Something bad happened to my car a couple of nights ago. I won’t bore you with the details, but the guys at Midas showed me the things that had snapped off (yeesh!) and went to work on making my car drivable again, to the tune of nearly nine hundred dollars. It was noon today when this astounding amount was revealed to me, and I staggered out into the increasingly cold and windy day, a little dumbstruck by the quote. I was hungry, I was irritable, and I needed to walk off a little of that financial terror.
Being in downtown Bethesda, I had a lot of food options. Sushi? Can’t eat it due to some health limitations. Skip that. Chinese? Hell, you can always have Chinese. I’d just had Indian last week, so, no thanks. The Salvadorean place was full of guys drinking beer and watching futbal. But next door was Sweet Basil, a modest-looking Thai place on Fairmont. What the hell. It was so bitter outside, a little bit of Thailand sounded like an excellent option.
And so it was. There’s nothing like some enormous, crispy tiger prawns and tangy sweet sauce to take your mind off a cold winter day (and a deepening well of debt.) Goong Kra Bog it’s called. And, man, it was tasty. I followed that up with Pad Ke Mow (drunken noodles) – chicken, a variety of peppers and onions, and the most deeply fragrant Thai basil, all wok-fried with wide rice noodles. There was no menu notation that the dish was hot, but holy crow – the peppers were blazing with enough heat to melt me from the inside! And that was most excellent, indeed. (Handy hint from your intrepid traveler friend here: if you are in Thailand and you buy skewers of chicken sate on the street, do not be foolish and assume the pineapple-colored tidbits are pineapple. They’re likely flaming hot yellow peppers. If you consume them, be prepared to lose sensation in your lips and lower face for a couple of days. No joke, kids. That was a major surprise for me. Amused the hell out of the Bangkok food vendor, though.)
A waitress came by at one point and said, “Spicy, huh?” (My nose was running and I was gulping down water and that brilliant red Thai tea.) “Oh yeah!” I answered. “But that’s a very good thing.” My waiter kept bringing me more tea. He looked out the window and shuddered. “I know it’s winter, but… I’m Thai. I’m used to ninety degree weather. Here – have more tea! Stay warm!”
I was happily stuffed to the gills when I finally left, ready to continue walking around downtown, checking out store windows, gaping at things I couldn’t afford, like some overgrown matchgirl watching the yuppies fest on disposable crap. But it didn’t matter – a little taste of Thailand in the middle of a Mid-Atlantic winter can change your point of view. Hell, I even smiled as I wrote my name on the charge slip at Midas a couple of hours later.
A big thumbs up for Sweet Basil. On my next trek to Thailand, I’m going to take some cooking classes so I can make this stuff myself, but until then, I think I found a winner.
Filed under: Adventures with Food, Ethnic Cooking, Kvetch-a-rama, Life, Restaurants, Travel | Tagged: Asian cuisine, Bethesda, spicy, Thai food, yum
Yum! Makes me wish I were back in DC… I would go try it out. Thai food is wonderful!
If you ever get the chance, some of the best Thai I’ve ever had was at Thai Chef on Connecticut, a few blocks north of the circle. Once, when I dined there with a friend who spent a year in Thailand, she proclaimed it the most delicious Thai in DC. And though I’ve never been to Thailand myself, I had to agree =). Oh, and they also have very nicely priced happy hours, if ever interested.
Hurray for delicious good food!