C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

Category: Food

  • The Basil Sun God

    Mina wants a pizza, Mina gets a pizza.

    This pizza disappeared so quickly after it came out of the oven, I didn’t get a pic.

    I’ve been trying new crusts and simple uncooked sauces… I now want a better (hotter) oven.

  • Tacos de Larb

    The ultimate Thai-Mexican fusion:

    This was, again, an awesome leftover mashup. Larb made from chicken is fairly uncommon, but I found a local food stand that makes it really well… At 20 baht per bag, I’m happy whenever it’s available. I added some shallots to the mango salsa from the other day, and used up the rest of our taco stuff from last week. Verdict: SPICY MOVE!

  • Home Fries with Mango Salsa

    …and some leftover carnitas and beans, topped with fried eggs.

  • Japanese T-bone Curry


    Max wanted curry and Mina wanted steak; necessity is the mother of noms.

  • Bengal Currants (carissa carandas)

    Mamuang hau manao ho

    I only started commonly seeing these berry-like fruits this year. They seem to be growing in popularity up here in Issan, but I suspect they were brought here from another part of Thailand, where they are apparently have shorter names: Nam daeng and nam phrong.
    They are apparently used in India for pickles.

    I had started calling these Lao Cherries, but there are a couple other fruits already called that (plus they don’t seem to be from this area), so I finally just looked it up.

    So the important thing: Do they taste good?

    They taste like vitamin C punched you in the throat. Like the sourest mango and unripe lemon (hence the name? Mamuang = mango; Manao = lemon/lime) in the world are frolicking on your tongue. So naturally, Thais eat them dipped in chili sugar and stupid farang stuff three in their mouth at a time to see if it can be done in a sort of personal stupidity challenge.

    So wikicheatia has a long paragraph on names for this fruit which, in the spirit of university plagiarism, I will only only slighty modify before pasting here:
    Arduina carandas
    Capparis carandas
    Carissa salicina
    Echites spinosus
    Jasminonerium carandas
    Jasminonerium salicinum

    karonda (Devanagari)
    karamardaka (Sanskrit)
    kauLi hannu(Kannada)
    karavanda(Marathi)
    karauna (Maithili)
    vakkay (Telugu)
    Canta- (Konkani)
    maha karamba (Sinhala)
    kilaakkaai (Tamil)
    karau(n)da (unknown)
    karanda (unknown)
    karamda (unknown)
    kerenda (in Malaya)
    karaunda (Malaya/India)
    Bengal currant (South India)
    Christ’s thorn (South India)
    nam phrom (Thailand)
    namdaeng (Thailand)
    caramba (Philippines)
    caranda (Philippines)
    caraunda (Philippines)
    perunkila (Philippines)
    Karja tenga (Assam)
    Koromcha(Bengali)

  • Long Fak Bean Stir Fry

    Long Fak Bean Stir Fry (with Red Curry Paste and Pork Belly)

    I guess you could call them yardlong beans, but most of the world switched to a better system long ago, and besides, where’s the fun in that?

  • The Best Braised Pork Leg in Issan

    Google review of Panom Rung Restaurant by Justin Yoshida

    https://goo.gl/maps/cShnNWMJMcu

    Staring locals. Scary truckers in the dark, broken parking lot… Raw chili and garlic in a dirty center bowl. Unapologetically fatty pork. Best of all, it’s sandwiched between a second rank gas station restroom and minimart. Need I say more?

    It’s an epic hole in the wall.

  • Moo Daeng (“Red Pork”)

    The Thai variant of char siu is often too lean and served with overly sweet sauce… This place does it well, though.

  • Red sauce

    Prepping lunch for 20 tomorrow.

  • Farewell, Play Bar

    One of Maha Sarakham’s first really cool outdoor pubs. Lots of memories here… It was the first place to offer deep fried larb balls. It was also where T and J hid from the cops upstairs (I didn’t even know it had an upstairs!). One day last week we drove by, and it was just gone.