Green Papaya Deli's namesake. Photo by Rudy R.

In July, I was working on a feature article about Lao food in East Oakland for the food section of a major Bay Area daily newspaper. In very early August, a few weeks after I'd finished the first round of interviews, I found out that newspaper's food section was merging entirely with that of another large newspaper operated by the same company, gutting staff (and its already flimsy freelance budget) in a frantic cost-shearing maneuver. Since my piece addressed a unique ethnic community largely confined to a single neighborhood in one distinct part of Oakland--San Antonio--it wouldn't jive with the company's broad new regional focus. At least, that's what my freshly-canned editor told me when she delivered the bad news.

I was deeply bummed--not just because I'd already logged a bunch of hours researching the article, but because the food--as well as the people I'd met, their stories, and the traditions they associated with what they enjoyed eating--seemed so deserving of attention.

I first became really curious about Lao food nearly two years ago, after a tasty meal at Champa Garden, the somewhat venerable Lao restaurant on 8th Avenue east of Lake Merritt in San Antonio--one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Bay Area, home to close-knit populations of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians in almost equal proportions. I tried to draw distinctions between its dominant flavors and those most prevalent in the more familiar cuisines of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Like Thai, Lao thrives on interplay between sour and spicy, crunchy and soft, and both cooked and raw ingredients. The effect however is different. Extreme tastes and textures--intense, bold, lush--somehow find lovely balance in the most homespun preparations, and the combinations feel wilder, more jarring. Truly bitter greens are tossed in barely sweet lightly-dressed salads with herbs and raw marinated fish. Crispy fried rice comes wrapped in sheets of iceberg lettuce with preserved pork bits, lime, and scallions peppered throughout.

With Champa Garden as my starting point, I began a gradual tour of Lao flavors in East Oakland. First, I visited Vientian Cafe, a rough-hewn eatery situated a few blocks outside the San Antonio neighborhood, on a barren block of Allendale. The food was uniformly spectacular and stunningly inexpensive. Baked sausage with lemongrass, onion, and chiles--a thin, churro-like cylinder, dark-brown, crusty, and cracked on a bed of raw shredded cabbage--and kao piak, a noodle soup with chicken, nutty fried garlic, and pork blood, particularly stood out.

On several occasions, I lunched at Green Papaya Deli, a tiny storefront on International Boulevard at 2nd Ave. Cynthia Senephansiri is the owner; her mother Lily cooks. For 15 years, the family owned a video store renting and selling tapes and, later, dvds of Lao and Thai films. Its market was niche to begin with, and as people bought and rented movies less and less anyway, the store's business dwindled to a dangerously frail level. About a year-and-a-half ago, Cynthia had the idea to open a restaurant. In the dearth of Lao restaurants around town she saw an opportunity to bring authentic versions of the traditional Lao dishes her family loved to people who had never before encountered them. In the beginning she had no formal restaurant experience, but now Lily spends 7 days and nights a week behind the stove in the kitchen barely visible through the window behind the counter. From time to time, she pads into the tiny dining room to make sure customers are eating the food she sends out with satisfyingly palpable enthusiasm. Lily is small, and her voice is quiet, but her smile sparkles like few I have ever seen, dwarfing everything else in the room, engulfing diners in a luminous maternal aura as she murmurs fretfully about the cleanliness of their plates. I have already written about Green Papaya's otherworldy Lao-style chicken soup, but Lily's papaya salad--vivid, shockingly hot, and pungent with a tamarind-laced dressing made-from-scratch--deserves a very special mention.

The first time I visited, I ate the salad with seven chiles and gently steamed at my corner table. The second time I came through, I tried it with twelve and felt, as I desperately seized fistfuls of heat-dampening sticky rice, as if my chest might explode if I dared to down another slippery forkful. According to Lily's nephew Ken, the restaurant's waiter, his aunt will add up to twenty for the most masochistic (and showy) of chile-fiends. Of course, he had to immediately assure me that I, being white and American, could always expect to receive considerably fewer chiles than I'd request. He meant that kindly, I think, but I did feel a twinge of disappointment. I had been proud to hang, at least for half a plate, with twelve, but my "twelve," as it turned out, was actually more like "six," my "seven" just a few. Ken showed me a massive bag of the mean-looking chiles, and I felt better. They were gnarled blue spikes, each only a third the size of my pinkie--sort of like wicked appendages to a knight's armor. I was even happier to learn my personal expectations for success exceeded Ken's. He chided me for trying to eat an entire order by myself, explaining that papaya salad, especially such a molten rendering, is meant to be shared amongst three or four hungry people, as one sweet, searing passage in a harmonious array of tastes, not a meal in and of itself, or even a snack through which a solitary and stubborn ignoramus should struggle.

After my second meal at Green Papaya, I met the family. Lily came to Oakland in 1981. She told me the exact date of her arrival without a moment's pause to recollect. She likes Oakland, especially the weather. The restaurant is practically in her backyard; its kitchen, she says, is hers. Assertive and business-oriented, Cynthia drew firm distinctions between Lao and Thai, the cuisine to which it's frequently compared, suggesting that Thai food in the United States tends to be marketed to American tastes, whereas Lao restaurants, far fewer in number, are usually direct extensions of home-cooking traditions. According to Cynthia, restaurants identifying as Lao tend to rep their homeland's cuisine more faithfully precisely because the cuisine has no successful Americanized tradition. Thai restaurants are immensely popular, with instantly recognizable dishes -- like tom yum and pad thai. For this reason, many Lao elect to operate Thai restaurants -- to attract customers.

I also met with April Kim, the program director of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, and Sokham Senthavilay, a Lao woman who has taught cooking classes at the OACC on a few occasions. Sokham showed up with an adorable child in her arms -- perhaps a niece or a grandaughter. As the little girl sat perched on the table, staring me down calmly, her frilly dress cascading over the edge like a curtain, Sokham told her story. She left Laos in 1978. After a few months in jail and a stint at a camp in Thailand, she headed to the United States in 1980, first to Seattle, then to Texas, and finally to Oakland, along with many of her 15 siblings. She used to cook at a Thai restaurant in Oakland but couldn't stand the hours. I told her about the papaya salad mishap, and she laughed, saying that she understood. Even when you're sweating and crying, she said, you always want to eat more than you should -- because the heat makes you feel so good.

Sokham believes home kitchens produce the best Lao food, and with obvious glee, described her weekend ritual in detail. Most Saturday mornings, she wakes up early and heads to the market. With her twelve brothers, sisters, and cousins helping, their own ever-expanding families milling around the house, she starts cooking at 10 a.m. and finishes by mid-afternoon: a full-blown banquet of larb, bamboo soup, papaya salad, grilled fish, and sticky rice accompanied by beer, Johnny Walker Black, and a kind of rice-derived moonshine called Lao Lao. Sokham lives around the corner from Green Papaya, but she's never been there. She rarely socializes or eats outside of her house. She agreed with Cynthia Senephansiri's claim about the scarcity of Lao restaurants. Though it's rarely advertised on menu, she added that some Thai restaurants staffed by Lao cooks can cook some dishes Lao-style if you order them that way -- like papaya salad, which she noted often tastes too sweet for her liking at Thai restaurants. She speculated Thai food might be more familiar to Americans because more Americans have been to Thailand and many more Thai immigrants have comfortably settled in this country.

Laos, Sokham explained, sits in the shadow of Thailand. With the end of the Second Indochina War in 1975, many Lao fled their country for fear of communist reprisals and, like Sokham, ended up in Thailand before finding their way here. Ken's grandfather was one of them too. In Laos, he had owned farms and houses, but after the war, the communist government redistributed all of his properties. Ken described his disappointment as vast and crushing. He went to Thailand and then to Cleveland, where he died after a year. From 1975 to 1996, the U.S. government resettled more than 250,000 Lao refugees in communities around the country, including an estimated 30,000 living in the Bay Area, many in East Oakland--where three modest restaurants stand as clear local evidence of Laos's gastronomic legacy.

A month or so ago, I covered the Center for Lao Studies' First Annual Banquet for the S.F. Weekly's online presence. In an email exchange following the event, the Center's executive director Dr. Vinya Sysamouth mentioned community members had petitioned Yelp to add a category for Lao food, and that Yelp had adamantly refused. Maybe, I wondered, because none of the three Lao-identified restaurants in the Bay Area limit themselves to serving Lao food alone. Vientian Cafe and Champa Garden offer some Vietnamese and Thai dishes. On Yelp, they're respectively identified as "Thai" and "Vietnamese," and "Thai" and, curiously, "Asian Fusion." Green Papaya Deli has a small Thai menu because, as Lily told me, she's concerned many Americans might not eat there unless they see at least a few dishes with which they're already familiar.

You can find the restaurant listed under "Thai" and "Deli" on Yelp.

Butternut Squash Thai Curry

When we were little, our parents taught us not to talk to strangers. I sometimes wonder if my boyfriend's parents ever warned him of the dangers, because he talks to strangers all the time.

He's a master chatter. He makes best friends with cashiers, older ladies love him, and he somehow induces perfect strangers to tell him their life story.

And so it went when we paid Barry from Craigslist a visit to see about some copper pots. One thing led to another, and before long we were two hours deep in conversation about his past life as the executive chef of a cruise ship making its maiden voyage in 1969. We left Barry that afternoon with a smile on his face, confident that his prize pots had found a good home. And we walked away 3 copper pots, a handful of cookbooks, and a few stories richer.

Sticky rice cooked in a prize pot

I've grown particularly fond of one of the books we picked up, The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking, written by Mai Pham, chef/owner of Lemon Grass Restaurant in Sacramento, and Barry's former instructor at the Culinary Institute of America.

When I spotted Pham's recipe for Thai Seafood Curry with Pumpkin and Fresh Basil, I was reminded of one of my favorite dishes from Osha, Pumpkin Curry. While Pham's recipe calls for mussels, salmon, and shrimp, I decided to go with simplified, vegetarian version using roasted butternut squash and a touch of tomato paste. I also happened to have some leftover pan-fried, extra firm tofu on hand, so I threw that in for some more substance.

You will fall in love with this fragrant and full-flavored curry. The two magic ingredients I discovered in this recipe are lemon grass and Kaffir lime leaves, both acquired at Whole Foods (along with my red Thai curry powder). They infuse the curry with the most seductive aroma. Fresh and citrusy, with a touch of spicy floral essence. Do not skimp on these ingredients. They will transform your dish.

Minced lemon grass

Lemon grass can look intimidating, but don't be scared. To prep and make the most use out of it, first peel off the tough, outer layers of the stalk. Thinly slice from the fatter bulb end first. Stop when you get to the green parts of the stalk on top. Cut these top green parts into 2-inch pieces and set aside. You can use these for your curry, simply bruise them with the back of your knife, splitting the stalk open and releasing the essential oils. The thin slices from the bulb can then be minced (use a food processor to make your life easier) and stored in Ziploc bags for up to 4 months or so in the freezer.

Kaffir lime leaves

I store my lime leaves in the freezer as well to extend their shelf life.

Gutted butternut squash, nuked and ready to peel

A trick I learned when working with butternut squash -- it can be tough to cut through and peel when the squash is raw. If you microwave the entire thing for a few minutes, it will soften up, allowing you to slice through it easily.

Roasted butternut squash

Pham cooks her squash right in the curry, but I found that roasting it first really develops its flavor and is totally worth the extra time! Serve it over some coconut rice and you will be in Thai heaven.

Chaokoh: best brand of coconut milk

Coconut Rice with Mango

Coconut rice is used in a popular Thai dessert, served with slices of sweet, juicy mangoes. It also happens to make a wonderfully aromatic base for your coconut milk-based curry.

After craving it for all these years, turns out coconut rice is just cooked rice mixed with a simple coconut sauce. If you have a rice cooker, all you really have to do is whip up the sauce (just don't try dumping the sauce in with the uncooked rice all at once…that um…doesn't work out too well). And if you don’t have a rice cooker, steaming rice in a pot is easy too.

So there you have it. A complete delicious Thai meal, made in a pair of beautiful copper pots. Thanks, stranger.

Butternut Squash Thai Curry with Coconut Rice
Adapted recipe from “The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking” by Mai Pham

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
2 lb. whole butternut squash (or 1 package pre-cut)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 (13.5 oz) cans unsweetened coconut milk (Chaokoh); reserve 2/3 c. for coconut rice
3 (2-inch) pieces lemon grass stalk bruised slightly with the back of a knife; or 1 tablespoon minced lemon grass stalk
2 Kaffir lime leaves, cut in thirds
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon red thai curry
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon salt
2 ripe red vine tomatoes, thinly sliced
Cilantro or fresh basil to garnish
Coconut Rice (recipe below)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.
2. If not using pre-cut butternut squash, microwave whole squash for about 5 minutes to soften so it’s easier to cut.
3. Remove skin, scoop out seeds, and cut into 1 inch cubes. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, pinch of salt and pepper, and roast for 30-40 minutes until browned.
4. Remove squash from oven and allow it to cool.
5. Meanwhile, heat a large saucepan over moderate heat. Skim off the top thick, creamy part of the coconut milk, about ½ cup, and add it to the pan. Add the curry paste and stir to dissolve. Let mixture sizzle and bubble for 2 to 3 minutes.
6. Reserve 2/3 cup coconut milk in a small saucepan for the coconut rice. Add the remaining coconut milk, lemon grass, lime leaves, sugar, fish sauce, tomato paste, turmeric, and salt. Increase the heat to high and bring to a simmer.
7. Add the tomatoes and let cook for about 10 minutes until they dissolve. While this simmers you can prepare the coconut rice (recipe follows). Add roasted butternut squash and allow to simmer for another 5 minutes.
8. Serve over coconut rice and garnish with freshly chopped cilantro or julienned basil.

Sticky Coconut Rice and Fresh Mangoes
Excerpted from “The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking” by Mai Pham

Serves: 4

Ingredients:
Rice
1 ¼ cups water
1 cup Thai long-grain sticky rice, soaked in warm water for 1 hour and drained (Adaptation note: I used California Calrose rice, a medium-grain sticky rice, and washed but didn't bother soaking)
2 tablespoons sugar

Coconut Sauce
2/3 cups unsweetened coconut milk (Chaokoh)
¼ cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/3 cup water

Garnish
2 medium to large ripe mangoes, peeled and cut into slices
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, lightly toasted

Preparation:
1. If you have a rice cooker, mix together the 1 ¼ cups water and 2 tablespoons sugar, and combine with the rice. While the rice cooks, prepare the coconut sauce.
2. If you do not have a rice cooker, bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Quickly stir in the rice and add the 2 tablespoons sugar. Let boil for 2 minutes, then reduce the heat to very low. Cover and simmer only until the water has evaporated and the rice is tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let sit for 20 minutes. Uncover and fluff rice with a fork or chopsticks. Set aside.
3. Prepare the coconut sauce: in the small saucepan with the coconut milk reserved from before, add the ¼ cup sugar, vanilla, and salt. Bring to a boil.
4. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and 1/3 cup water and stir until dissolved. While the coconut sauce is simmering, slowly drizzle in the cornstarch mixture and stir until sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon. Remove from heat and set aside.
5. Drizzle the coconut sauce over the rice a few tablespoons at a time to taste.
6. If you're serving this as a dessert, place a small mound of sticky rice (about ½ cup) in the center of a serving plate and surround with mango slices. Drizzle some more coconut sauce over each mound and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

This is the third year in a row that I have published a list of my favorite tastes of the year. My personal rules for the tastes: they have to be something that I first tried in 2008, and they must knock my socks off. I am lucky that every year I am able to taste new dishes that completely change my culinary point-of-view. This year I delved more into Thai food, and spent a lot of time in San Francisco so not many dishes are from out-of-town. The tastes, in no particular order are:

Chicken noodle soup, Thai House Express. I was introduced to this soup in January of this year and have had it many, many times since. I enjoy the light broth of the soup and always order it with thin egg noodles. When chili paste is added from the condiments provided on the table, it makes for the perfect bowl of soup. 901 Larkin Street at Geary, San Francisco.

Burger and duck-fat fries, Spruce. Much to the consternation of the New Yorkers who read Serious Eats, I had the audacity to declare the Spruce hamburger as the best hamburger in San Francisco. New Yorkers could not believe that a great burger could be served on an english muffin. I stand by my decision, and can't think of many places I'd rather spend an evening than the Spruce bar with a burger and a cocktail. 3640 Sacramento Street at Spruce, San Francisco.

Sunchoke salad, SPQR. When a chef shuffle at SPQR occured last January, I was worried. After opening in October 2007, SPQR quickly became a favorite on my restaurant rotation and I didn't want the food to change. I needn't have worried. Chef de cuisine Chris Behr turns out solidly awesome food and I'm never disappointed. One of my favorite bites all year was their sunchoke salad served with tangerine pieces, radicchio and toasted almonds. The combination of flavors makes for a perfect bite. 1911 Fillmore Street at Bush, San Francisco.

Arctic char crudo, Bar Crudo. 2008 will be known as the year that I finally tried Bar Crudo. I was enchanted by the flavors of nearly every dish, but especially enamored of the arctic char with wasabi tobiko. Magic. 503 Bush Street over the Stockton tunnel, San Francisco.

Nam prik noom, Renu Nakorn. My first taste of the delicious nam prik noom -- a chili dip served with crudite -- was at Lotus of Siam this year in Las Vegas. While it was delicious at Lotus, I preferred the dish when I had it at Renu Nakorn in Southern California. Lotus of Siam's roots were born out of Renu Nakorn, so the dishes were very similar with Renu Nakorn's spice level being perfect. I can't wait to eat this again. Renu Nakorn re-opened this year in a lovely space after being closed for several years and is well worth a trip if you're in Southern California. 13019 Rosecrans Ave near Hwy 5, Norwalk.

No-Knead Bread made by me. Until this year, I had never made a loaf of bread by myself. I'm not saying that the bread I made was perfect, and about 15 loaves later it's still not. But I will always remember that first taste of my first loaf of bread.

Kanom krok, San Bruno Thai Temple. Kanom krok -- the popular Thai dessert that is made of sweet coconut cream and batter in the equivalent of an Ebilskiver pan -- was a new taste to me this year. I tried kanom krok at several places, and my favorite bite was the one I tried first at this Sunday Thai temple brunch. 310 Poplar Ave at Crystal Springs Road, San Bruno. Sundays only, best to go around 11.30 or noon.

Butterscotch budino, Mozza. It was hard to choose just one bite at Mozza to feature, as it was one of my favorite places in Southern California this year. The budino is a perfect dessert -- a butterscotch pudding topped with salted caramel and served with rosemary pine nut biscotti. I'm not a fan of overly sweet desserts and this dish struck the perfect balance between sweet and salty. 6602 Melrose Ave at Highland, Los Angeles.

Mussel Salad, Bar Jules. Jessica Boncutter opened Bar Jules early this year, and I was lucky to spend many an afternoon there with friends enjoying the fresh, local and delicious food. The mussel salad pictured above is a perfect representation of the food that I loved here in 2008, and I can still remember the perfectly cooked mussels contrasted with aioli and simple boiled potatoes. 609 Hayes Street at Laguna, San Francisco.

Ankimo, Sebo. No taste deserves its own, completely separate, blog post more than the ankimo at Sebo. Thinking of evenings at Sebo this year makes me break into a wide grin. It's the combination of absolutely impeccable sushi, combined with the personality of the chef owners and the company that I enjoyed there. I never really understood the draw of ankimo, which is monkfish liver, until I tasted it at Sebo. While I still typically am drawn to the uni at Sebo over the ankimo, I have ankimo on the list for the sheer fact that it changed my mind and my culinary perspective. My dining partner and I were so exuberant about it one night that we convinced Loretta Keller, owner of Coco500, to re-open her already paid check to have an order of ankimo. She thanked us. 516 Hayes Street at Octavia, San Francisco.

Happy New Year, all. And here's to many, many great tastes in 2009.

Previous taste lists:
Top 10 Tastes 2006
Top 10 Tastes 2007

Lotus of Siam, a Thai restaurant in Las Vegas, has been lauded as the best Thai restaurant in the country by some of the most well-known critics around. It is known for it's excruciating attention to detail with sauces and depth of flavor, its expansive German wine list, and its low-key, unpretentious approach.

I'd been aware of Lotus of Siam for years but it didn't come to the front of my consciouness until recently when it seemed that everyone around me was talking about LOS.

Most notably, I have a good friend who went to Las Vegas solely to eat at LOS. She ate there five times in three days, then happily returned to San Francisco raving about the food and the wine list.

And last week I thumbed through Jay Rayner's new entertaining book The Man Who Ate the World. In his chapter about Las Vegas, he explores the question of whether Lotus of Siam is the best Thai restaurant in America. His conclusion:

"Either Thai restaurants in the U.S. are staggeringly poor, or Lotus of Siam, an admirable restaurant serving very good food at reasonable prices, had been hyped beyond all human understanding. I tend toward the latter." Rayner continues on to say that nevertheless, he enjoyed his meal at LOS more than any other in Las Vegas.

Obviously, Lotus of Siam incites very strong feelings among food lovers and I put it at the top of my list when going to Las Vegas last weekend. While a group of girlfriends were shopping and laying by the pool, I grabbed a cab to Lotus of Siam, located in a strip mall about $10 away from the strip.

At lunchtime, LOS offers a buffet which I bypassed and asked for a menu. Armed with advice from others, I ordered the Northern style pork larb, the nam prik noom (a mixture of chilis, garlic, onion and tomato made into a dip for veggies and pork skin) and the Northern style tom kah kai. And just when I thought I couldn't eat anymore, I ordered the mango sticky rice.

The dishes that came out of the kitchen were outstanding, and I would return in a minute. The flavors were bright and amazing, and I enjoyed every bite. There were a couple of things that I would do differently, however. Next time, I will go with others so that I can taste many more dishes. And next time, I will have a conversation with the server about the spice levels. When at most restaurants, I make sure that the server knows that I like spice, and that even though I have a "vanilla face" I like things hot. But here I didn't do that -- I let my guard down and the food didn't come out spicy enough for me (it was too spicy, however, for a friend who ate my leftovers and had to gulp down gallons of water afterward).

Is this the best Thai restaurant in the country? I have no idea, and am in no way qualified to answer that. Will I go back? In a heartbeat.

Reasons to go to Lotus of Siam when in Vegas:

1) It's off the strip, inexpensive, and a good respite from the chaos.
2) The wine list is enormous and a rare exploration into German wines.
3) The depth of flavor in every dish is well thought out and wonderful.
4) The mango sticky rice. Next time I'm in Vegas, I will go there just for this dish.
5) Rare dishes that are hard to find in North America, with a focus on Northern style, Issan dishes.
6) Enormous menu that guarantees you can eat differently many many times. Any level of Thai eater will be happy -- beginner or expert.

Lotus of Siam
953 E Sahara Ave, Las Vegas
map
702.735.3033
Open for lunch Monday - Friday