Now here's the thing, I am a born and bred Pacific Northwesterner. This mountainous region of hard working tradesfolk is my home, but our regional cuisine, fine as it is, lacks something that I desire most of the time, prodigious amounts of heat.
One of my earliest memories was sitting at my grandma's eating bar and eating tacos with my Papa. We'd both drench our tacos in Salsa Brava and look up and smile at each other every so often, our faces a bit grimaced from the fire currently burning in our mouths. Pops would often pause between tacos and wipe the sweat from his mostly hairless brow, his skin a heated red.
Dang, do I love me some hot and spicy food.
And therein lies the rub. For most of my life, the food considered hot up here in our local restaurants could barely be classified as warm. The one local Thai restaurant that we had has a pepper heat rating system on their dishes, and the waiter or waitress would always look at me in slight horror when I would ask for a five pepper heat. The look intensified as I would add a healthy amount of ground hot chili to whatever dish I was noshing on.
It has been a hot food desert round these parts.
Well, a few weeks ago I noticed a new restaurant was going in across from our hospital in CDA. I externally squeed when I saw that it was going to be a Thai restaurant.
I adore Thai food!
As a sucker for curries and a consumer of large quantities of coconut milk, I was super excited to try the place out, and a few days ago the hubs and I did just that.
A lot of times, when I go to a new restaurant, I try the popular dish, so I ordered a hot chicken pad Thai plate and the hubs opted for a pork green curry fried rice.
Before the dishes arrived, the lovely Thai proprietor refilled the little white jar that was empty on the table and put forth an inquiry that filled my heat-seeking foodie soul with anticipatory joy,
"Do you like hot food?"
"Oh I so do!" I chirped in reply (I might have even swung my feet in joy, I am short you know).
"This is like Thai ketchup, we put it on everything," she replied with a beaming smile as she took the lid off of the little white cannister and showed me the oily pepper conglomeration within, "It's fish sauce and hot chili."
My smile grew into a pure unadulterated grin of jubilance.
Shortly after that glorious interchange, our food arrived. It looked beyond amazing. I quickly squeezed the accompanying lime on my plate all over the top of my noodles and began ladling the hot Thai ketchup chili oil over the top of my food.
Heat was present, oh, was it ever gloriously present. Seriously, that was the best Pad Thai I have ever had.
And holy curry, the hubs curry was phenomenal! The balance of flavors floored me, I was just so incredibly happy, as was evidenced by my smile, the way I inhaled my food, and the sweat that poured off my brow.
And the lady who served us knew it, she was smiling my way every time I glanced at her, we even had quite a conversation towards the end of our meal where she boxed up our leftovers (because the portions are HUGE). She even drew a little smiley face on each box and labeled what was in them, I love that lady!
You can bet your can of coconut milk we'll be back!!
And if you are ever in Coeur d'Alene, do your taste buds a favor and stop by Our Thai House for a meal, you won't be sorry!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's very spicy on occasion iPhone.
