Songkran Festival at Wat Thai, Silver Spring, MD

I went to the Songkran, Thai New Year, Festival held at the Wat Thai temple in Silver Spring, MD this past Sunday. There were dozens of food stands serving different Thai dishes, and even though I arrived as soon as the festival opened, it was already crowded.
Since it was my first trip to this event, I decided to head to the food stand with the longest line first. I made a good choice because it led to my favorite taste of the day, a version of the floating market noodle soup. When I made it to the front, I could see a pile of roast pork as well as other pig parts. They asked me if I wanted everything, and I said, "yes, please".
I received a bowl of dark broth loaded with meat, a soy egg, and rice noodles that were square and came in small rolls. This was topped with cilantro & ginger. At a side table, they told me to add some fish sauce, a spicy vinegary sauce and chili powder. The resulting flavor was sweet and savory, and as I ate, it became more and more spicy.

Now I love all kinds of noodle soups, with authentic Japanese ramen being at the top of the list. I think after having floating market soup, it might just be second on the list, toppling off Vietnamese pho.
When I finished, I proceeded to check out other food stands, sampling small bits of what a could and trying to negotiate for loosies. I felt like Chris Rock from an old skit from back in the day, "How much for a wing? Just one wing."
It seemed like every other stand had grilled satays. I gravitated to one that had pork and beef meatballs. They were drizzled with sweet chile sauce.
I also tried a table that made small savory balls of tapioca filled with pork and chiles.
In the deep frying section of the festival, they were making fresh pork rinds, fried banana, and sweet potato. I had nibbles of all three, the best being the pork rind.

I went on to explore the dessert stands. There was one with that had "soups" that were made of sticky rice or tapioca with fruits, coconut milk and other items. I tried one item that was described to me as Thai "jello", which was a firm custard made with coconut milk on top and taro on the bottom. They also had sweet fried taro cakes that were good.

I made sure I saved room for durian fruit with sticky rice and coconut milk. If you've never had durian, it is a fruit that you either love or hate as it has a strong pungent odor to it. It's texture reminds me of a roasted garlic bulb, soft and a little stringy.
I had another order to eat later, mango with black sticky rice and custard. The black rice is more toothsome than the white rice.

I also picked up a couple curries to eat over the next couple days. First, I had a fish curry. The fish was ground very fine and it was loaded with ginger. I think it's usually supposed to be poured over noodles, but I didn't have any so I used rice instead.

The second curry I got was a red curry with pork belly. This was tasty as well, and again, had a lot of ginger in it.

After this safari, I still have a craving for that floating market soup. It needs to be the next fast food craze.

Ba Bay, DC

Ba Bay is an incredible modern Vietnamese restaurant that opened at the end of 2010 in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington DC. I finally made it down there for a memorable dinner off their recently debuted springtime menu. I was joined by fellow foodie and Ba Bay regular, Leleboo.
I arrived a little early, so I started with a cocktail called the "633" consisting of Brugal rum, St. Germain, & milk punch topped with culantro. It was a fresh tasting starter.




We shared a trio of appetizers. First, we had an "autumn roll", consisting of rice paper filled with egg, jicama, veggies & Chinese sausage. The dip of hoisin sauce and peanut was good. The roll had a nice kick, too from jalapenos inside it.
We got a small portion of their chili glazed wings topped with scallion. They were more sweet that spicy, and they were finger licking good.


The third appetizer was a purple cabbage salad tossed with peanuts & herbs. The magical ingredient though was the dressing, a fish sauce vinaigrette. There was a complexity to the dish combining the bitterness of the cabbage with a little sweet and pungent. It was light and delicious.




For the next course, I ordered their soup special. It was a smoked pork broth loaded with Saigon noodles, which were like segments of udon noodles, topped with braised pork, ham hock, celery, and a soft poached egg. The broth alone was tremendous and complex in flavor.
Leleboo shared her dish, Papa Weaver's grilled pork loin with a fish sauce glaze, accompanied by rice noodles, bean sprouts, peanuts & scallion. The pork was wonderful with a nice crispy skin.
We also shared a side of flash fried cauliflower with chiles. This was also really good.


We ordered two desserts to share as well. First was the Vietnamese coffee milkshake with a small churro in it. They gave us straws normally used to sip bubble tea for this drink, and like Vietnamese coffee, it had a stronger, bolder coffee flavor.
The second dessert was a lemongrass pot de creme with a lime sabayon, pineapple compote and almond crumble. This was spectacular- not at all heavy and a wonderful combination of sweet and sour flavors.








633 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington D.C
(202)547-1787

Joe's Noodle House, Rockville, MD

I can't believe it's taken me years to get to Joe's Noodle House in Rockville, MD. It's truly a delicious bastion of Szechuan style cuisine in the MD/DC area. When I went to Joe's, my friends told me that my ability to speak some Mandarin Chinese would ensure our dishes would be "Chinese" hot. Because the menu items at Joe's are coded, I'm going to include the letter-number combinations for each dish.
The dishes in our meal had a wonderful progression from salty & sour, to mild tingling, to numbing, and then to nose running hot. We opened with some small plates- spicy & sour pickled cabbage (A05) and scallion pancake (A35)- good items to cool the burn of the items to follow.

We got the Szechuan beef jerky (A52), a cold dish with chunks of beef that was chock full of Szechuan numbing spice. It wasn't that hot, just tingly.
I'm a big fan of Szechuan Dan Dan noodles (N11). It's the spaghetti Bolognese of Chinese food except spicier and with sweet sesame paste. The version at Grace Garden is my favorite, but Joe's take was good.
Our next dish was a special of stir fried tofu, peppers and celery.

The wontons with red hot sauce (W01) were fresh and light.
We then had back to back dishes that looked the same, but the flavors were very different. First was the Tibetan style lamb with cumin (H14). The slight bitterness of the cumin pairs well with szechuan peppers, and the heavier flavor of the lamb.

The second item was triple pepper chicken dry sautee (T20) which had a lighter texture because of the chicken. This actually had more heat than the lamb dish.

The spice level continued to increase with the next dish of spicy & tasty fried bean curd with pork (F32). The tofu was light and had a little crunch on the outside, but it was completely rubbed with spicy chiles.
Our final item put the spice level over the top. We had the fish filets and soft bean curd in Szechuan sauce (H20), which almost was like a Ma Po tofu except loaded with fish and whole chile peppers. You had to eat this with rice just to cool it down.
By the end of the meal, my whole mouth was nicely burning, and we had plenty of leftovers to take home as well.


1488-C Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
(301)881-5518

Pure Thai Shophouse, NYC

On our last shopping and eating day, petiteseour and I had a day that was light on the shopping, but excellent on the eating!

We had lunch at Torrisi Italian Specialties where we very happily shared the house-roasted turkey sandwich (to die for - so moist and flavorful, piled high with a wonderful dressing, shredded lettuce, thinly sliced red onion and tomatoes), delicious chicken parm hero, and a variety of sides - broccoli rabe, brussels sprouts, and sweet and sour eggplant relish, which was delicious on bread. Unfortunately we had just missed the eggplant parm - which sold out just a few people ahead of us in line. Also, unfortunately, no pictures - super crowded squeeze and we were just too hungry! We will be back though to try the lasagna, house-made mozzarella and ricotta, and that wonderful-looking eggplant parm!

Next was a stop at old standby Il Laboratorio del Gelato where petiteseour and Anthony went with daring flavors like tarragon pink peppercorn, and basil, while I stuck with delicious fruit flavors of lychee and concord grape. Then off to buy beautiful macaroons at bisous ciao to give as gifts, with a pit stop for coffee and a couple of Robicelli cupcakes at Cake Shop. After visiting our friend and dropping off said gift of macaroons, another tea break at the Limelight Marketplace where I discovered the wonder that is Bacon Marmalade. So good I'm headed back this weekend to pick up more jars as holiday gifts!

But on to the final round - dinner at Pure Thai Shophouse. Being a regular at Recipe and a fan of Land Thai Kitchen, Petiteseour really wanted to try David and Vanita Bank's newest venture - a noodle house in Hell's Kitchen.

We started with the Crispy Shrimp Sesame Crepe - which was not what I was expecting at all, but was really delicious. My only complaint may be that I didn't get much shrimp flavor, though the kaffir lime curd on top was tasty. The actual slices of lime though were a little jarring at times, when you got one on its own. All together though, it was a really interesting dish and one I would definitely order again.

But the main star of this place is the homemade noodles. We got the house specialty Ratchaburi Crab and Pork Dry Noodles along with add-ons of pork cracklings and a sunny side up egg. The egg was a great addition - just gave a little bit of extra moisture to the tie everything together. The noodles were satisfingly firm. The roast pork was the color of Chinese char-siu, but much milder - a nice surprise for my Chinese palate - and the yu choy added a nice bit of crunch and bitterness. We finished the meal with some fruity drinks - chrysanthemum for me and roselle (a bit like cranberry) for petiteseour.

Pure Thai Shophouse
766 Ninth Avenue (bet. 51st and 52nd)
New York, NY
(212) 581-0999

Revisiting Some Baltimore Favorites

There are several restaurants that I love going back to again and again to try out new items on the menu, so even though we have posted on these places in the past, I wanted to provide some updates.
One of the true great discoveries in the past few years is Grace Garden in Odenton, MD. Chef Li's place has now been rated the Best Chinese restaurant 2 years in a row in the local City Paper, and just recently, he updated his menu to include some items he's made for special dinners only.
I last had the Szechuan Dan Dan Noodles, a dish with warm noodles with sweet sesame sauce, but then covered with Szechuan spicy pork and veggies.
The Phoenix Purse is an item Chef Li often made for Chinese New Year, but it's now on his permanent menu. It is a delicate dumpling that uses a thin sheet of egg white for the skin, filled with chicken and vegetables in chicken broth.
He's also added pork chops to the menu, including the savory salt and pepper pork chop. I'm going to need to get back to try several new seafood items including conch and Cantonese seafood treasures with shark fin, shrimp, & scallops.


After a couple more visits to Columbia, MD's Bangkok Garden, I've found a few more items on the menu that I just love.
The first is Pla Muk Pad Kra Pow, or squid cooked in spicy Thai basil. My favorite item is Yam Makheua Yao, a salad of warm smokey Chinese eggplant with shrimp. It is particularly good to eat on a warm summer day.



Yet another spectacular dish at Catonsville's Hunan Taste is their fish head with red chili peppers. It is a 1/2 head of large fish, so you get to have parts of the cheek, the collar and some of the neck- all the best bits.



I feel so lucky that the Bluegrass Tavern is walking distance from my place, and I surely take advantage of that. Chef Patrick Morrow continues to change up the menu weekly with local, seasonal items that respect the nose to tail ideology.
He's started making taco trios which include items like beef heart, pork cheek and tongue. One week, I tried a wonderful venison heart tartare for an appetizer.
One of the most impresssive dishes is his fried chicken. In the spirit of Airline chicken, his fried chicken is completely deboned, the white meat is wrapped by the dark meat, and the whole cut is fried, and served cut into 4 large slices. The result is meat that remains juicy and delicious with a wonderfully crispy skin. The feat is just awesome.


Grace Garden
1690 Annapolis Road
Odenton, MD
(410) 672-3581

Bangkok Garden
5810 Robert Oliver Place
Columbia, MD
(410) 992-9553

Hunan Taste
718 N Rolling Rd
Catonsville, MD
(410) 788-8988‎

Bluegrass Tavern
1500 South Hanover Street
Baltimore, MD‎
(410) 244-5101‎

Eden Center Food Safari

My friend, Mike, and I went on a mini food safari for lunch at the Eden Center, a giant Vietnamese shopping center located at the Seven Corners in Falls Church, VA.
We started at Bánh Cuốn Thang Long, and ordered their #1, which was the name of the restaurant. Bánh cuốn is a dish consisting of thin sheets of rice flour, in this dish, filled with either pork, crushed shrimp, or fried onions.
It came with bean sprouts, crispy shrimp cakes, and sliced of pork "bologna". We dipped everything in fish sauce mixed with chilis.

Our second stop was a restaurant called Tay Do which had at one end a stage set up for a band to play.
At this restaurant, we noticed that most of the Vietnamese places in Eden Center have ubiquitous mason jars of fish sauce to go with meals.






Here, I ordered a drink called Nuoc mia, made of sugarcane juice. It was not too sweet as I imagined, and it had a nice hint of lime flavor to it.

For our entree, we ordered the Bún Cha Hanoi, which consisted of vermicelli rice noodles that came with a bowl of grilled pork, pork meatballs, & shrimp and a large pile of veggies including bean sprouts, pickled cabbage & carrots, basil, and cilantro.




To put the dish together, you place the noodles and veggies in a bowl, and then pour the meat items along with the sauce on top. Certainly adding extra fish sauce is good as well.
This was a really nice version of Bún I had never had before. Normally, I was used to the Bún dish with the fried eggrolls and pork, but this had a really nice sauce that was used to cook the meat and shrimp.


Our third stop was Bánh Cuốn Saigon. Mike tried the pennywort drink which had a flavor reminiscent of wheat grass, but at least it was sweetened.
Our dish here was the Bún riêu cua (top). It was like pho, but the soup broth was made with shrimp and tomato. It came with the usual side vegetables: bean sprouts, basil, cilantro, and chili peppers.
All together, the ingredients tasted delicious.




After lunch, I went to Saigon Mart, a grocery in Eden Center and picked up a few tins of Frentel for Fougoo. It's a French butter that was popular in Vietnam thanks to colonial occupation. It comes in tins and is mainly used as a spread.





Bánh Cuốn Thang Long
6737 Wilson Boulevard, #22
Falls Church, VA,
(703)534-1746

Tay Do
6793-C Wilson Blvd.
Falls Church, VA
(703)536-5728

Bánh Cuốn Saigon
6795 Wilson Blvd.#54
Falls Church, VA,
(703)534-4482