* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 26 - THAILAND

We got stuck in Thailand! 

Not literally of course but since we visited the Thai Bite Restaurant, we could not write the post describing our experience. Perhaps it is because we love Thai food so much and eat it on a regular basis, it felt like trying to write an exciting post about something so common to our lives. Finally, with great help from Rick, I'm typing the finishing words to this post so that we can post about all the other countries we continued eating while agonizing about this particular post.

For the appetizer we selected the Thai Bite sampler.  This included Thai spring rolls, which are thinner than and Chinese egg roll and deep fried until crispy.  a small crispy fried roll filled with cabbage and bean sprouts.  Poh Pia Tod - Golden fried spring rolls stuffed with seasoned ground chicken, cellophane noodles (woon-sen), and vegetables served with Thai sweet sauce. The Thai chips were Golden fried wonton sheets stuffed with seasoned ground chicken, served with Thai sweet sauce. Thai Dim Sum - Golden fried dumplings of minced chicken and onions served with a savory ginger sauce. Spicy Balls - A cluster of ground chicken, ground pork, cellophane noodles, corns and diced onions blended with Chef's special chili paste then fried to perfection. Plah Goong - Grilled shrimps marinated in Chef's special roasted chili dressing. Served on top of fresh lettuce. These were served with a hot and sour dipping sauce and one that was based on soy and fish sauce.  

Tom Kah Goong - A delightful coconut soup (Tom) with chicken or shrimp, cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, fresh cilantro and a touch of aromatic galangal root (kah) - came in its traditional serving bowl with fire in the middle.  Today we choose to include shrimp (goong).  

Pad See-Iew (Ayse's favorite Thai dish) is stir-fried fresh wide rice noodles with your choice of chicken, beef, pork or shrimp with black bean sauce, white pepper, broccoli, carrots, and eggs.

Pa Nang - Chicken served in a Thai red curry paste and coconut milk sauce, enhanced with fresh peppers and distinctive Thai basil leaves - came with a side of rice.

All this wonderful food was accompanied by our favorite Thai Iced Tea – Iced black tea with sweetened condensed milk.  

kŏr hâi jà-rern aa-hăan!

* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 25 - MOROCCO

The decor in the Moroccan restaurant Marrakesh in Costa Mesa reminded me of Inara's shuttle from the series Firefly. Our good friends and us were seated at low seats and did not know what to do with our legs since we were not exactly on the floor or normal dining chair height. After getting situated and putting in our orders, a belly dancer appeared and danced around our giggly table for a while. Just before the arrival of our food, a guy in a large mustache and a fez brought a large deep pot onto the middle of the table and told us all to put our hands above the said pot. Then he poured warm water to wash our hands at the same time. Following the collective hand wash, we were handed black towels to dry our hands and to serve as our napkins throughout the dinner.

Our orders of tea came is gilded colorful glasses.

Our order of Marrakesh Special had many parts to it - orzo soup, salads, appetizers and grilled meats of many varieties served with rice and vegetables.

After clearing up our plates as best as we could, we were contemplating what dessert to order but the servers beat us to it and brought a mix of baklavas and syrupy cookies for us to enjoy!

Also, we were served tea again as a gesture of hospitality on the house, poured from great heights in another set of beautifully gilded glasses.

Dining at Marrakesh restaurant felt like a combination of time and space travel and we were glad we could do that with our good friends.

بالصحة (besseha)

* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 24 - ARGENTINA

What do you do on a gloomy overcast Sunday afternoon in Long Beach to cheer your day up? Of course you go to Argentina where love manifests itself in many forms - love of music, love of dance, love of love and love of food. As Rick put it, Argentinians are the cowboys of South America, and meat is what they eat.

We sat at one of the outdoor tables at the Gaucho Grill despite the wind and looming clouds. We had to go over the pages of the menu several times not being able to choose what to eat. Thankfully they have one menu item that has pretty much everything included in it enough for two people so we finally decided on that.

While waiting for our appetizer empanada, we sipped our Argentinian versions of beer and sangria and scooped chimichurri on pieces of warm bread.

Then came the very light and flakey empanada stuffed generously with spinach and cheese. Of all the empanadas we have sampled so far this definitely took its place in the top three.

A flurry of activity happened at our table with the servers making room on our table for the arrival of the main course Parrillada. We were speechless when they lowered the table-grill in the middle of the table with sizzling pieces of Skirt steak, Filet Mignon, Chorizo, quarter of chicken on the
bone, mollejas, chicken skewer & veggies including a beautiful flower of onion. The two sides of rosemary grilled zucchinis and Rice de Buenos Aires arrived shortly after.

The menu said mollejas were grilled tender sweetbreads so I looked for bread-like things on the grill but when I could not find any I asked my Rickcyclopedia and learned that sweetbread is in fact the culinary name for the animals' innards which by the way tasted so good.

While we enjoyed the delicious selection of meats, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" started playing and bright sunlight visited our table making us think of Michael...

Soon the song was over, sun was gone, and we were halfway through the grill already feeling very satisfied. We decided to box the rest of the food and share a serving of Panqueque con Dulce de Leche.  These are traditional oven made Argentine Crepes filled with homemade Dulce de Leche served with a dollop of creme and slices of strawberry.

This time we did not have the luxury of lingering for this was a working weekend so left the restaurant in a hurry, thanking the servers while running by them and promising to come back soon.

¡Buen apetito!

* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 23 - MYANMAR

When you eat so much good food so often, you run out of quality words to describe the level of culinary delight you are experiencing. So when I tell you that the Burmese food was well worth the day trip we endured to Pasadena on the day it was 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and the last 3 miles of the drive took us an hour and a half because of the USA and Mexico soccer match at the Rose Bowl AND that it was the one weekend out of the year when JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) open their doors to public, I'm sure it will give you an idea how fantastic the food was.

We ordered so many dishes from the menu, the lady that was taking our order kept saying "that should be enough" while we tried to get one more dish in. We told her we were not intending to eat everything right there but would be taking some home with us and would not be wasting the food she made earlier in the day in her kitchen.

We ordered Tea Leaf Salad made with pickled tea leaves, grains and colorful vegetables.

Fried Samusas filled with vegetables served with red hot sauce

Vegetable Noodle Salad that came with crisps made with chickpeas

 Mont hin Ga - a fish soup that had a lot more than fish

Fried Shrimp

Chicken Potato Curry

Since we ordered more than half the menu she also brought some Burmese falafels she made that morning with chickpeas.

Since Burmese tradition is to bring out all the food to the table at once, our overflowing table looked like this: 

We ordered Tamarind Juice and traditional Burmese hot tea to help wash all these wonderful food down.

When we were done eating, it looked like we hadn't made even a small dent in the food we started with. While she packed the remaining food for us at the table, we told her about our food adventure and she was very excited to hear that her restaurant was the 23rd on our list. She told us she had been in the U.S.A. for ten years and the restaurant's name Yoma was the name of a mountain range in Myanmar.

Finally she proudly offered her Coconut Jelly dessert that looked like tiny icicles and tasted like nothing else we ever had before. So subtly flavored and refreshing!

Since our internet searches did not return any equivalent phrases for Bon Apetit, we asked her what they would say in Burmese. My efforts in writing down what she was saying was in vain but her translation was "Enjoy your meal". When we got up to leave she cheerfully waved us off and asked us to visit again just like she would with her house-guests.

စားကောင်းပါစေ (Enjoy your meal in Burmese)

* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 22 - EL SALVADOR

Pupuseria serves El Salvadorian fast food at the speed of much relaxed and un-hurried South American time - also known as Inca Time.

After placing our order at the cash register, we found a table where we first received our drinks of Ensalada Drink, Horchata Tamarindo, and the Kolashampan Soda.

At the core of the El Salvadorian cuisine is the Pupusas, small thick tortillas filled with chicken or cheese or potatoes or spinach. We got one of each!

Pupusas are served with a lightly fermented cabbage slaw with red chilies and vinegar dish called curtido.

We also had an order of Salvadorian Tamales filled with lightly spiced dough and chicken meat. Salvadorian version of tamales are much less greasy than other latino tamales.

Since they did not have any desserts that day, we let the fruit salad like ensalada drink and the sugar from the other beverages to curb our sweet tooth. I'm sure we will pay many other visits to this homely establishment on days we need comfort food served on cheerful plates.

¡Buen apetito!

* Eating 52 Countries In 52 Weeks - Week 21 - IRAN

If you are in Costa Mesa and in the mood for some low key dining experience where your tastebuds will hit a high note, you definitely need to go to Darbari Persian Grill. The food they serve is a toned down and dare I say a more dignified version of mid-eastern food with only the flare of saffron colored rice.

The pita bread cut into perfect rectangles kept us busy with little chunks of butter while we once again tried to decipher the authentic names of the food on the menu.

Being intimately familiar with the Turkish relative, I ordered the House Doogh - a yogurt drink with flakes of mint.

Rick opted for hot tea the color of dark amber.

Our appetizers were a sampling of Tah-dig - crispy rice topped with stew topping, Kashk O' Bademjan - grilled eggplant, onion and herbs, Dolmeh - stuffed grape leaves, and Hummus

Funny as it is, Rick's main dishes end up having a giant piece of meat sometimes accompanied with a big knife. Baghali Polo with Lamb-Shank did not have the big knife but the piece of meat was larger than the plate it was served in. The rice tasted as colorful as it looked, beautifully complimenting the the lamb.

My Ghemieh Bademjan was a vegetarian dish with fried eggplants and split peas cooked in a tomato stew. My two-tone rice was very delicious as well.

The lady serving us said that they make their own saffron ice cream and offered to serve us their specialty house dessert Falludah with the ice cream. Falludah is a frozen rosewater dish served with a side of sour cherry juice to be added when eating.

It was unexpected for us have tasty food that is also very pleasing to the eye in such a humble restaurant. 

(nooshe jan) نوش جان