a good turnout.



Much of the food was contributed by local Thai restaurants, and served by temple ladies decked out for the occasion. Naturally, there was plenty of posing for relatives' snapshots,



and for the TV cameras:





Vegetarian Pad Thai was simple and satisfying.



This chicken looks tame, but it was wildly spicy.



There is only one Thai restaurant in town (Fork and Stix) that serves Northern Thai cuisine, yet I was hopeful that I might luck into some Isaan sausage and I did. In fact, many of the temple ladies had turned out home-recipe versions that stood up to the peppery, sour sausage I remember from the early days at Spoon Thai.





The grilled chicken also reminded me of Spoon’s, though it had less of a kick. No worries – it was served with a spicy salad.





This lady and her helpers were serving a huge buffet of dishes contributed by St. Louis’ Thai restaurants. I suspect that some of the dishes represented were not regular menu items, but prepared specially for Songkran.



This man cooking roti looks to be all business, but when I commented on his apron, he smiled broadly, and said that he was “from Italy. . . originally,” and winked.



One of the bonuses for me was a chance to get the names of some St. Louis Thai restaurants that were unfamiliar to me. Zen LLC offered spicy pork with basil:



The big draw for the Thai community in attendance was this station. A long line dissuaded me from sampling, but the cooks explained that people were excited about these little cakes because they are nostalgic street food. Perhaps someone reading this can add details.





The bonus of getting around to post about this past event is learning that I need not wait an entire year to indulge in this delicious fare. The temple hosts monthly food events, and here is their online menu.


WAT PHRASRIRATANARAM
Buddhist Temple and Meditation Center
890 Lindsay Lane
Florissant, Missouri 63031
(314)839-3115

Josephine wrote:The big draw for the Thai community in attendance was this station. A long line dissuaded me from sampling, but the cooks explained that people were excited about these little cakes because they are nostalgic street food. Perhaps someone reading this can add details.

In the Celebrating Songkran (Thai New Year) at Wat Dhammaram thread, Rene G wrote:This is khanom krok, sort of a coconut-rice pudding filled with green onion.

Songkran in St Louis looks nice, celebrated outdoors as it should be.

Thanks, Rene G. I hope to have time to stand in line for Khanom Krok this year. Also, I have it on good authority that Fork & Stix will be bringing Khao Soi and Sai Oa ( a Northern Thai sausage) to Songkran this year.