Week 9 - Thai

So behind on catching up from last year's challenge! I've already made Week 9's dish for this year, so I really need to get going!

The Week 9 challenge was Thai, one of our favorite cuisines but one that we haven't had as often in recent years. Although I made larb gai back in 2017 when the challenge theme was also Thai, and in 2015 when the challenge theme was ground meat, it had been so long since I'd made it that I thought it was time to try it again. I used the same recipe from Eating Thai Food, and it was just as good as I remembered. I always forget that I can make this at home, and that I should do it more often.

Our adapted version of the larb recipe consisted of ground meat (used chicken here), roasted rice powder, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, shallots, red onion, scallions, mint, and cilantro. Usually, there would also be Thai chili flakes, which I've used in the past, but we skipped that here in the hopes that B would eat it (but I can't remember if he did). Larb just makes me so happy, so I was very glad to make it again.

Since I had made larb before for two other (unofficial) challenges, I wanted to add on something else to make this Thai night different - mango sticky rice! Larb is one of my favorite savory Thai dishes, and mango sticky rice is one of my favorite desserts, so they were a good match. It's been over a year now since we made this, so I don't remember any specific recipe that we followed, or if we mostly went from our memories of what mango sticky rice should taste like.

For mango sticky rice, you need a nice, ripe, sweet mango (and we had a perfect Ataulfo one ready for it). The other main components are glutinous rice and a coconut sauce, made from heated coconut milk with sugar dissolved in it. The hardest part of this was making the glutinous rice because we didn't really have a perfect steamer for it. I guess we could have put the rice on parchment paper in our regular steamer, but instead we tried a method I found online from She Simmers, where you put the rice on a splatter guard over boiling water, cover it with a metal bowl, and steam it. It worked far better than we expected. Whenever we get good mangoes, we may have to make this again, since it's such a great dessert. Very happy with our Thai night!

Week 23 - On a Stick

The Week 23 challenge was titled on a stick. We came up with a number of different things we could make that are often served on sticks or cooked on skewers, dishes like adana, tsukune, kebabs. But no matter what we did, we would have to do it in a way that didn't actually use sticks despite the challenge being on a stick. I don't like buying things for challenges that I'm not going to use again, and I haven't really needed skewers for years. We aren't able to cook on an actual grill anyway, so the use of skewers wouldn't be as necessary in a grill pan.

Eventually I found a recipe for chicken satay, so the plan was to make that along with a peanut sauce and a little cucumber and shallot relish, trying my best to replicate what you would get in a restaurant. Since that probably wouldn't be enough for a meal, we also made a salad on the side with a Thai-style peanut dressing. It was a little ambitious for a single dinner, since there were technically five different components going on at once, but I was trying to get out of a cooking rut and got a little carried away. Thank goodness A and I could work on it together.

Chicken Satay

The centerpiece of the on a stick challenge was the chicken satay, which was also the first thing to be started since it needed to marinate for a few hours. After slicing up two boneless chicken breasts into smaller strips, we put together a marinade based on an easy chicken satay recipe on Allrecipes with the following ingredients:

- 1/2 cup coconut milk

- 1 spoonful of minced garlic

- 1 tsp curry powder

- 1.5 tsp brown sugar

- salt and pepper

I didn't measure everything exactly, but that's about how much was used. Once we mixed the marinade together well, we added it to the sliced chicken and stuck it in the fridge for about 2-3 hours.

While the chicken marinated, we worked on all the other components of dinner. When it was time to cook the chicken, we just stuck the pieces on the grill pan with some oil and let them cook through. The only problem is we don't always know when the chicken is fully cooked on the grill pan, so they were a little overdone. The flavor of the marinade tasted pretty good before we added it to the chicken, but somehow it was more subdued after the chicken was done cooking. They were fine, but not quite what we expected, and they definitely needed the peanut sauce that we made along with it.

Peanut Sauce

For the peanut sauce accompanying the satay, we used the same Allrecipes recipe as the satay itself. The ingredients for the sauce were:

- 1 cup coconut milk

- 1 tbsp curry powder

- 1/2 cup peanut butter

- 3/4 cup chicken stock (using bouillon)

- 1/4 cup brown sugar

- juice of 1 lime

- 1 tsp low sodium soy sauce

The peanut sauce was pretty simple to make, but just took some time and stirring. A took care of this while I prepped other stuff, and we stuck closely to the recipe. The ingredients (other than the lime juice and soy sauce) were mixed together, simmered for about 10 minutes until a smooth and thick sauce (so maybe a little bit longer than that), and then once off heat, the lime juice and soy sauce were added. The peanut sauce was delicious, and we knew immediately that we would be making this again sometime, even if we never made satay again. We had a lot leftover after this meal, so we used the rest of it with an assortment of vegetables over ramen for a tasty dinner.

Cucumber and Shallot Relish

I tried to model the cucumber and shallot relish after the ones we would get in tiny cups at restaurants, but it didn't turn out quite as well. I looked around online and found a relish recipe on Meaningful Eats, which I used for some ideas of what else should be added to it besides fish sauce. In the end, we mixed together some chopped cucumber (about 1/3 of a hothouse) and shallots with a few tsp of white vinegar, a few tsp of fish sauce, a tsp of agave, and some red pepper flakes. In our unmeasured version, whatever ratio we used didn't taste quite right, and the vinegar was incredibly overpowering, so we added more fish sauce and then everything just tasted like fish sauce. Not the fault of the recipe I don't think, but I kind of wished we had just stuck with the peanut sauce. Since we had the salad, we didn't really need the extra vegetables this time.

Overall, the satay was okay. The chicken wasn't anything special, the relish wasn't great, but the peanut sauce saved the whole thing. In the end, we probably won't make chicken satay again (at least not like this), but we will be filing that peanut sauce recipe away for further experimenting.

Thai Crunch Salad

The salad we made to go along with the satay was pretty straightforward, but just required a lot of prep. I did a lot of the vegetables with a little bit of A's help, while he put together the dressing, which was also peanut butter-based, just like the satay's peanut sauce. We were inspired by a salad recipe I found on Once Upon a Chef and used that as the starting point for our salad.

The ingredients for our version were:

- 1 package of shredded cabbage
- 2 carrots, shredded
- 1 green pepper, diced
- 2/3 hothouse cucumber (the rest of the one from the relish), halved, scooped out, and thinly sliced
- 1 cup frozen edamame, soaked in hot water until thawed and then drained
- 4 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1/3 batch of cilantro, chopped

And for the dressing:

- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp grapeseed oil
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp agave
- 1 spoonful of minced garlic
- ginger paste (in an equivalent amount as garlic)
- salt
- red pepper flakes
- 1/6 batch of cilantro, chopped

Since it was a salad, it was pretty much all prep. It tasted so good, very fresh and crunchy with that excellent dressing, that we kept snacking on it while we waited for everything else to be ready. While we would make the salad again, the two superstars of dinner were really the peanut sauce and the peanut salad dressing, both of which we definitely want to make more of another time.

Week 22 - Thai

I generally try to do new things for the cooking challenges, but for the Thai challenge, I decided to just make larb again. It felt like ages since the last time we had made larb at home, and I was really craving it for dinner. It may not have been new, but it was definitely satisfying.

The ground meat challenge two years ago was the first time I had ever tried making larb, and it went pretty well. At that time, I made lots of notes about modifications that I wanted to make in the future, most of which I followed this time around. In addition to those, we used ground turkey instead of ground chicken because that is generally easier for us to find (and cheaper). We now also have Thai chili flakes that we bought after making that recipe, and one heaping tablespoon definitely made it hot.

But overall the method of making it was mostly the same, and by working together (A cooking the turkey while I continued doing more prep), it got done pretty quickly. It's such a simple recipe in concept - just cook the ground meat and when it's done and off the heat, mix in the roasted rice powder, chili flakes, sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, onions, scallions, cilantro, and mint, and adjust the seasonings until it tastes just right. We should definitely make this more.

Meatballs and Kelp Noodles

The "warm bowl" in the Destination Thailand series at Chopt caught my eye immediately the first time I read the description, mostly because of the spicy green curry turkey meatballs. I love meatballs, and green curry meatballs just sounded like they would be amazing. I was also intrigued by the kelp noodles, an ingredient I had never had before.

The ingredients in the warm bowl were the meatballs (about 3 medium sized meatballs) and kelp noodles, along with pickled hearts of palm, the tatsoi, purple cabbage, and herb mix, toasted coconut garlic crunch, and a recommended dressing of coriander-chile vinaigrette. Unlike the salad, for the warm bowl they just tossed all the ingredients with the dressing (other than the meatballs and the garlic crunch), and there was no chopping of everything together. On the plus side, this helped the flavor of the pickled hearts of palm stand out more, but it also meant that the flavors of all the ingredients weren't as uniformly distributed as they were in the chopped market salad.

The meatballs here were really good. The spice of the green curry came through, and any heat in the bowl was from the meatballs, not the dressing. The kelp noodles reminded me of glass noodles in their appearance, but they were crunchy and a good match for the crisp greens. I liked this bowl a lot, but in the end, I think I liked the market salad better. The flavors there were just a little stronger, and the chopping mixed everything together just a little bit more which I preferred. Glad to be able to try this though, even if it was bittersweet, reminding me of the demise of Shophouse as we loved the meatball bowl there. At least this one will be around for a few more weeks.

Thai Market Salad

Last night I found myself really craving salad. I hopped on to the Chop't website to see what the current destination salads were, thinking maybe I could grab one for lunch today, and was pleased to see that the next destination was Thailand. Every salad and bowl sounded so good, and after reading Eater today, it completely made sense. The consultant on all of the Thai salads and bowls was none other than Harold Dieterle, the chef behind Kin Shop which we loved and miss. No wonder.

Although I was really intrigued by the turkey meatballs in the warm bowl, I decided to go with the crunchy Thai market salad since I had been wanting salad for the past 12+ hours. I was a little disappointed to see that the list of ingredients being mixed into the greens was so slim (only 3 items), considering the salad with tax would end up being over $11. It seemed like it wouldn't be a ton of stuff for a decently high price, but I tried to keep an open mind.

The Thai market salad started with a base of tatsoi, purple cabbage, romaine, and herbs, and then they added satay chicken, pickled hearts of palm, and crispy rice crackers. The recommended dressing was a Thai coconut lime vinaigrette. Since the dressing seemed to be made specifically for this salad, I figured that it would probably be the best pairing and didn't deviate.

This salad was so good that I immediately wanted more. The flavors were so complex, so nuanced, just like dishes you would expect at a Thai restaurant, not a salad chain. The rice crackers weren't overly hard or crunchy, but just added a nice textural accent along with the crunchy greens. The seasoning on the chicken was so flavorful that when added to all the herbs and all the flavor in the vinaigrette, the entire salad was just a giant explosion of flavor. I wish I could be more specific about the herbs and seasonings used, but while I may eat a lot of Thai food, I'm not skilled enough to do that. But this salad was good, so good that I almost licked the dressing off the bowl and ate every single herbal green bit I could find. The Thai menu items will only be around for a couple of months before Chop't moves on to a new destination, so I definitely plan to return to try the rest.

A's Favorite Food Memories of 2016

This was an interesting year for me with regards to eating and drinking. M and I did a decent amount of travel this year, and that's reflected in my list. This list, as always, isn't necessarily the best things I ate or drank all year, but it's a list of the most memorable events. It just happens that most of these are the best things I ate :)

1) Chesapeake and Maine - Warm Maryland Crab Dip
This is a dish of pure comfort and decadence. It's cheesy, sweet from the succulent crab meat, and simply amazing as a dish. We went to Chesapeake and Maine twice on our visit down to Rehoboth Beach, and we got this each time. In fact, it was so good that it was the only thing we duplicated.

2) Convivial - Scallop Boudin Blanc
I included this because it was so different from anything I had ever eaten before. It was scallop that was ground up and formed into a sausage of sorts. They topped it with sliced snow peas, sea beans, and roe. We couldn't place all of the flavors on this, but it tasted like a smooth, silky chowder.

3) Craft Beer
One thing that seemed pretty constant with most of our trips this year was amazing craft beer. With trips to Delaware, Portland, and San Diego we hit some of the biggest names in craft brewing, and these also happen to be some of my favorites. The highlights for the year are definitely Dogfish Head, Cascade, Stone, and Ballast Point. I had initially debated between adding in small batch coffee instead, but I opted for craft beer because it's something that M and I can enjoy together.

4) Dominique Ansel Bakery - Cronut
The original Dominique Ansel hype food! We finally took advantage of the pre-order option for cronuts this year and were able to taste one of their monthly flavor offerings. We got the June flavor: Blueberry Elderflower with Lime Sugar. Having had the real thing, I understand the hype. I've tried a couple imitation versions, and they never seemed like anything special, but after eating an actual cronut, I see that the imitators have yet to figure anything out. The combination of light and airy croissant turned into a denser donut is a magical mystery, and the fruit flavors and custard made for an amazing flavor. We're looking forward to getting more of these in the future.

5) Fork and Flask at Nage - Smoked Half Chicken
This is a dish that I know I wouldn't be able to eat every day even though I included it on this list. The reason for that is because it's just too rich and heavy for that to happen. The chicken was good and had a nice smokey flavor to it, but it was the accouterments that really made this dish shine. First and foremost was the black garlic infused mashed potatoes. They had such a rich and umami-filled flavor from the black garlic and butter, and I can still taste it today in my head. The roasted root vegetables offered a subtle sweetness to the combination, and it was also nice to have a bit of vegetable matter on the plate. While I couldn't eat this every day, I would certainly love to try my hand at making that black garlic mash at some point.

6) Mofongo with Pork - Vendy Plaza Harlem (La Marqueta)
I love mofongo, and I've always been intrigued by it since I first read about it over a decade ago. It wasn't until back in 2014 that I finally got to try some, and I instantly fell in love with it. Funny how it took me another year and a half before I got it again, but that wait was totally worth it. I don't remember the name of the stand this came from, but they had a wait because they made all of the mofongo fresh. The additional wait time made this even better because the anticipation built it up in my mind, and it lived up to its billing. The fried pieces of pork had just the right amount of fat on them to keep everything moist and flavorful, and the freshly made mofongo was so rich and hearty. The bowl came with a small cup of garlic water/sauce, and the heavy garlic flavor really tied everything together.

7) Seabra's Marisqueira - Acorda de Marisco (Dry Soup)
This year M and I finally made the trip out to Newark, NJ to get some authentic Portuguese food. For me the highlight of this meal was the Acorda de Marisco which is a soup that is then filled with cubes of bread that soak up the broth and make it a thicker, stewier concoction. I'd never heard of a "dry soup" before, but I could totally go for some right now in this cold winter weather. It has the right amount of saltiness to go with the sweetness of the seafood in the soup, and it's a hearty, comforting dish.

8) Thip Khao - Naem Khao (Crispy Rice Salad)
M and I have had really good luck with Southeast Asian rice salads in our lifetime, and this was no exception. The perfect combination of spice, heat, herbs, and crunch meld to form a near perfect dish. It's clean and light while still bursting with so much flavor. This is definitely something I could eat every day and not get tired of it.

9) Uncle Boons - Banana Blossom Salad
This wasn't my favorite dish of the night for this meal, but it was up there. The reason I chose this dish, though, is because it reminded me so much of a dish M and I had back in Chicago at a different Thai restaurant. It's creamy and fresh tasting, and the fried shallots offer that salty, crunchy goodness that we know and love. This dish brought M and me back to delicious and simpler times in our lives before all of these "adult responsibilities" came into being.

10) Zenebech Injera - Vegetable Combo with Doro Wat
This isn't the first Ethiopian food we've had in our lives, but it was a completely transcendent experience. Zenebech was known as being the bakery that provided injera to almost every other Ehtiopian restaurant in the area. They also had their own restaurant where they served, easily, the best Ethiopian food we'd ever tasted. The injera was light and fluffy, and it didn't leave a sticky residue like all of the versions here in NYC. The stews were so full of flavor and were like nothing we had ever tried before. The doro wat was so rich, and the chicken pulled off the bone so easily.

M's Favorite Food Memories of 2016

It's hard to believe that it's already time for another year-end favorite food memories list, but here we are at the end of 2016. In alphabetical order by place name, here are my top 10 favorite food memories from the past year.

1. Garlic roasted brussels sprouts from Ballast Point Tasting Room and Kitchen (San Diego, CA)

After a trip to Mission Beach, we decided to head down to the Ballast Point Tasting Room and Kitchen where we got beer tasting flights and lots of small dishes to share. One of those, crispy brussels sprouts with a poached egg, housemade kimchi, and pancetta, was so good that it inspired me to mix kimchi with some brussels sprouts when we got home. It was nowhere near as good as the one at Ballast Point, but I love it when things on vacations inspire me to try new things at home. I also picked this one for the atmosphere of the tasting room. It was awesome to be able to get flights and try so many different beers in a really relaxed environment with really solid food. There aren't really any places quite like this at home that we know of.

2. Warm Maryland crab dip from Chesapeake and Maine (Rehoboth Beach, DE)

During our summer beach vacation in Delaware, we ate a lot of good food, including a couple of dinners at Chesapeake and Maine, the seafood-focused restaurant from the Dogfish Head folks. Both times we got the warm Maryland crab dip which came with toasted bagel chips. We intended to order different things the second time so we could try more stuff, but I just couldn't not order the dip. There were so much real crab in there and the flavor was so good. I could go for more of that right now as the dip was so comforting.

3. Poultry and potato salad from Hometown Bar-B-Que (Brooklyn, NY)

A had been to Hometown Bar-B-Que in Red Hook before and always talked about how good it was, so we planned to take my dad there for his birthday or Father's Day since he loves BBQ. We didn't make it there until late this year, but it was so worth it. Everything we got there was good - brisket, pulled pork, lamb belly, beans with burnt ends, cole slaw, collard greens - but to me the real standouts were the smoked turkey, the Oaxacan-marinated wood fired chicken, and the backyard potato salad. I could eat that stuff all the time, if not for the long lines there and the fact that it wouldn't be the healthiest diet. The BBQ there is definitely some of the best in NYC, which was proven even more when I ate some pulled pork from another BBQ place later in the week which didn't even come close.

4. Tostada mixta from Mariscos El Pescador (Chula Vista, CA)

We ate a lot of good food in San Diego, but the meal that stands out the most to me is our splurge lunch from a food truck, Mariscos El Pescador, down in Chula Vista. It wasn't a splurge lunch because the items were expensive, but because we ordered a feast that took up almost the entire length of the truck's counter. There were tacos and tostadas and burritos, way more than we should have ordered for a single meal, but everything was delicious, especially the tostada mixta. It was filled with all types of seafood, so fresh, such good quality, perfectly seasoned. Everything was just perfect, and I could eat this every single day if that were an option.

5. Khao man gai from Nong's Khao Man Gai (Portland, OR)

Khao man gai is one of those dishes I order when I want something simple, healthy, and clean but with really good flavor. After going to Nong's Khao Man Gai in Portland, I knew I had to wait a while before ordering this again at home because it was that good there. The chicken was tender and flavorful, the sauce was completely addictive (no wonder they sell it in bottles), and the soup that accompanied it just tied it all together well. This could be a daily lunch if they were in our neighborhood.

6. Pupusas from Salvatoria (Astoria, NY)

This fall, we went out with some friends to Salvatoria, a Salvadoran spot in Astoria, for a giant pupusas dinner. The table split a bunch of them for appetizers, and then A and I ordered another set of pupusas for our main courses. There were pupusas filled with loroco, pork, beans, cheese, jalapeños, and combinations of all of those, and they were so good. I know in theory how to make pupusas but there is no way that they would come out as good as these. They were perfectly griddled and the fillings were delicious. We definitely want to go back there for more pupusas.

7. Octopus salad from Seabra's Marisqueira (Newark, NJ)

We've already written about the salada de polvo, the cold octopus salad, at Seabra's Marisqueira in Newark from our visit earlier this summer. The octopus there was so tender, and the dressing, filled with onions, garlic, parsley, and oil and vinegar was so simple but tasty. Every time I look at pictures of this salad, I want more. It was so delicious that I knew it would make the top 10 list this year as soon as I ate it.

8. Naem khao from Thip Khao (Washington, DC)

One of our most memorable meals this year was at Thip Khao, a Laotian restaurant in Washington, DC, where the hour's wait was most certainly worth it. This rice salad - crispy coconut rice, lime, scallions, sour pork, peanuts, and cilantro - with lettuce to wrap it up was so packed with flavor, especially from all the herbs and seasonings. We had something similar when we went to Khe-Yo, but since this was in salad form and not rice balls, it was even better. So much of what we ate at Thip Khao was awesome, and we wished we lived closer so we could investigate more of the menu. But it would be hard not to order this every time.

9. Banana blossom and chicken salad from Uncle Boons (New York, NY)

From one Southeast Asian salad to another. We finally made it to Uncle Boons this year and one of the things we knew we definitely had to order was this spicy rotisserie chicken and banana blossom salad (yum gai hua pli) with cashews, crispy shallots, and roasted chili dressing. When we lived in Chicago, we used to go to a restaurant with a banana blossom salad on the menu and it was our favorite thing there. It's been tough to find anywhere with it since then, and we weren't sure if we had maybe built that salad up too much in our memories for anyone to meet our expectations. This absolutely did. The chicken was delicious (and it was later too when we ordered it on its own), all the ingredients worked well together, and there was a nice heat to it. So glad we were able to get this.

10. Vegetarian combination and doro wat from Zenebech (Washington, DC)

One of our priorities during our time in DC was to eat Ethiopian food, and in doing so, we were rewarded with what was possibly the best Ethiopian food we've ever eaten at Zenebech. The injera there was fluffy and pillowy, and unlike some others, left no residue on your fingers which was great. We got the vegetarian combination with generous portions of lentils, peas, and other vegetables, along with doro wat (chicken stew). There was just so much flavor to every single part of the dish and  we completely cleaned the plate. Sadly Zenebech closed recently so we'll never be able to have this exact experience again, but hopefully they will open somewhere else as this food was too good to think about not eating again.

I could eat all ten of these over and over again and not get sick of them, which is probably why they all made my favorite food memories list. There were so many more things that missed the cut but with so much good food over the course of the year, that was inevitable. Hoping 2017 brings some great eats as well!

Khao Man Gai NY

Earlier this summer, we stopped by the Urbanspace Broadway Bites market for a lunch break as we wandered the city hunting Pokemon. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, it was pretty crowded, but relatively manageable. One of the stands that caught our eye was Khao Man Gai NY. We remembered that they had won a Vendy Award as a market vendor, and decided to start our lunch adventure there.

Although we really like khao man gai and it would have made sense to try their namesake dish, we were really drawn to the tom yum noodles on offer as well. It was really tough to decide between them, but eventually we chose the tom yum noodles, figuring it would be easier for us to share that one. The dish was rice noodles mixed with pork belly, ground pork, fish balls, peanuts, Chinese celery, scallions, bean sprouts, chili paste, and lime juice. It felt a bit like eating pad thai but with all the spicy and sour flavors of tom yum soup. We had never had noodles like that before, but were pretty satisfied as the taste was excellent.

Coming in at $10, the noodles weren't cheap, but nothing at Urbanspace ever is. We did really like them though and would get them again, along with maybe trying the khao man gai and maybe one of their Thai iced tea varieties. Although this summer's Broadway Bites is a distant memory, Madison Square Eats starts up tomorrow, and they are scheduled to be part of the fall market, so maybe we'll make it down there to try some more good stuff.

Green Curry Chickpeas

One of my favorite easy meals lately has been green curry chickpeas, based on a recipe I found on the Trader Joe's recipes site. It's pretty simple to put together, relying mostly on their green curry simmer sauce for all of the vibrant flavors, healthy, and full of nutritious vegetables.

The main ingredients of the green curry chickpeas (as I've adapted it) are:

- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 lb of carrots, chopped
- 1 jar green curry sauce
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 small container of mushrooms, chopped (optional)
- 1 bag of baby spinach (optional)

I think you could really throw in all sorts of vegetables that would match up with the curry and soak up the flavors. The carrots and onions weren't in the original recipe, but I thought they would go well with the curry, and they did. I added mushrooms into the mix another time, and that was also good. The original recipe roasted cherry tomatoes in the oven, but it has been so much more convenient to just use canned tomatoes. The first time we used whole peeled tomatoes because we had an expired can that needed to get used, but since then, diced tomatoes (since we buy them in a case at Costco) have been the easiest. When making this a "pantry meal," I've also left out the baby spinach since it isn't always easy to find a good bag, and it's been fine without it too. Lots of room for adaptation based on what's in the fridge. The entire meal comes out to about $10 when you add in grains, like brown rice (what we made the first time) or quinoa (what we made the second time and what was in the recipe), so for a pretty convenient meal, that's not bad at all.

So how easy is it to make the green curry chickpeas? (Not including the grains, which get made simultaneously.)

1. Saute onions and carrots (and mushrooms, if using).

2. Add green curry sauce and stir to combine.

3. Add chickpeas and tomatoes. Stir together, reduce heat to low, simmer for 15-20 minutes.

4. Add baby spinach (if using), stir together, and cook for another 10 minutes or so (all spinach should be wilted).

It's a pretty simple dish, but full of flavor. It's so convenient to be able to use a jar of curry sauce instead of painstakingly making the entire curry on my own. It certainly wouldn't be a half-hour meal if I did. The curry sauce combines together coconut milk, soy sauce, cilantro, chili peppers, lemongrass, ginger, and a few other seasonings, so it makes life really simple. Would a freshly made curry be better? Maybe, but this works just fine for us for an easy weekday meal.

V{IV} Thai

A little over 4 years ago, we tried out the lunch specials at a new-ish Thai place in Hell's Kitchen called V{IV} Thai. V{IV} stood out from some of the other restaurants at the time as it had a bit more "trendy" decor, but the lunch specials were still pretty reasonably priced. We got one rice dish and one noodle dish, but we both had the same problem once we tasted them. They were so incredibly salty that we had to send them back to the kitchen, and we hardly ever send food back. They made the dishes again, at a much better sodium level, and we were pretty satisfied with them. But with so many Thai restaurants in the neighborhood and the initial high sodium experience still in the back of our minds, we never found the time to go back and try them again.

A couple of days ago, I was looking for something for lunch that wasn't chicken nuggets from the freezer, and decided to give V{IV} another try. I had seen some interesting things on their menu, like nam prik ong (something we really liked out in Vegas), Chiang Mai sausage, and avocado massaman curry (which was also available for lunch specials). I ordered that curry lunch special, and then headed out in the drizzle to pick it all up.

Each lunch special came with a choice of appetizer, and I chose the fried chicken and shrimp dumplings, which seemed to be accompanied by a sweet chili sauce. I bit into the dumpling and was pleasantly surprised to see something that actually looked like shrimp and that it wasn't just mashed up meat and shrimp together. But that initial thought was followed by the realization that the dumpling was really, really salty. The sweet chili sauce masked it a little bit when I used it on subsequent bites, but it was still pretty salty.

The avocado massaman curry (with chicken) came in a big soup-type container with a side of rice, so I mixed it together in one of our bowls. I had been curious about what avocado massaman curry would be like, whether it would be any different from any other massaman curry, but it was really just massaman curry with half an avocado soaked in it. The potatoes, carrots, onions, and peanuts were fairly standard, and it tasted (as far as spices) on par with other massaman curry preparations we've had before.

That said, I had the same thought once I tried the curry as I did about the dumplings. Salty. Too salty for me anyway. I didn't think it was solely residual from the dumplings, since I drank a glass of water between them, but the dumplings probably didn't help. As I kept eating the curry, it seemed to get a little better, but I think I just got used to the salt. I ended up drinking a ton of water all day to counteract all the sodium. I don't know if it's just that I notice the salt more since we cook more at home (without all this extra, unnecessary salt) or if the folks in the kitchen there just have an entirely different idea of what is a good amount of sodium, but it just feels like we're not really on the same page. The food itself seemed to be fine, but all that extra sodium just made it harder to enjoy. I haven't had this problem with similar dishes from other Thai restaurants, so I'll probably stick with those and leave V{IV} for people who like and tolerate salt better than me.

Thai Times Three

The biggest hurdle with recapping our 2014 Vegas trip is that we haven't really made any progress (yet) with writing about our 2012 Vegas trip. That doesn't sound like it should be a problem, but we visited some of the same places (like Thai superstar Lotus of Siam) on both trips. It's a little difficult to write about our second visit when we never discussed the first. Complicating that matter even further in this case is that in 2014, we also visited Chada Thai & Wine for dinner. Some of the folks from Chada used to be at Lotus, and we got some dishes at Chada that we had previously gotten at Lotus, and it's tough to compare if we never talked about Lotus in the first place.

So what's the solution? What seemed to make the most sense was to go back a little bit, tell you about our very first visit to Lotus of Siam back in 2012, and then jump back to our 2014 recaps and talk about our visits to Chada for dinner and Lotus for lunch the very next day. Just didn't really make sense to break up all the posts at this point. It's confusing enough as it is. So without further ado, first up, our very first visit to Lotus of Siam!

Lotus of Siam, Part I

On our 2012 trip to Vegas, we stayed at the MGM Grand on the Strip. Although we mostly stuck to restaurants we could walk to, we definitely wanted to check out Lotus of Siam since it was considered one of the best Thai restaurants in the country. We called up for a reservation, knowing how busy they get, and even though it was last minute, we were lucky enough to get one. On the night we went up for dinner, we encountered a super long taxi line at the hotel which caused a bit of stress (we were there during both the rodeo and a Pacquiao fight), but we were lucky and got there just in time.

Once we got there, we were confronted with a gigantic menu. There were so many things that sounded good, but we had done some research in advance and were able to narrow our choices down to 4. One thing on our list that Lotus of Siam was famous for was the nam kao tod, described on the menu as a salad of crispy rice mixed with minced sour pork sausage, green onion (although from the pictures and our memories, it also seems like there was red onion), fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, and lime juice. We liked this a lot, and it ended up on my favorites list for 2012 because it was just so different from anything we had had before and incredibly delicious. I mentioned back then that when I heard rice salad, the first thing I thought of was Jitlada's khao yam, but while this wasn't that, it was still really good. That combination of flavors, full of sour and spice, was just so good.

One thing that wasn't on our researched list, but which sounded interesting on the menu, was kang ka noon (spicy young jackfruit curry). This was a Northern style curry dish and it sounded so different from the Thai curries we had had before, so we wanted to try it. This spicy curry was full of young jackfruit, spices, and catfish (the other choices were pork and chicken). I had never really had much, if any, jackfruit before, and I was curious to see if I would like it. A had eaten it before, just not in curry. They described the texture of the jackfruit on the menu as similar to artichoke hearts, but if I remember correctly, they seemed a little firmer than that. I also don't remember for sure but I think the fish pieces in the curry had bones in them, which made it a little harder to eat (for me). Although this wasn't bad, it was definitely our least favorite dish of the night because everything else was so good.

Another dish we had heard Lotus did well was nam prik ong, a red chili dip. This was a Northern Thai dip that combined ground pork, tomato, and dried spices, and tasted to us like a Thai version of bolognese. The flavors were remarkably similar to spaghetti sauce, and it was utterly bizarre (in a good way) for us to be eating that as a dip with raw vegetables and sticky rice. The small bowl of dip came with raw carrots, green beans, cauliflower, cucumber, and lettuce, as well as some pork rinds, making it very light and healthy overall. This dip made A's favorites list for 2014 when we got it for the second time and it was a strong contender for both of us back in 2012 (but 2012 had all that competition from Barcelona).

The last entree we got for our Thai dinner feast at Lotus was sea bass on drunken noodle which we had heard a lot about. This was deep fried sea bass topped with homemade fresh chili and Thai basil served on top of pan-fried rice noodle. As A put it in his favorites list for 2012, it was like the best drunken noodle we had ever had, multiplied in greatness by 10, with some perfectly fried, lightly battered, flaky sea bass on top. It was really, really good, and at the time, we weren't sure how we'd go back to "regular" drunken noodle at home. (Clearly we managed, as we have had much pad kee mao in the past few years, but we do still think about this dish.) We haven't really found anywhere in New York that makes drunken noodle this way (although there are still many Thai places we have yet to try), and we wish they would. It's such a great combination.

We were so incredibly happy with our dinner at Lotus of Siam, and we decided to cap off the night with some sticky rice with mango for dessert. This was sticky rice marinated in coconut cream topped with toasted mung bean (according to the menu, even though we always just thought they were sesame seeds) served with fresh mango slices. This is a dessert we have gotten plenty of times at home, and probably our favorite Thai dessert, so it was the perfect end to a good meal.

Chada Thai & Wine

When we returned to Vegas in 2014 for another long weekend trip, we knew we wanted to return to Lotus of Siam since our first dinner there was so good. We didn't want to deal with the hassle of making a reservation so we figured we would just go for an early lunch. Instead, we planned to grab our Thai dinner at Chada Thai and Wine, a spot that some Lotus alums had opened in late 2012, and which had become very popular and garnered lots of raves during the period between our Vegas visits. (There's now a sister restaurant to Chada called Chada Street that we've bookmarked because it sounds fantastic.)

While there were some similarities between the menus at Chada and Lotus, there were also so many unique things that we had never tried before and we were so excited to explore. One of these was called miang pou, which was a lettuce wrap with crab meat, ginger, roasted coconut, peanut, chili, lime, onion and sweet tamarind sauce. We love lettuce wrap in all forms (and we make it at home), but we had never had lettuce wrap with these ingredients before. It was a little bit spicy from the small piece of bird's eye chili in each cup, but otherwise it wasn't really spicy. All the ingredients, all the flavors, and that slightly sweet sauce all worked so well when combined, and the sauce helped bring it all together. The crab tasted so fresh and sweet, and the overall flavors of the lettuce wrap were so clean.

Without a doubt, our favorite thing at Chada that night was the spicy herbs spring roll, a soft rice paper wrapper lined with lettuce leaves and filled with ground pork, ginger, onion, lemongrass, wild cilantro, mint, kaffir lime leaf, and basil vinaigrette. This was so good that it made both A's favorites list and my favorites list for 2014. While many of the dishes from these 3 Thai meals were in contention for our favorites lists during both years, this was the only one that actually made both of our lists, which should tell you something about how good it was.

This spring roll was the best thing we had eaten on our trip by that point. Unlike a lot of summer rolls, the filling inside was warm. The flavors were floral and herbal and refreshing and bright. The flavor seemed so familiar, even though we had never really had anything quite like it, but we still haven't been able to figure out why or what dish it reminded us of.  It was somehow simultaneously delicate and intense, light and fresh and comforting. This was just really, really good, and every ingredient worked perfectly together.

By now, you probably know that larb is one of our favorite Thai dishes to eat. This version was ground pork (the options were ground pork, salmon, or king trumpet mushrooms) with rice powder, onion, mint, fish sauce, lime juice, and chili powder, and sides of cucumber and lettuce wedges. We had ordered everything medium spicy that night, and this was definitely the spiciest thing we got at dinner. It was a really tasty version of larb with a sauce that was a little thicker and more fragrant than a lot of other places. We were very happy with this.

Next up was sen mee kang pou, a homemade crab curry served with thin rice noodles. When the dish arrived, the little bundles of rice noodles reminded us of Sri Lankan string hoppers, and they were topped with fried garlic. The crab curry itself was quite good. There was a lot of crab in it, and the crab was so sweet inside the fresh and creamy curry. We had never had crab curry before, and we would definitely get more if it tasted this good.

The last dish we got from Chada was their drunken noodle / pad kee mao (flat rice noodles, bird's eye chili, garlic and basil) with sea bass, which was the same thing we had gotten at our Lotus dinner. We were curious to see how they would compare and which version we would like better. Overall, the noodles and basil were good at both places, but when it came to the fish, we gave the edge to Lotus. The fish at Lotus was deep fried in strips, whereas the Chada version was a whole filet of fish that was broiled, which made the edges a little bit on the drier side. It was still a really good drunken noodle.

Overall, we really liked our meal at Chada and would definitely go back on a future visit to Vegas. It's going to be tough trying to figure out how to eat anything other than Thai food in Vegas at this rate.

Lotus of Siam, Part II

Lotus of Siam had 2 options for lunch when we went back in early 2014. You could either order off the menu, just like you would at dinner, or you could go to their lunch buffet. From what we had heard, the lunch buffet was good, but it wasn't as good as ordering a la carte, where you could really focus in on their specialties instead of the more common stuff at the buffet. Since we already knew we wanted a couple of repeat dishes from our first dinner, we definitely were picking the a la carte option. (Just FYI, according to the Lotus website, they stopped serving the lunch buffet during summer of 2014.)

One easy choice was to get the nam kao tod again. We hadn't been able to find this sour sausage and crispy rice salad anywhere between our 2 Vegas visits, and it was still as good as we remembered.

Another repeat dish was the nam prik ong, which made A's favorites list for 2014. This was also pretty much the same as the first time we got it, or possibly even a little bit better. We still thought it tasted like bolognese the second time around.

We don't remember if sticky rice came with the nam prik ong or if we just got it on the side because we wanted it, but here's a picture of it.

We got 2 new dishes at our Lotus lunch, and one of them was the much talked about garlic prawns. This was described on the menu as "deep fried prawns with shells (almost like potato chips) sauteed with our special garlic sauce topped with ground black pepper." So many people had mentioned these garlic prawns, and they were so good that they made my favorites list for 2014. As I said there, we were expecting some deep fried shrimp, like salt and pepper shrimp, but what we got was so much better. Not only was there a bunch of fried shrimp, but also fried shells, and it was all nice and garlicky. We've had fried shrimp at Chinese restaurants where they are so deep fried that you can eat the entire shrimp - head, tails, everything - but this was different since the shells were off the shrimp but also fried. The thin crispy shells tasted like eating shrimp chips, and the flavor and texture of good, crispy shrimp chips has always made me happy. We would definitely get these again.

The last thing we got at lunch was Thai style spaghetti, described as non-spicy pan fried egg noodles in special sauce with egg, chicken, shrimp and tomatoes. While this was good and we liked it, we found it hard to describe the exact flavoring the day we got it and still can't really pinpoint the specific flavor.

Lotus of Siam and Chada Thai had some of our favorite dishes on both of our Vegas trips, and we definitely want to return whenever we make it back out there. The only problem is that we now have so many "favorite" dishes that we want to get again, which means a limited amount of stomach space to try new things. Maybe we'll just have to go more than once to each.