Nam Plah

The original formula for Grape-Nuts called for grape sugar, which is composed mostly of glucose unlike most other sugar sources and food sweeteners which are principally sucrose.

I think the manufacturer used a raisin syrup (condensed juice) sweetener since it was readily available when cane sugar was in short supply. (War rationing?)

Hence "Grape Sugar"

Since taking office Dec. 1 after a disputed election, President Felipe Calderon has drawn his greatest criticism for failing to control the largest price spike in tortillas in decades. Tortillas are a staple of poor Mexicans' diet.

Strolling onto his lavishly appointed veranda Calderon was surprised at the commotion in the street. He asked his aide, "What is wrong with these people?"

His underling replied, "They have no tortillas to eat."

Calderon thought for a moment and decidedly recommended, "Then let them eat Pan Dulce!"

Pattaya Park is a water park, after all!

In the states I like Quiznos over Subway.

They toast'em to cheese bubbly, crispy perfection.

For Italian style sauce remember:

Skin and de-seed toms to remove bitterness

• Virgin olive oil
  
• Fresh garlic
  
• Oregano
  
• Basil
  
• Salt
  
• Sugar
  
• Black and/or Red pepper
  
• Tinned tomato paste
  
• Alcohol (absoluely essential*)
  

optional

• Ground carrot
  
• Minced onion
  
• Meat drippings
  

This is based upon my Grandmother's time tested Italian immigrant recipe

*Red Wine, Whiskey or even Beer. Tomatos contain flavour components (isoflavones) that can only be liberated in the presence of alcohol. Add the wine during the simmer portion of the cooking and let it cook off.

Interesting question! Especially considering that the Philipines was once administered by Spain through Mexico. There were direct shipping routes between the Philipines and Mexico in those times.

I have never noticed even one Mexican restaurant in the Philipines during my times there. Had some great Spanish food there though.

Anti-colonial cultural resentment?

I know your sentiment about the popular style of Mexican food, ie; California-style is on target with tastes and demographics but the best taco I ever had was nothing but grilled steak with a sprinkle of chopped raw onions and cilantro in a fresh corn tortilla and a squeeze of fresh lime juice...

Oh, man!

Utter simple perfection.

But on the flip side when I used to live in a loft in downtown L.A. my loftmate and I would drive over to East L.A. to a place called "El Pollo Y Mas" (the chicken and more) to pick up some 99 cent burritos that weighed in at just under a kilo apiece (no joke) and were stuffed with beans, cheese, rice, salsa, lettuce, tomato, onion, guacamole, sour cream and for another 50 cents some freshly rotisseried chicken.

We would load up on a few of these apiece and have food for two or three days as you could only eat about half of one.

Burrito means Little Mule!

The best strategy IMHO is to offer a choice of simple and extravagent Mexican fare to suit all tastes.

deli-france in Big C, north pattaya.

Would that be in the ring of shops lining the outdoor fountain at Festival Center?

Sour cream plus beans plus cheese does not equal ambrosia to the average Thai!

No doubt. *Burp!

You think that the average Mexican could stomach Som Tahm?

But it makes me wonder if the folks in the Phillipines (having similar Spanish colonial influence as the Mexicans) can tolerate the beans and dairy thing.

Anyone know about Mexican food popularity in The Phillipines?

JT,

I am on board with that.

One of my favorite Mexican places in Los Angeles is Baja Fresh. No lard, black beans and plenty of fresh, potent salsas etc.

Just putting in a good word for this oft maligned fat as it has gotten a bad reputation (I'll admit it isn't the most healthy ingredient) but when you use it to make chips or fried tacos, taquitos, chimichangas, etc... it tastes like nothing else!

My old friend recalled a funny incident from his childhood sitting at his kitchen table and seeing what he assumed was a plate of ice cream on the table, reached out his spoon and ate a big dollop of it...

It was lard.

Got any tips on finding a really good sandwich in Pats?

Not Subway, please!

I like the Continental on Thrappaya near Threppasit, good bread and fresh fixin's but I'm looking for the real deal.

• fresh French baguette
  
• high quality meats and cheeses
  
• a selection of tasty condiments like dijon mustard, garlicky aoili
  
• crisp pickles and herbed-marinated veggies
  

Pointers?

Please, no LARD in the refritos, amigo!

And yes many crappy Mexican restaurants water down the guac many ways. I thought mayo and water was the most common. Please don't, that is vile.

I don't think that beans (refried or whole) are well tolerated by Thai people as I cooked up some for my GF and she simply couldn't digest them.

Maybe they lack the enzymes for these particular proteins?

In any event Lard is a staple of Mexican food, it heats up to higher temperatures than vegetable shortenings creating crispier and slightly smoky fried foods.

For my tastebuds the frijoles ain't refritos without it!

As for the guac... sour cream is probably not going to go over well (dairy is another food not well tolerated by the general Thai eater) and any adulteration of the avocado concoction should be considered sacreligious.

Mayonaise? Shiver!

Offer smaller portions of this green gold rather than trying to extend it with fillers.

mio dos pesos.

Source or confirmation, OP?

Maybe about time for a band of vigilant Ex-Pats to secure the beach!

All drugs should be legalized.

But according to what drug you take your profession should reflect your choices...

Use Cocaine : Record Executive

Use Heroin : Rock Musician

Use Speed : Janitorial Engineer

Use Cannibis : Video Game Designer

Use Pyschedelics : Tie-Dye Tee-Shirt Retailer

Use Barbituates : Travel-Agent Receptionist

Use Alchohol : Profesional Sports Coach

Use Inhalants : Dirigible Groundcrew

Lick Frogs : Great American Novelist

I believe that Horchata contains raw, ground almonds and/or pumpkin seeds as well as rice and cinnamon. Quite tasty and healthy.

To cater to the Thai cultural tastes and sensibilities perhaps add some of the more authentically "country" Mexican food like the simmered tripe stew Menudo and char-broiled Carne Asada or marinated skirt steak Tacos. (The smoky outdoor grill will bring 'em in the door.)

Since Thailand has a glut of citrus and shellfish is both cheap and fresh include the wonderfully tart and spicy dish Ceviche of raw, marinated shrimp. Sure to be a hit with Thai tastebuds.

I had a lovely Mexican dish of a citrusy soup with Shrimp, garlic, cilantro and rice that closely resembled a cross betwen Thom Yum Gung and Khao Thom Gung.

The possibilites are certainly endless with both cultures enjoying all manner of pork dishes as well as seafood.

Real Mexican food also includes much in the way of organ meats or offal including liver, heart, lung and tongue which are all bargain cuts and easy to prepare (I recall seeing a Taco vendor on the Yucatan Peninsula with a 55 gallon oildrum filled with a boiling stew of every organ imaginable skewering steaming hearts and lungs, slapping them onto a cutting board, slicing a few morsels to be thrown into a warm corn tortilla wrapped in foil and thrust into the eager hands of the returning fisherman for a few pesos.)What could be more Thai?

JR Texas: Why can't we make masa for tamales? Is it that difficult? Does anybody know how to make it?

Please refer to:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=1062654

For the full inner workings of Masa production.

Mexican Alchemy.

Most likely source is raw sewage contamination of the groundwater pumped up into the truck and delivered to unsuspecting folks

The missus still brushes her teeth with the stuff...

When in central Pattaya, the loos at the Marriott hotel are nicer than my condo...the entire condo!

When I saw the public restrooms inside the Dusit (complete with aromatherapy candles) I wanted to bolt the door and never, ever leave...

I don't know about Delhi, but I can assure you that Pattaya is A LOT worse than Sao Paulo - at least I never smelled anything as bad as Pattaya during the year I lived there....

No kidding? I was just grasping at straws, maybe I should have picked Kabul or Mogadishu? Apologies to the Sao Paoloans (sp?)

The smell that comes from the water out of the tap during hot season. very very wrong.....

Yes, what is that rotten egg odor? I thought that it was coming up through the drain but my GF pointed out how intermittent it was.

Since the rains came and filled up the reservoirs and the drought subsided we haven't smelled it, must have been substandard water that was trucked in.

Brilliant, Nam Plah

Naka.

Seconded.

Y'all are 2 kind. High praise indeed from our intrepid mod.

Just doing my part, sir! (Starship Trooper style!)

I've got some mates who are in Phnom Penh permanently (lord knows why) and I visit from time to time.

The city is a mess and makes me wince thinking about having to wake up there everyday.

But in Oct I took a road trip to Siam Reap to see the ruins and thought that the city was far better than PP.

Nice locals, cool clubs and far better infrastructure than PP. Lunch at the FCC club left me thinking that the old French Colonials may have been onto something. Next time I'm going to check out Sihanoukville.

Besides I think Khmer girls are awesome.

If you go, don't stay long in PP, better yet fly direct to Siam Reap.

Oh yeah on the ten hour road trip all I saw was rice farmers and dirt poor yet smiling Cambodians...

Something to think about as you see scowling Thai girls adorned in 10 baht gold necklaces yapping into cellphones.

I have the perfect solution for your problem. Next time you are in Pattaya just tie a plastic bag around your head. That will totally eliminate your problem.

Tried it (Still in Pats) but my stale cigarette/coffee breath temporarily blinded me and I couldn't read TV 4M so I had to unwrap my head.

Brilliant, Nam Plah

Just a public service.

I want to mention something about soi 6 but I'll let you guess.

Won't touch it with a ten foot pole. (sigh, if mine only was...)

I know Patters probably isn't as bad as Sao Paolo or New Delhi but we can hold our heads high, eye's watering and proclaim,

"Pfffft* Phew!"

Not to stick my foot in it but,

The Dental Center at PatBKK Hospital is NOT the same as the rest of the hospital.

I brought my GF in for some work both remedial and cosmetic and the staff were professional and curteous, the results were above par and the prices (while probably expensive compared to some local "clinic" rates) were very reasonable.

She once needed an emergency extraction and they handled her on a walk-in basis as if she had a prior appointment. No waiting and done quickly.

I sat in on her free check up (they used to do this on Sundays, check if they still offer it) and watched the doc and his assist carefully. They proceeded to inform me that she needed some work done and performed a routine cleaning, dental x-rays, and then some reccommended dental bonding of two chipped teeth of hers. The cosmetic work was done with great care and apparent skill and the results were beautiful.

She spent at least an hour in the chair and the bill was a little over two thousand Baht.

I know in the states it would have been closer to ten or twelve thousand...

IMHO I think it nicely bookends Pattaya Bay.

Tooling down Beach Road the other night at 4AM I couldn't help but admire its placement, scale and coloration as it is clearly visible from the Dusit Resort all the way down to the new Bali High Center (under construction). Nice.

As long as they don't try to overly gentrify Walking Street like they Disneyed up New York's Times Square let the TOT beautify and upgrade the environs til the Kwai come home.

Good for tourist snapshots and keeps the locals feeling like the City Council is taking steps to improve the city's image.

IMO they have chosen very poor letters for the word "P A T T A Y A" - same like a typewriter letter.

Not to quibble but I know a fair amount about typography myself and these are not serif letterforms (the kind a traditional typewriter prints) but sans-serif and were probably chosen for their legibility at a distance.

Take a gander at them in person to see what I mean.

Notice the wide spacing between the letters, this also enhances the ability to read the words at a distance.

If they had chosen a swirly, swashy calligraphic font it would have been confusing to international tourists who don't all share the Arabic alphabet as their native language's script. ie, Russian, Greek.

OK, I'm putting the soapbox away....

Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells. They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells' energy-generating boiler rooms.

Chili Peppers Have Possible Role In Killing Cancer Cells

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6244715.stm

I poked around on Google and came across some cancer statistics for different countries around the world and Thailand is listed as being consistently low for mortality rates in almost every type of cancer. (!)

I figured with all the smoking, drinking the native population indulges in and the random industrial waste strewn around that the cancer rates would be higher.

Maybe all that raw garlic and red chilis in Somtam keep the immune system cranked up!

Thom Yum Goong

-even the instant, cup noodle variety.

I bought the "on top of cup" coffee drip holder from Suzuki Coffee (50 baht) together with their blue coffee(special blend 250 gr) - that is the same one used on Thai Air. It even came with 10 free filters for 120 Baht.

I use the same recipe and find it much more satisfying than the instant products.

Drank "RedCup" for a bit and developed an instant mocha formula, One packet of RedCup and one packet of Milo 3-in-1. Not too bad.

The Suzuki brand is okay but I think fresh roast and ground is far superior to pre-ground beans.

You know all those reports of coffee's positive health benefits can only be achieved with paper filtered, (not espresso or French-press) drip method, brewed coffee and instant is actually not healthy for you. Doesn't have any of those fresh, volatile aromatic oils.

But what I really want to know is how to make coffee that has that ethereal thin film of mist (and oils) that dances on the surface of the coffee.

Don't store your whole beans in the freezer, use quality water (often overlooked), after boiling the water use immediately to pour over freshly ground beans, grind immediately prior to brewing, use ample grounds per cup (don't skimp on grounds), use Arabica and not Robusta beans and use a darker espresso-style roast instaed of a mild, light roast.

At least these points will get you closer to the mark.

If the beans are good and the brewing perpared properly the beverage needs no adulteration from milk or cream (IMHO).