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Friday, October 3, 2008

Whatever You Do, Don’t Put It In Your Mouth!

I was telling you the other day about the “mushrooms” I ate at the Holy Land Deli. As unexpected as that experience was, it does not compare, in terms of sheer stink-itude, with the appetizer I had the other day.

That's right. It was so strong, so not what I would have wanted to have voluntarily paid $6 for that I had to make up a word.

Kathy, Kurt, Willie, Erin, Amy, Jewel, Diane, Bill, and I went out last Friday night. A new restaurant in the neighborhood: Thai. We've waited a long time for this!

The menu, I have to admit, was indecipherable to me. I have no idea what “isaan” means, whether or not I’d like the Guay Teow Neua Sup or if the Pad Prik Khin is fresh. “Guay Teow Neua Sup” could be the Thai words for “crap found at the back of the fridge” and I wouldn’t know it.

It’s true. My Thai sucks.

But hey! The menu read beautifully, and I fell in love with the ingredients: ginger, lime, chilies, shallots.

Sounds good, right? That’s why I ordered the Miang Kam as an appetizer.

Miang Kam: Thai lettuce wraps with peanuts, dried shrimp, ginger, lime, toasted coconut, chilies, and shallots. Served with a salty-sweet shrimp sauce.

OK. Maybe I was hungry, because on second thought, the dried shrimp doesn’t really sound appetizing to me, especially given what I now know about it, but let’s quickly skip by my own culpability here...

Mmmm. Thai lettuce wraps. Ginger! Chilies!

Here’s a picture of what was delivered to me.

It’s a fuzzy picture. Kathy took it with her phone. If you can’t tell, let me tell you what you’re looking at.



  • Two very large lettuce leaves

  • Six dried shrimp

  • Four tiny slices of chilies

  • Six peanuts

  • Four pieces of lime (as an example of the size of these pieces, you could probably get 400 of these out of one lime)

  • A teaspoon of shredded dried coconut (I’ve snorted larger piles of snuff)

  • No ginger

  • No shallots - chopped red onion

OK. Hey. I’m a sport. Let’s just see how this thing rolls up… I put two shrimp, two peanuts and a slice of a Thai chili in a leaf twice the size of my face, drizzled on top of that a teaspoon of the “shrimp sauce”, rolled it up, and took a bite.

You remember that scene in the movie “Jaws”, where the sheriff is sitting at the back of the Orca, shoveling bloody fish guts from a bucket – “chum” – into the sea, trying to lure the shark?

If that scene had come in Smell-O-Rama, if you could taste that scene, you would know what the Miang Kam is like.

Visions of dried Sea Monkeys swam in front of me.

Like the “mushrooms”, I was able to swallow it relatively gracefully – as opposed, say, to spitting it into my napkin or ridding my mouth of the taste by sliding the contents of a pitcher of beer over my tongue.

Unfortunately, it was so unbelievably bait-like, so rank, so smells-like-the-lakeshore’s-ripe that a miasma of stink slid up my sinuses, got into my head...

I also got two other people at the table to try it, just for fun.

The Khao Soi I had as a main dish washed the taste away.

The list of things I won’t eat has grown: hard-boiled eggs, liver, whatever was breaded and on the Ramadan buffet at the Holy Land last year, and now dried shrimp and whatever was in the “shrimp sauce”.

Happy Friday, everyone.


8 comments:

Barbara Blundell said...

Pearl
You are a glutton for punishment! Why dont you stick to nice safe things like tripe and onions,trotters and cow heel pie ? Perhaps the odd jellied eel or kipper to enliven things a bit.

Pearl said...

Hi, Barbara.

I prefer to think of myself as a slow learner.

:-)

Pearl

Patricia said...

That was hysterical! TOTALLY worth the price of of admission, or bad appetizer (i guess i could consider reimbursing you :O). Sorry you had to suffer for our (my) amusement. But thanks, in a big way. I had a great giggle.

Lilly said...

Oh my that dish looked, well a bit lacking in substance, taste and value it seems. I am off to Thialand in about six weeks and I will especially order a similar dish snd take a photo so you know if it was the real deal. I love Thia food although having read Barabara's comment I cannot but now think of anything other than cow heel pie. What a wicked sense of humor she has! At least you tried something different and you know not to order it ever again!!

Ugich Konitari said...

Pearl, I guess you need to keep experimenting with various ocean animals, & other stuff moonlighting as mushrooms (yikes), before you settle down on some decent veggie stuff.

Please dont insult the lettuce leaf by wrapping a fish, and that too, dried, in it ......:-)

Pearl said...

Patricia,

I am always happy to bring a laugh into your day.

Pearl


Hi, Lilly.

Oooh! I am genuinely excited to see that picture! Thailand -- people in Australia go to Thailand, you say. People in Minnesota go to Chicago. Or the Black Hills. It sounds very exciting and I can't wait to hear about it.

Pearl


Hi, Ugich.

I am a great lover of vegetables! I have not found one yet that I didn't enjoy, even the more bitter stuff.

Some day, perhaps...

Pearl

Anonymous said...

hahaha... eat safe stuff and stay healthy...

Barbara Blundell said...

Hi Pearl
Steak and cow heel pie is delicious.Lovely gravy and with chips-out of this world !It sticks to the ribs and is nourishing and satisfying.I was brought up on it-that's why I have lived so long.-so now you know what to do. Ditch the exotica and back to basics.Would you like the recipe ?