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The Best Thai Food in America?

Michael Babcock, Saturday, October 15th, 2011

A Most Satisfying Meal!

To find the absolute best Thai meal in America I recommend the Advanced Thai cooking classes of Kasma Loha-unchit in Oakland, California. Here, you will find authentic flavors and tastes as well as Thai dishes that you’ll be unable to find elsewhere once you leave Thailand. Recently at one of her classes I had a meal that was very nearly a transcendental experience. Here is my blog on that meal.

(Click images to see larger version.)

A yummy Thai meal

Why is Thai food so popular? I’ve long thought (and read this echoed elsewhere) that Thai food is so good because it contains all of the four major flavor groupings, salty, sour, sweet and spicy hot, sometimes in one dish. (The bitter taste is also found but is less prevalent.) To eat a well-prepared Thai meal is to light up every taste bud on the tongue and palate. The food is also on the light (as opposed to heavy) side so you walk away from the table with a well-gruntled feeling.

We usually have at least one person taking every class because he or she traveled to Thailand, loved the food there and couldn’t find food to match it here in the States: they come to learn how to make those great flavors themselves. Many students tell us that after taking the classes they can no longer eat in Thai restaurants back home: they are disapponted by meals that emphasize the sweet and the rich, with not enough spicy-hot and or sour flavors.

Students preparing Thai food

Kasma’s food from the first Beginning class (and everyone starts with Beginning) is outstanding; the great food is why our Advanced classes are always waiting list only. It’s in the Advanced classes that you get to really explore the variety and depth of Thai food. It’s particularly in the Advanced classes that you get to experience many of the 95% of Thai dishes that Kasma estimates are never found on Stateside Thai restaurant menus. Kasma has 8 Advanced evening series and 4 weeklong Advanced classes. Once you’ve taken all of the classes Kasma offers, you’ll have well over 200 Thai dishes, many seldom found outside of Thailand.

What is my criteria for a great Thai meal? It’s understood that every taste bud will be lit up and dancing. There has to be a variety of dishes: some spicy, some not, different dishes accenting a different flavor or different type of food. Most of all, that I look for is a quality of amazement and regret: amazement comes from taking that first taste of a dish and being delighted at all of the flavors; and regret from the fact that everything is so good, there’s no way to eat as much of it as you’d like.

I’ve had great meals in many resaturants in Thailand, such as Ruen Mai in Krabi or My Choice in Bangkok. The only place I’ve had a great Thai meal in the U.S. has been at home, often at the end of an Advanced cooking class.

The Meal, Weeklong Advanced Set D, Day 2

I could have gladly made a meal of any single dish in the meal. (In the evening classes there are only 4 or 5 dishes.)

Stir-fried Cha-om

Stir-Fried Cha-om with Bean Thread and Eggs (Cha-om Pad Woon Sen Kai): This dish was actually served as an appetizer; it can also easily by served as a one-dish meal. This summer Kasma and I have eaten this dish for lunch once or twice a week. Cha-om is part of the acacia family; in this dish the tender leaves are stripped from the stem and then stir-fried with garlic, bean thread noodles and egg and seasoned with fish sauce and white pepper. It has a unique and alluring flavor and with the noodles and egg is a satisfying treat.

To find out more about cha-om, see Kasma’s blog Cha-om – A Delicious and Nutritious Tropical Acacia. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can often find it, especially during the summer months, at Sontepheap Market on International Boulevard in Oakland.

Wilted Green Salad

Wilted Greens Salad with Coconut-Lime Chilli Sauce, Fried Chinese Sausage, Crisped Garlic and Crisped Shallots (Yam Dtam Leung): Kasma first tasted this salad at the restaurant Bai Fern in Mae Hong Son. As with many of her recipes, she came up with her own version when she returned home. This salad has to be eaten to be believed – there is so much going on in the dish. Although Kasma has tried making it with spinach leaves, to experience it at its best you must have dtam leung greens. In the notes to her recipe for the class, Kasma says: “Dtam leung is a vine that grows readily during the rainy season throughout tropical Southeast Asia. Since its leaves look like ivy and the mature vines bear small gourd-like fruits, its common English name is ‘ivy gourd.’” In this salad, the tender leaves are blanched. We are fortunate to be able to get this vegetable on occasion at Sontepheap Market on International Boulevard in Oakland.

The dish is completed with small pieces of Chinese sausage, which adds a meaty, sweetness to the dish, a small amount of carrots for texture, thin rounds of green onions, shallots and a few peanuts. The sauce, made from fish sauce, lime juice, coconut cream, sugar and chillies, is equally salty and sour with a little background sweetness. It is topped with crisp-fried garlic and crisp-fried shallots.

The dish is a wonder of tastes – at one time you’ll get the sweetness from the sausage, then the sourness takes over with a bit of chilli heat. Different flavors come up: now coconut, now sausage, now the green, now everything’s blended together. It’s a wonder of textures – from the blanched vegetable, to the occasional carrot to the crispy shallots and chillies. I swear, I could have eaten the whole plate by myself! Except, that would have left no room for other equally delicious dishes.

Sour Chopped Pork Salad

Sour Chopped Pork Salad with Slivered Ginger, Pork Skin and Fried Peanuts (Naem Sod): This salad is made from ground pork, thin shallots, sliced garlic, Thai chillies, peanuts and a dressing made of lime juice, fish sauce, dried read chillies and sugar: it is a spicy hot dressing with a sharp sour taste.

Two additional ingredients move this salad beyond the ordinary. First is the finely slivered young ginger. Young ginger has a mellower, softer flavor than the older, more commonly used root. Second is finely shredded pork skin. The ginger adds a bright, unexpected taste and the pork skin adds a texture that is unexpected. A very satisfying salad.

Thai Muslim Goat Curry

Thai Muslim Goat Curry (Gkaeng Ped Pae): Goat curry is not your usual Thai dish. Goat, in Thailand, is eaten mainly by the Muslim population to the south. The first time I had goat curry was when we were snorkeling in Krabi province on a long-tail boat. The boat driver’s wife always provided lunch and one year Kasma asked if she could get goat. As it turned out, we had to buy the whole goat but it provided three meals worth of delicious food, including a goat curry.

This recipe makes the curry paste from scratch, pounded in a mortar and pestle, with the many of the usual ingredients: dried red chillies, salt, lemon grass, galanga, krachai (or gkrachai), turmeric, garlic, shallots and kapi (shrimp paste). It uses coconut milk (not all Thai curries do, see Kasma’s blog on Thai Curries – Gkaeng (or Gaeng).) It’s further seasoned with toasted coriander and cumin seeds and in addition to the goat meat includes pea eggplants, providing a bit of the bitter taste.

Kasma uses the goat as they do in Thailand, meat cut with the bone. It makes for a tastier, thicker and healthier curry.

People sometimes complain that goat has a strong taste: in this dish, it is not overpowering and blends in seamlessly with the somewhat spicy curry paste. A delicious dish.

Crispy Fried Catfish

Crispy Fried Catfish Coated with Red Curry Sauce (Pad Ped Bplah Doog Tawd Gkrawp):
This dish actually was in one of the very first advanced classes I took from Kasma back in the early 90′s. Because the evening classes are somewhat different than the weeklong classes, it just worked out that this dish ended up in her 4th advanced weeklong class.

In this dish, the catfish is fried in chunks until it is nice and crispy. Then the curry paste (which has 17 ingredients in it) is fried in a bit of coconut cream (1/2 to 1 cup of cream only for 2 pounds of fish), then thickened, used to just coat the fried catfish pieces and tossed with kaffir lime slivers, some krachai (or gkrachai) and young green peppercorns. There’s really no sauce to speak of – just the coated fish with all of the intense flavors from the curry paste and herbs.

Do click on the picture above to see a larger version.

Stir-Fried Prawns

Stir-Fried Prawns with Hot Garlic-Pepper Sauce (Gkoong Pad Gkratiem Prikthai): A deceptively simple group of ingredients, succulent prawns are mostly cooked, and then finished off in a sauce made from a paste made from garlic and fresh ground white peppercorns, Sriacha chilli sauce, fish sauce, thin soy sauce, vinegar and salt. This dish is made by the combination of flavors, the pungent pepper, the bright garlic and the salty-sour-just-a-bit-sweet sauce. Made right, the combination lights up your entire palate.

Stir-Fried Pork Belly

Stir-Fried Pork Belly with Fermented Tofu Sauce and Thai Chillies (Moo Sahm Chan Pad Dtow Hoo Yee): I have saved the best for last. Although we often joke than my list of top 5 Thai dishes has about 20 dishes on it, this is currently at the top of the list.

Probably more of a Chinese dish than Thai, it’s another hard dish to describe unless you’ve tried fermented tofu; in addition, this uses red fermented tofu rather than the more usual plain kind; the red color comes from wine. Fermented tofu is said to be an acquired taste: this was true for me: the first time I was offered fermented tofu I couldn’t eat it. Now, it’s one of my favorite things: it’s great in congee (jook). In this dish it is combined with another of my favorite foods: skin-on pork belly. Pork belly is the part of the pig used to make bacon; Asians often leave the skin on, providing another chewy texture to contrast with the layers of meat and fat.

The dish also contains chopped garlic, garlic cloves in large pieces, Thai chillies and some of the brine from red fermented tofu. The result is delicious, chewy, slightly sour chunks of multi-textured pork belly with the occasional chunk of garlic and Thai chilli as accents. Heavenly.

I first had this dish at our favorite Krabi restaurant, Ruen Mai. They make it slightly different: they deep fry the pork belly first to give it a bit of a crust. I prefer Kasma’s version.

Cassava Custard

Cassava Custard Topped with Coconut Cream (Dtakoh Man Sambpalang): This is more of a snack than what most people would consider a dessert. It’s an eggless cassava custard with a coconut cream topping. All that’s needed after such a delicious and complete meal is just a square to provide a bit of sweetness along with a bit of coconut to smooth away any residual heat.

You might enjoy my blog on
Thai Sweet Tracks – Kanom Wahn.

The Meal Summed Up

This meal is much more than the sum of it’s parts. I can single out one dish or another but the result was a meal that memory is a movement from one delicious taste, one delicious dish, to another. It’s one of those meals you wish would not end.

If there’s another place in America to get a meal like this, I have not come across it!

We recently blogged on our Weeklong Thai Cooking Classes.

Menu for Weeklong Intensive D — Day 2

Stir-Fried Cha-om with Bean Thread and Eggs (Cha-om Pad Woon Sen Kai)
Wilted Greens Salad with Coconut-Lime Chilli Sauce, Fried Chinese Sausage, Crisped Garlic and Crisped Shallots (Yam Dtam Leung)
Sour Chopped Pork Salad with Slivered Ginger, Pork Skin and Fried Peanuts (Naem Sod)
Thai Muslim Goat Curry (Gkaeng Ped Pae)
Crispy Fried Catfish Coated with Red Curry Sauce (Pad Ped Bplah Doog Tawd Gkrawp)
Stir-Fried Prawns with Hot Garlic-Pepper Sauce (Gkoong Pad Gkratiem Prikthai)
Stir-Fried Pork Belly with Fermented Tofu Sauce and Thai Chillies (Moo Sahm Chan Pad Dtow Hoo Yee)
Cassava Custard Topped with Coconut Cream (Dtakoh Man Sambpalang)

Written by Michael Babcock October, 2011

Tags: Classes, intensive, pork, shrimp, thai food, weeklong
Posted in Cooking, Food | No Comments »

Weeklong Thai Cooking Class

Michael Babcock, Saturday, October 1st, 2011

During July and August, Thai cooking teacher Kasma Loha-unchit offers weeklong Thai cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area for people who want to learn how to cook Thai food as authentic and delicious as that found in Thailand. The classes are called “intensives” because for 5 straight days you spend all day learning, cooking and eating Thai food. In this blog we’ll try to give you a sense of what these classes are like.

Click images to see larger version. There’s also a slideshow further down.

Overview

Kasma demonstrates Green Papaya Salad

Kasma, who offered 4-session evening series classes starting in 1985, began offering these classes in 1998 because of requests from people who discovered the classes through Kasma’s website – thaifoodandtravel.com. She very quickly began offering two of the First Week intensives each summer along with two advanced weeklong classes. Hundreds of people from all over the world have attended the First Week class, many of them going on to take the Advanced weeklong classes as well.

Kasma teaches all of her classes in her home. The more casual and intimate setting allows people to relax more and to get to know one another. Since most students will be cooking in their home kitchen, it makes sense to learn in a home kitchen similar to what they will find when they return home.

Thai food - what it's all about

The First Week combines the evening Beginning Series and evening Intermediate Series with some extras; it introduces most important Thai ingredients and many of the cooking techniques, including using the mortar and pestle to make pastes. The First Week lays the foundation of how to balance flavor groupings to create Thai tastes, whether using a recipe or not. Everyone starts with the First Week: it’s the only way Kasma can insure that everyone in the Advanced classes has a common set of essential information and that everyone has been exposed to harmonizing Thai flavors. Many of the recipes in the First Week are familiar to anyone exposed to Thai restaurants in the U.S. – Basil Chicken, Green Curry, Shrimp Cakes, Pad Thai noodles – to name a few. Here are the First Week Menus.

The classes are great fun

In the Advanced weeklong classes more Thai ingredients (less common ones) are introduced along with new techniques and the refining and expansion of previous techniques. In addition to more familiar recipes, the Advanced classes include more recipes that are not so common in this country. Kasma estimates that the Thai restaurants in the U.S. offer around 5% of the total number of dishes in Thailand; the advanced weeklong classes are a chance to learn how to cook and to eat many of the other 95% of Thai dishes. Kasma started out with just one Advanced weeklong class and added 3 more in response to demand from students, who wanted to keep learning more dishes and more about Thai food. Check out the Advanced Weeklong Menus – be sure to scroll down to check out the dishes in all 4 Advanced weeklong classes.

Format

One morning's breakfast

The format of all of the classes is the same. Class always starts with a delicious breakfast consisting of pastries and cheese breads from local (mostly co-operative) bakeries, organic heirloom tomatoes and tree-ripened organic fruits from the Berkeley Farmers market, quail eggs with Thai dipping sauces and a different Asian snack each day. Peet’s coffee and a selection of teas are also served. The breakfasts are fantastic!

After breakfast, everyone sits at the long table and Kasma goes over each of the recipes. This teaching session necessarily takes a bit longer in the First Week class: Kasma needs to introduce the ingredients for the first time as she goes over each of the recipes. Questions are encouraged and part of the process involves smelling, tasting and touching Thai herbs and some comparative tasting (of coconut milks, for example). Class most days starts at 9:30 a.m. and the sitting instruction can last anywhere from 2 to 2-1/2 hours (there’s a break in the middle to sample more of the breakfast).

Students prepping dishes

Chopping & pounding

After the initial instruction, the group breaks up into teams, each team working on 1 or 2 recipes; each team does all of the prep with Kasma supervising and instructing further as needed. After the ingredients are prepared, the food is assembled. Unlike other classes, the assembly is done as a group: everyone gets to watch each dish being cooked and finished. Initially (the first day or two) Kasma does much of the assembly herself and each day students take over more and more of the work, with Kasma watching. Each dish is designed to serve many people: you learn to cook dishes exactly the way you would cook them at home.

Folding banana leaves

Making roti

Assembling Pork Rice Soup

Assembly of many of the dishes involves a series of tasting exercises. The essence of Kasma’s classes is learning to balance flavors. (See Kasma’s article Creating Harmonies with Primary Flavors.) Most of Kasma’s recipes give a range of quantity for many key flavoring ingredients, such as fish sauce, lime juice or palm sugar, because these ingredients can vary widely and blindly following a recipe with just a set quality may not produce a very tasty dish. (See the blog Following Thai Recipes.) Kasma will add a certain quantity of an ingredient, say fish sauce, and then everyone gets a chance to taste what the dish tastes like; more fish sauce, or palm sugar, or lime juice will be added and after each addition, there’s another tasting and students get to see how the flavors interact and how they become more layered and more complex, sometimes with just a small extra addition of something. I’ve had many experiences with these tasting exercises where I thought something tasted really, really good – I would have stopped right there. Then Kasma adds just a bit more of something and the flavors POP!!! into a revelation. It’s a chance to see, to experience the alchemy of Thai cooking.

A team of students

Each day there’s a dish or two that is cooked earlier on to serve as lunch or as asnack to bridge the time until you sit down to eat a Thai feast around 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. Most people find they don’t need to worry about eating dinner – they go away very full indeed! We provide beer or wine, as desired, and lemon- or limeade. Each day finishes with a Thai dessert. These classes are a great way to try some of the wonderful variety of Thai kanom wahn (“sweet snacks”).

One day during most of the weeklong classes is a one-dish meal day. You’ll learn many noodle dishes, from familiar dishes, such as Pad Thai, to the other noodle dishes that Thai people actually prefer: such as Stewed Duck Noodles, Boat Noodles and Kao Soi (Chiang Mai Curried Noodles). Some of the non-noodle (one-dish meal) dishes include Kao Man Gai (Poached Chicken Rice), Salted Black Olive Rice, Muslim Yellow Rice and Pork Rice Soup.

Charcoal Roasted Sea Bass

The last day is a little different. We start Friday with a 2-hour or so field trip to the Old Oakland Farmer’s Market, with its many Asian vendors, and to some of Kasma’s favorite markets in Oakland’s Chinatown. This is a chance for students to learn how to negotiate Asian markets and to learn about some of the exotic Asian ingredients that are found there. Every single one of our Advanced weeklong classes has wanted Kasma to include the optional field trip. We then return and assemble the day’s meal, which always includes grilled dishes on Friday, and on this day we eat out in Kasma’s beautiful garden.

After the First Week class you will have been introduced to most of the important Thai ingredients, will know most of the main cooking techniques and will understand how to balance the flavor groupings to make delicious Thai flavors, with or without a recipe. You will have over 40 delicious Thai recipes with which to amaze and delight your friends. Be warned, you may find out, as have many students over the years, that you no longer wish to eat in local Thai restaurants because the Thai food is better at home!

Advanced Class Format

The format is essentially the same – breakfast, initial instruction and then breaking into teams, coming together so that everyone can see how a dish is cooked and finished. In the advanced weeks, students do pretty much everything under Kasma’s supervision.

Each Advanced weeklong class has 40 to 45 delicious Thai recipes. Many of these are dishes seldom seen outside of Thailand. You’ll be able to cook dishes at home that you can’t find in the local Thai restaurants. After you’ve taken the First Week and all 4 Advanced weeklong classes, you’ll have well over 200 Thai recipes to choose from.

Weeklong Food Sampling

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Mee Krob- Glazed Crispy Noodles (a snack or appetizer), on the 4th day of the First Week

Making Mee Krob noodles on the 4th day of the First Week

The 3rd day of the First Week you learn to fry a whole fish

Crisped Whole Fish Topped with Chilli-Tamarind Sauce (Bplah Rad Prik) from the First Week, day 3

On day 2 of the First Week you learn to make Basil Chicken

Spicy Basil Chicken (Gkai Pad Gkaprow) on day 2 of the First Week

Charcoal-Grilled Mushroom and Jicama Salad with Shrimp and Fried Cashews (Yam Hed Pao Man Gkaew) from day 3 of Advanced Set D

Thai-Style Bean Thread Salad (Yum Woon Sen) from Day 4 of Advanced Set B

Spicy Thai-Style Chicken Salad (Gkai Naem) from day 2 of Advanced Set B

Haw Moek is a Fish Curry Mousse in Banana Leaf Baskets, here ready to be steamed

Curried Mousse of Red Snapper in Banana Leaf cups (Haw Moek Bplah) from day 2 of the First Week

Putting finishing touches to Salted Black Olive Fried Rice (Kao Pad Nahm Liap) on day 2 of Advanced Set B

Spicy Calamari Salad with Lemon Grass, Mint and Lime Sauce (Yam Bplah Meuk) from the very first day (First Week)

Stir-fried Eggplant with Chillies and Thai Basil (Pad Makeua Yao) from the day 3 of the First Week

Lemon Grass Salad (Sukhothai) (Yum Dtakrai) from day 4 of Advanced Set B

Southern Thai-Style Spicy Tamarind Prawns with Crisped Shallots and Garlic (Gkoong Yai Pad Som Makahm Bpiak)from day 5 of Advanced Set A

Pan-fried Mackerel and Assorted Vegetables with Hot-and-Pungent Fermented Shrimp Dipping Sauce (Nahm Prik Bplah Too)from day 3 of Advanced Set B

Pan-fried Steamed Daikon Cakes with Shrimp, Bean Sprouts and Garlic Chives (Pad Kanom Hua Pakgahd) from day 3 of Advanced Set D

Why Take This Class

There’s an English proverb that dates back to the early 1600s that says: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” A cooking class can be lots of fun but ultimately you want to know that what you are learning to make is fabulous food.

Dinner in the garden

People take the First Week class pretty much for one reason: to learn how to cook delicious Thai food. After the First Week, people return for multiple reasons: to learn more about Thai cooking, because they had so much fun the first week and to eat. They come to learn to cook Thai dihes that they don’t find anywhere else outside of Thailand. Always, though, the main reason people return is because the food is so fabulous. I challenge you to check out the menu for any day of any of the advanced classes and tell me where else in the United States you could eat that meal. (The food in the First Week is fabulous as well; that First Week people don’t believe us when we say the food in the Advanced classes is even better.) We have students who tell us that Kasma’s food is even better than what they have in Thailand. People return time after time – many people have taken all 5 of the weeklong classes and regularly ask us when Kasma will offer the 6th – because the food is so good. Several people have repeated one or more of the Advanced Weeklong classes because they wanted their Thai food hit. Other students go on to take the evening series Advanced classes.

Sitting down to eat

Eating Outside

We are currently enrolling people for the July & August 2012 classes. If you’re interested, please check out some of the links below and then get in touch.

Details

You can find out all the necessary details about class times, dates and policies on our website.

Schedule of classes
Details – times, policies, etc.
Class Menus
Kasma’s Picasa Albums – including 100s of photos, mostly of Advanced Weeklong classes.
Kasma’s Yelp Reviews – includes many reviews from weeklong students; be sure to check out the pictures on Yelp.
The Spirit of Thai Cooking – tells you more about Kasma’s philosophy of food and cooking

Kasma stir-fries Pad Thai

Written by Michael Babcock, October 2011

Tags: Classes, intensive, weeklong
Posted in Classes, Food | No Comments »

Hua Hin Morning Market

Michael Babcock, Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Chatchai Market in Hua Hin (also transliterated as Chat Chai), is well worth a visit. Whenever we head to the south of Thailand, on our own or during one of Kasma’s small-group tours to Thailand, we always plan to stop.

An interior view of the market

The market is located off the main highway, highway 4, also called Thanon Phetkasem (Phetkasem Street); it’s on the right as you head south. The southernmost boundary of the market is Thanon Dechanuchit (Dechanuchit Street). The market is mostly indoors, with a little spillage to the street.

This is mainly a market for locals, featuring fresh ingredients of all kinds: vegetables, fruit, fresh-pressed coconut milk, meats, fowl and seafood. It also includes stalls with dried ingredients (dried shrimp, etc.) and prepared food. On the north end there are a number of shops catering more to the many fahrang (Caucasian) tourists and selling beach attire, colorful shirts, straw mats for the beach and so on.

(Click images to see larger version. There’s a slideshow of all images in the blog plus more at the bottom of the page.)

We go largely just to enjoy the lively, colorful display of fresh food.

Inside Hua Hin Market

Different markets throughout Thailand have different feels. This market is one of the most bustling markets we go to: the aisles are a bit narrow and it seems as if there is always someone wanting to get past you in the cramped quarters. Often you’ll have to scrunch over to one side to allow a motorcycle (often making a delivery, the item in a box on the back of the motorcycle) to edge past you. So be prepared to be jostled and don’t block the aisle too badly when you take photographs!

I always look forward to one of the aisles at the market where you find all kinds of dried foods; for years I’ve tried to reproduce the wonderful palette of oranges and reds created by the stacks of dried shrimps, vegetables and fruits.

Colorful dried shrimp and more

Close-up of dried foods

Fish vendors

When I think of Hua Hin Market, one thing that I always think of is fresh seafood. Hua Hin is right on the coast and the market naturally contains a whole section with many seafood vendors. The aisles in this section can be a bit treacherous: they are often very damp and often a bit slimy from water used to clean and refresh the seafood. Tread carefully! Usually a vendor will specialize in one thing or another: fresh fish, shrimp, squid or crabs, for instance. In addition to the fresh seafood, you’ll find all kinds of dried fish, squid and shrimp.

Whole fish for sale

Dried mackerel in baskets

One item that we always look for here is jackfruit (kanoon or kanun); it always seems to be good from this market. When you visit Thailand you really must try jack fruit: it has a subtle, delicious flavor unlike nearly any other fruit. It’s found in many markets already cut out of its matrix and ready to eat: something you appreciate much more if you’ve ever had to prepare it yourself! (For more pictures of this fruit and to get a sense of why it’s a luxury to get it read to eat, see the article on She Simmers – How to Prepare a Jackfruit)

Preparing jackfruit for sale

Jackfruit fruit, ready to eat

As befits a local market, there are a large number of vendors with fresh vegetables, ranging from large stalls with just about everything, to small vendors on a straw mat on the ground with just a few items to offer. As usual, you’ll find any vegetable you could desire for cooking Thai food, including items that we would love to be able to buy in the U.S., such as “rhizome” (krachai) and fresh, green peppercorns. In addition, you’ll find varieties of vegetables that are very different from what you’ll find back home. One example is the long, green eggplant (makeua yao) that is so delicious when roasted; you’ll even find it here already roasted – all you need to do is take it home and easily finish a delicious Roasted Eggplant Salad (Yum Makeua You).

Vegetables for sale

Roasted green eggplants

Hua Hin Municipal Market Slide Show

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One of the aisles at Hua Hin Market; notice the motor scooter in back.

Here's a view of Hua Hin Market from the inside.

There are numerous stalls selling dried shrimp and the like.

Here are several kinds of dried foods, including colorfully orange dried shrimp, to the right.

Here are 4 different dried shrimps, packaged to sell.

Hua Hin is on the coast and the market features numerous vendors of extremely fresh seafood.

Here's one vendor's selection of whole, fresh fish.

Fresh prawns (shrimp) such as these are widely available.

Other vendors offer fresh crabs, such as these.

This dried mackerel (pla too) is one of Thailand's favorite fishes; here it's sold in baskets, ready for steaming or frying.

Other kinds of dried fish are artfully arranged in an aesthetic swirl.

Hua Hin market always seems to have delicious jackfruit; here a vendor separates the fruit to sell.

Here's the fruit of the jackfruit, removed from the sticky matrix and ready to eat.

Of course, there's all kinds of other fruits as well, such as these sweet, yellow mangoes.

Here are orange and green papayas.

Naturally, there are numerous vendors with fresh vegetables; these are artfully displayed indeed.

Thai markets in general have a wealth of exotic ingredients hard to find back in the U.S., such as these fresh, green peppercorns.

The market also offers cooked ingredients that can be taken home and incorporated into a dish, such as these roast green eggplants.

Hua Hin market offers any ingredient you need to cook Thai food. Here are plastic bags of soft, easy-to-use palm sugar.

The market also offers fresh-made chilli pastes and sauces, providing an easy way to make an easy, delicious dish.

Here are some more spicy sauces.

Here's an inner aisle with several butchers offering fresh meat.

This woman offers chicken and duck eggs and also salted duck eggs. You select the eggs and take them home in a plastic bag.

Here a woman is making extracting fresh coconut milk from the flesh of coconuts; notice it running into the front pink bucket.

Of course, there's lots of pre-made food. This vendor is out on the street and offers various meats on sticks, such as satay and sausages.

Here's a grilled fish vendor with a marvelous smile.

Here's a close-up of fish or shrimp cakes fried in oil in a wok.

There's also many different pre-made foods, such as these packages of miang kam.

No market is complete without a complete selection of kanom (snacks), both Thai and, as we see here with these "donut holes," western.

Every Thai market has at least one vendor with colorful flowers; here we also see refreshing young coconut, ready to drink.

Two Previous Blogs on Hua Hin

Five Previous Blogs on Thai Markets

Written by Michael Babcock, September 2011

Tags: chilli paste, dried shrimp, fish, Hua Hin, jackfruit, Markets
Posted in Markets | No Comments »

Basil Salmon

Michael Babcock, Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

Here’s a variation on one of the most popular dishes in Thailand – Pad Ka-prao – meaning “stir-fried with (holy) basil.” Almost anything you can think of – pork, beef, chicken, fish, shrimp – can be stir-fried with basil and served over rice. One of my favorite variations of the dish, and a staple when Kasma is out of town because it’s so easy to cook, is Salmon Stir-fried with Basil.

(Click images to see larger version.)

Basil Salmon

Pad Ka-prao is one dish that I’ve learned to cook very well. I remember the first time I ever cooked it. It was back in 1992 when I took the beginning cooking series from Kasma; she teaches Spicy Basil Chicken in the second class. As she demonstrated it all looked so very easy and natural. So I decided to cook it for myself at home. That very first time I found out that Kasma’s ease was a bit deceptive; when I cooked it, everything seemed to happen way to fast! Each time I made the dish it became easier and the process seemed to slow down. Practice can, indeed, make perfect.

Basil Salmon - close-up

Learning to cook the dish well has been one of my lessons about the process of learning something new. When I first cooked the dish, my nose was in the recipe because I was so afraid of doing something wrong. As I became more comfortable with the steps, I’ve been able to internalize the recipe and learn how to adapt it to different things.

The basic recipe is Kasma’s Spicy Basil Chicken – Gkai Pad Gkaprow [1.] This recipe is a good starting point.

For the dish pictured here, I made a few changes. Because I use Thai sweet basil, rather than holy basil, it is actually pad horapa, stir-fried with Thai sweet basil.

Basil Salmon – Salmon Pad Horapa

Recipe by Michael Babcock

Ingredients

3 TBs. duck fat or lard
10-12 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 red Fresno chillies, in strips
3/4 lb. (335 grams) salmon, in fairly large bite-sized pieces
2+ tsp. black soy sauce, to taste
1-2 Tbs. (or so) fish sauce, to taste
Leaves of 1 large bunch Thai sweet basil – bai horapa

Heat the wok until smoking; add the fat, let melt; toss in the garlic; stir-fry for a bit; add in the chillies; stir-fry a bit longer; add the salmon; stir-fry for a bit; sprinkle in and mix the black soy sauce and fish sauce; add the basil and stir-fry until wilted. Serve over rice.

Notes:

The key to the recipe is not to overcook the salmon; make the pieces a bit larger than bite size and make sure it’s still slightly pink on the inside; you’ll want to work pretty fast, not stir too much (you don’t want the pieces to fall apart), and add the basil early enough so that it will wilt before the salmon overcooks.

This is one dish where I prefer bai horapa – Thai sweet basil – to bai ka-prao – holy basil; I think it goes better with the salmon.

As always, this is a dish you should make your own. None of the quantities are set in stone. Try it with more garlic; or more chillies; or more basil; or less fish sauce. After you’ve cooked it once, try it again within a couple of days to see how the new variation tastes.

[1.] You may notice that I have transliterated the Thai word for holy basil at ka-prao and Kasma has transliterated it as gkaprow. The most common transliteration that you’ll find on the web is actually kra-pao, which makes no sense at all because in the Thai spelling there is no “r” after the initial consonant.

The Thai alphabet differs from the English alphabet. The initial consonant for gkaprow or ka-prao is gaw – gai (or gkaw – gkai), the sound “g” (or “gk”) as used in the word gai (or gkai), meaning chicken. The official Thai transliteration for this consonant, which is actually a cross between a “g” and a “k” is “k”; Kasma prefers to transliterate it as “gk” because this it conveys the sound more accurately. The second syllable can be transliterated either as “prao” (as is official) or “prow” as Kasma has done.

The point is that any spelling of a Thai word that uses English characters rather than Thai characters is very likely not a very good representation of the actual word, particularly because the spelling with Thai characters also gives you the correct tone.

(You can also read A Note on Thai Pronunciation and Spelling.)

Written by Michael Babcock, September 2011

Tags: basil, fish, salmon, stir-fry
Posted in Cooking | 1 Comment »

Asian Markets – Oakland’s International District

Michael Babcock, Thursday, August 18th, 2011

When shopping for Thai or Asian ingredients in Oakland, California, one of the best areas is the International District, which covers International Boulevard (formerly East 14th Street) and East 12th Street. There are many Southeast Asian and Chinese markets on these two streets from the Lake Merritt end to 17th Avenue. In this blog I’ll talk about the markets where Kasma shops for ingredients, both for her personal use and for her Thai Cooking Classes.

This is a companion piece to last-week’s blog: Asian Markets – Oakland’s Chinatown

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Shopping at Asian Markets (for Thai Ingredients), more often than not Kasma goes to a number of markets on her shopping trips; different markets carry different ingredients and she always tries to get absolutely the freshest ingredients and the best brands of packaged products.

International Boulevard, the old East 14th Street in Oakland, and East 12th Street are intersected by the numbered avenues, beginning with First Avenue. Up until about 17th Avenue, the stores are primarily Asian; after that, the flavor turns more Hispanic. It is one of the two main districts for Asian supermarkets in Oakland, the other being Oakland’s Chinatown situated from 7th to 9th Streets bordered by Broadway to the west. One of the advantages of shopping at International Boulevard is that many of the stores have parking lots.

(Click images to see larger version.)

International Boulevard Asian Markets

Sontepheap Market

1400 International Blvd. (at 14th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 436-3826

I list this market first because it is the market Kasma frequents the most out on International Boulevard. The market is run by Cambodians and is a great source for hard-to-find Southeast Asian ingredients, such as holy basil, kaffir lime leaves, cha-om, bai chaploo and more. Read Kasma’s blog Sontepheap Market in Oakland to find out more. There’s a small parking lot right by the store.

International Lao Market

1619 International Blvd. (at 16th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 536-5888

The International Lao Market, owned by Laotians, gets second position because Kasma often goes there for hard-to-find produce items when they are not available at Sontepheap. The market also carries many frozen, bottled and packaged goods from Thailand, including one of Kasma’s favorite fish sauce brands – Tra Chang – as well as her favorite brand of shrimp paste (kapi) – Klong Kohn. This is one place Kasma’s students can find clay, stone and wooden mortars and pestles. Nearby street parking is usually available.

Mekong Market

1613 International Blvd. (at 16th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 261-7630

Although it’s a small store, I’m including Mekong Market here because it is right next to the International Lao Market. The proprietress is Cambodian and Kasma uses this as a back-up for ingredients such as Thai eggplants, holy basil and kaffir lime leaves. Of the Southeast Asian cuisines, Cambodian and Lao foods share the most similarities with Thai and markets run by people from these two countries are more likely to carry the hard-to-find fresh ingredients also used in Thai cooking.

Sun Hop Fat

501 East 12th St. (at 5th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 763-8888

This is perhaps the largest and most complete market in the area. It has an extensive produce section, lots of frozen foods (such as shrimp and various kinds of fish, herbs and snacks from Asia), fresh seafood and a butcher in addition to all the canned foods and bottled sauces. It has most of Kasma’s favorite brands; on occasion (not always), I’ve seen Golden Boy fish sauce here as well as Dragonfly brand premium oyster sauce (not the super premium, though.) But it is mainly a Vietnamese-Chinese-run store and does not carry some of the herbs specifically used in Cambodian, Lao and Thai cooking. However, it is one of two stores in Oakland where Kasma can find bai chaploo, the other being Sontepheap. It is also one of a few stores which often has fresh duck eggs (not balut). A plus is the large parking lot.

Thien Loi Hoa

1199 E. 12th St. (at 12th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 663-0138

Also on East 12th Street, Thien Loi Hoa is a fairly large and complete market but a bit more cramped than Sun Hop Fat. They have fresh and frozen seafood in addition to produce and a butcher. In the freezers are also various Southeast Asian herbs and vegetables, like cha-om and sadao (neem). This is the only market in Oakland where Kasma can find pickled garlic from Thailand without preservatives in vacuum-sealed bags in the refrigerated section. In the same section, there’s usually the sometimes hard-to-find salted mackerel from Thailand. Fresh duck eggs are frequently available here, too. The store has a small parking lot; I’m usually able to find a spot.

Lucky Fish Market

Lucky Seafood Market

1201 E 12th St. (at 12th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94620
(510) 436-6068

Lucky Fish Market is right across the street from Thien Loi Hoa and is a good place to look for fresh fish, including live ones in the tanks, and other seafood such as crabs and lobsters. They have another market on 8th street in Oakland’s Chinatown. Sun Hop Fat, Thien Loi Hoa and Sun Sang (see next entry) also have fresh fish, if you can’t find what you’re looking for here.

Sun Sang Market

751 International Blvd. (at 8th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 891-0298

A fairly large Asian grocery store with produce and a meat counter. Kasma used to go there specifically to buy Lion and Globe Peanut oil in 5 liter bottles but lately they have only the smaller sizes. The store has a large selection of frozen seafood products and also a fairly good fresh fish counter.

New Saigon Market

950 International Boulevard (at 10th Ave.)
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 832-8208

This Vietnamese-owned grocery store moved from Oakland Chinatown to this location many years ago and has a good assortment of fresh Asian produce and fruits. Kasma sometimes looks for frozen shrimp, squid and cuttlefish here, as well as pork belly. She’s found fresh bamboo shoots in the store from time to time when they’re not available at the Lao market, but mainly she stops here to buy Asian snacks, such as cassava cakes, to serve to her students.

Written by Michael Babcock, August 2011

Tags: chinatown, Markets, Oakland, shopping, sontepheap
Posted in Food, Markets | No Comments »

Asian Markets – Oakland’s Chinatown

Michael Babcock, Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

One of the two best locales to shop for Asian ingredients in Oakland, California is Oakland’s Chinatown. When Kasma does her weekly shopping for her Thai cooking classes, she invariably begins at Oakland’s Chinatown. Below are the stores where she shops.

One map I came across shows Oakland’s Chinatown Boundaries as a rectangle bound by Broadway and Oak on two sides and 6th Street and 11th Street on the other two sides. The stores where Kasma shops are all within a narrower area, bounded by Broadway and Webster on two sides and 7th Street and 9th Street on the other sides.

Although it is called Chinatown, it is really more pan-Asian as the stores are run not only by Chinese but also by Southeast Asians such as Vietnamese.

Street parking can be somewhat hard to find in Chinatown, particularly on 8th Street and 9th Street where there are many stores. Double-parked vehicles, including large delivery trucks, are very common on these two streets. On weekday mornings, Kasma can sometimes find parking on Broadway between 8th Street and 9th Street. When I shop here I usually drive up 9th Street (it’s a one-way street) coming from Clay Street and park at the metered-street parking either between Clay and Washington or between Washington and Broadway. Alternatively, there’s a parking lot under the Asian Cultural Center, which is found on Franklin Street in-between 9th and 10th. Drive up 9th (one-way) from Broadway and turn onto Franklin (left only, Franklin is one-way) and the parking lot is underground to your right. It costs the same to park here as on the street, but they charge in hour-long increments.

(Click images to see larger version.)

Oakland Chinatown’s Asian Markets

Khanh Phong Super Market

429 Ninth St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 839-9094

Khanh Phong is a medium-size Southeast Asian market, owned by a friendly Vietnamese family. This is where Kasma normally begins her shopping. In addition to all the usual sauces and canned goods, there’s a butcher, a good selection of frozen seafood and fresh produce. Like many of the markets, the produce spills over onto the streets. The meat in Chinatown is very inexpensive; unfortunately, this means that it comes from large, industrial-sized factory farms. Kasma prefers to buy meat raised more naturally and sourced from smaller farms at other locations (such as the Berkeley Bowl); however, there are certain cuts of meat, particularly pork belly and pork leg with the skin still on, that are all but impossible to find outside of Asian markets.

Wah Hang Market

415 Ninth St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 268-0358

Wah Hang Market is a small shop just a couple of stores down the street from Khanh Phong. Kasma occasionally stops here mainly to look for fresh produce; if Khanh Phong is out of a certain item or if the freshness is not to Kasma’s liking, she’ll stroll down here and see what is on display. She’ll also buy certain cuts of pork here, again, if Khanh Phong doesn’t have what pleases her.

Yuen Hop Noodle Company

824 Webster St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 451-2698

Kasma comes to Yuen Hop Noodle Company basically for two items. One is the loosely packed bags of fresh-made rice noodles, which are the best rice noodles on this side of the Bay. The other is a snack – Chinese-style mochi (sticky rice dough balls) stuffed with a ground black sesame and peanut filling that is very good and a favorite snack among her students. Both are usually sold out before noon. Although it is called the “Noodle Company”, the store is more or less a typical Asian grocery store carrying a wide variety of fresh produce, dried seafood products (occasionally the hard-to-find salted mackerel), and packaged and canned goods. The cookware aisles are worth a look.

Sam Yick Market

362 Eighth St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 832-0662

Sam Yick is a couple of blocks away on 8th Street. Kasma shops here only if there are items she can’t find at Khanh Phong and Wah Hang. It’s also a good place to shop for a mortar and pestle. (See Kasma’s blog on The Mortar and Pestle.)

Wing Fat Market

719 Webster St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 835-2318

I’m including this smaller, Asian market just for the sake of completeness. Kasma comes here mainly to look for nino (” baby”) bananas (Thais call them “egg bananas”) if she can’t find them at the right stage of ripeness for cooking that she needs at other stores. This store seems to always have bunches of these bananas hanging from wire hooks at the front.

Orient Market

410 7th Street
Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 444-1220

This is a large and complete Chinese supermarket, but carries little in the way of Southeast Asian ingredients. Kasma comes here once in a while to stock up on peanut oil. The only peanut oil that she has found that she likes is Lion and Globe, which is hard to find in the large 5-liter containers. She can usually find this size here. The store also carries frozen seafood, including shrimp and squid – worth a look if Kasma can’t find the size she wants at the other markets. When in the store, Kasma usually checks to see if they have any packaged dried rice squares which she uses for a couple of the appetizers she teaches. One advantage to this market is that they have an underground parking lot (to the right, in the picture); to get into the lot you’ll need to drive up 7th Street coming from Broadway (7th is a one-way street) and turn into the underground lot on your left. Be sure to get the ticket validated with your purchase.

Best Taste Restaurant

814 Franklin St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 444-4983

Kasma stops here to get char siu – Chinese barbecued red pork. Their roast duck and crispy-skin roast pork are also quite good. A good place for a quick, inexpensive lunch.

Old Oakland Farmer's Market

Old Oakland Farmer’s Market

Ninth St. between Broadway & Clay
Oakland, CA
Fridays, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

On Friday mornings, the Old Oakland Farmer’s Market is a great place to get Asian produce. There’s a large number of Asian vendors, many of them immigrant Southeast Asian farmers including Hmong and other hilltribes. The produce is very fresh and the prices are among the best you’ll find. It pays to get to the market as early as you can as store owners often come early in search of hard-to-find produce for their stores, such as pea eggplants, Thai eggplants, holy basil, lemon basil and chayote greens. Many stalls are ready to sell even before 8:00 a.m., the official opening time. In addition to produce, we come here for very fresh duck eggs; our Filipino mailman swears by the balut we get here. There are also stalls selling ready-made food and a few tables set up for people to eat. See our earlier blog Old Oakland Farmer’s Market. Here’s the official website for the Old Oakland Farmer’s Market.

Oakland Chinatown’s Seafood Markets

Asian seafood markets are very different from what you find in regular supermarkets. Most of the fish is displayed whole, with the head, tail and fins still on; you can have them cleaned to your liking after you’ve made your selection. The best way to tell how fresh a fish is is when it’s still whole and not yet scaled and gutted. (See Kasma’s article Selecting a Fresh Fish.) Kasma prefers to shop for fish in Chinatown because there are three stores within close proximity that have a good selection of fresh whole fish; it is not uncommon for her to walk to all three stores to make sure she gets the freshest possible seafood. All three markets display the whole fish on ice and also have tanks with live fish and other seafood, such as crabs, lobsters, shrimp and clams. (See also Whole Fish Dishes.)

New Sang Chong Market

377 8th St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 451-2018

New Sang Chong Market is where Kasma usually looks for fresh fish first. Although the selection is not as large as Lucky Fish Market (across the street), the fish tends to be fresher. In addition they sell what in Thai would be called gai bahn, literally “house chicken.” These free-range chickens are a much smaller variety than that found in traditional American supermarkets and have a much better flavor. When Kasma was perfecting her Thai Southern Fried Chicken Recipe, she was able to get the result she wanted only from this smaller variety of chicken. The chickens are sold with head and feet on. The market also has a butcher, a good selection of frozen seafood, and fresh produce.

Lucky Seafood Market

Lucky Seafood Market #2

376 8th St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 663-8638

This is the largest of the three fishmongers on this block. There’s also a Lucky Seafood Market on International Boulevard, the other good locale for markets with Asian ingredients in Oakland – a blog to follow soon.

Yet Sun Market

Yet Sung Market

397 8th St.
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 451-3338

Yet Sung Market is the third market with fresh seafood and also the smaller variety of free-range whole chicken with head and feet still on. They also have very fresh produce, well worth a look here.

Oakland Chinatown Bonus Restaurant

Gum Kuo Restaurant

388 9th St # 182
Oakland, CA 94607-4292
(510) 268-1288

I’ll include this restaurant because it’s a great place to get jook (or johk) – congee (rice porridge). On the Fridays that we come to the Old Oakland Farmer’s Market we usually come here for congee or for the roast pork or roast duck, both of which you can see hanging enticingly in the window. I often get a plate of the pork and Kasma usually gets congee with pork liver, preserved egg and fish. This restaurant is worth a blog of its own sometime soon.

Author Archive

The Best Thai Food in America?

A Most Satisfying Meal!

The Meal, Weeklong Advanced Set D, Day 2

The Meal Summed Up

Menu for Weeklong Intensive D — Day 2

Weeklong Thai Cooking Class

Overview

Format

Advanced Class Format

Weeklong Food Sampling

Why Take This Class

Details

Hua Hin Morning Market

Hua Hin Municipal Market Slide Show

Two Previous Blogs on Hua Hin

Five Previous Blogs on Thai Markets

Basil Salmon

Basil Salmon – Salmon Pad Horapa

Ingredients

Notes:

Asian Markets – Oakland’s International District

International Boulevard Asian Markets

Sontepheap Market

International Lao Market

Mekong Market

Sun Hop Fat

Thien Loi Hoa

Lucky Fish Market

Sun Sang Market

New Saigon Market

Asian Markets – Oakland’s Chinatown

Oakland Chinatown’s Asian Markets

Khanh Phong Super Market

Wah Hang Market

Yuen Hop Noodle Company

Sam Yick Market

Wing Fat Market

Orient Market

Best Taste Restaurant

Old Oakland Farmer’s Market

Oakland Chinatown’s Seafood Markets

New Sang Chong Market

Lucky Seafood Market #2

Yet Sung Market

Oakland Chinatown Bonus Restaurant

Gum Kuo Restaurant

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