Photography by Steve Buchanan
I’m passionate about Thai cuisine—it’s my favorite exotic food in the world. On two separate occasions, I spent three months in Thailand. But I was not only visiting historic shrines and monuments, I was exploring food markets and restaurants of all varieties. Eating incredible-tasting curries while standing on a sandy floor in an island paradise are food memories that will last a lifetime.
Thai dining style is dramatically different than ours in the West. The dishes are all presented at once, with a minimal emphasis on serving the food steaming hot—after all, you’re always warm in Thailand! And food is communal—everyone shares from the same dishes; ordering a dish just for oneself is unheard of. And the variety of those dishes always balance one another, not too much of one flavor or another. For instance, my recipes for spicy chicken salad and curried prawns perfectly complement the slightly sour pad Thai.
You can buy many of the basic Thai ingredients—coconut milk, fish sauce, chili, garlic—at your local grocery store. Another alternative is to order Asian ingredients online. Or, you could drive to the Eden Center in Seven Corners, Va., where there
is a huge Vietnamese shopping center or to Ellicott City and its well-stocked Korean supermarkets. Wherever you find your ingredients, you’ll surely enjoy this wonderful cuisine.
Green Curry of King Prawns (Geng Gwio)
Spicy Minced Chicken Salad (Larp Gai)
Andrew Evans is the owner/chef at The Inn at Easton.
