G's 30th birthday dinner: Fancy Thai
Hello!
We are not dead, nor have we stopped eating delicious things. We have gotten simultaneously busy and lazy, but I'm going to try to get my brain together and post more.
Yesterday was G's 30th birthday and he requested dinner at May, which is happily walking distance from our house. It's not a cheap restaurant -- $12 pad thai rather than the $6 you find near campus -- nor is it totally traditional, but it's great for a semi-nice evening out.
We'd stopped there once before to see what was up -- the building is amazing and one can't help but notice it while walking around on 45th -- and I had this amazing squid appetizer that launched me on a squid phase that I haven't yet left. One of my earliest food memories is my mother cooking squid for me when we lived at the tiny weird house when I was probably 5? Thinking back, I am overwhelmed by how lucky my mother was; at five years old, I loved squid and demanded it at least once, apparently, because I have this kind of surreal memory of the squid in the styrofoam-and-saran-wrap package like meat comes in, and we had to wash them out in the sink so they wouldn't be all inky. I don't remember how she cooked them, but I remember looking at them in the package and being very excited.
So now because of May and this bizarre childhood memory, I eat squid anywhere I can (except at Brasa a couple of weeks ago, when G. had the squid ink risotto and I had the duck breast risotto. Both options were equally acceptable, by which I mean fantastic) and I am so happy to have rediscovered it.
May's squid comes in a thin clear vinegary sauce that is the perfect level of spicy for me: not so much that I can't taste anything anymore, but rather a flavor unto itself that accentuates and doesn't compete with other flavors in the dish. AND, the squid is GRILLED, so some bits have the delicious char, and the meat is tender and not chewy and and has just the little bit of grilled flavor that is the point of grilling.
G. had his favorite, pork satay; I didn't have any but he sure seems to like it.
For entrées, G. had a beautiful duck breast in a red curry with pineapple, grapes, and coconut milk. When he ordered, the server said "Ooh, good choice!," which is always a good sign. I had a couple bites of the duck and it was cooked very nicely, with good crust, and the curry had permeated the pineapple chunks all the way to the middle, which surprised and pleased me. Made a mental note to investigate curry-infused pineapple.
I had the most expensive thing on the menu, a nice fillet of salmon grilled in a banana leaf with "traditional Thai salsa," which worried me a bit but turned out to be a great light, vinegary, slightly spicy sauce that went really well with the salmon. There was also a salad of wilted lettuce and grilled asparagus and cherry tomatoes, with the same salsa on it.
We each had two gin martinis with a twist of lemon, which we discovered last time to be a perfect complement to Thai or other slightly spicy cuisine -- a bit of citrus, very cold, both the opposite of and the same as the food, somehow.
We weren't sure about dessert but then the server told us about the sticky rice cooked with coconut milk and served with mango; I've always been curious about sticky rice desserts so we tried that as well as the coconut milk crème brulée. The latter came with three spoonsful of a yummy pineapple preserve sort of thing. The sticky rice was OMG AMAZING. Chewy and somehow meaty, not sweet but flavorful, excellent with the sliced fresh mango.
All in all: highly recommended. Get gin martini and the squid and the sticky rice, and the duck if you like that sort of thing, and the salmon if you don't. Or, you know, whatever strikes you; I feel pretty confident that very little on the menu will suck.
We are not dead, nor have we stopped eating delicious things. We have gotten simultaneously busy and lazy, but I'm going to try to get my brain together and post more.
Yesterday was G's 30th birthday and he requested dinner at May, which is happily walking distance from our house. It's not a cheap restaurant -- $12 pad thai rather than the $6 you find near campus -- nor is it totally traditional, but it's great for a semi-nice evening out.
We'd stopped there once before to see what was up -- the building is amazing and one can't help but notice it while walking around on 45th -- and I had this amazing squid appetizer that launched me on a squid phase that I haven't yet left. One of my earliest food memories is my mother cooking squid for me when we lived at the tiny weird house when I was probably 5? Thinking back, I am overwhelmed by how lucky my mother was; at five years old, I loved squid and demanded it at least once, apparently, because I have this kind of surreal memory of the squid in the styrofoam-and-saran-wrap package like meat comes in, and we had to wash them out in the sink so they wouldn't be all inky. I don't remember how she cooked them, but I remember looking at them in the package and being very excited.
So now because of May and this bizarre childhood memory, I eat squid anywhere I can (except at Brasa a couple of weeks ago, when G. had the squid ink risotto and I had the duck breast risotto. Both options were equally acceptable, by which I mean fantastic) and I am so happy to have rediscovered it.
May's squid comes in a thin clear vinegary sauce that is the perfect level of spicy for me: not so much that I can't taste anything anymore, but rather a flavor unto itself that accentuates and doesn't compete with other flavors in the dish. AND, the squid is GRILLED, so some bits have the delicious char, and the meat is tender and not chewy and and has just the little bit of grilled flavor that is the point of grilling.
G. had his favorite, pork satay; I didn't have any but he sure seems to like it.
For entrées, G. had a beautiful duck breast in a red curry with pineapple, grapes, and coconut milk. When he ordered, the server said "Ooh, good choice!," which is always a good sign. I had a couple bites of the duck and it was cooked very nicely, with good crust, and the curry had permeated the pineapple chunks all the way to the middle, which surprised and pleased me. Made a mental note to investigate curry-infused pineapple.
I had the most expensive thing on the menu, a nice fillet of salmon grilled in a banana leaf with "traditional Thai salsa," which worried me a bit but turned out to be a great light, vinegary, slightly spicy sauce that went really well with the salmon. There was also a salad of wilted lettuce and grilled asparagus and cherry tomatoes, with the same salsa on it.
We each had two gin martinis with a twist of lemon, which we discovered last time to be a perfect complement to Thai or other slightly spicy cuisine -- a bit of citrus, very cold, both the opposite of and the same as the food, somehow.
We weren't sure about dessert but then the server told us about the sticky rice cooked with coconut milk and served with mango; I've always been curious about sticky rice desserts so we tried that as well as the coconut milk crème brulée. The latter came with three spoonsful of a yummy pineapple preserve sort of thing. The sticky rice was OMG AMAZING. Chewy and somehow meaty, not sweet but flavorful, excellent with the sliced fresh mango.
All in all: highly recommended. Get gin martini and the squid and the sticky rice, and the duck if you like that sort of thing, and the salmon if you don't. Or, you know, whatever strikes you; I feel pretty confident that very little on the menu will suck.
posted by lauren at 8:43 PM
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