Best Thai food in the U.S.? (live in, restaurants)
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I remember there was a thread not too long ago about this topic. Someone had said there was a dish served in Seattle called "swimming rama" that they had a hard time finding outside Seattle and therefore Seattle had the best Thai food.
I went to my wife (who is from Thailand), my mother in law (from North Thailand), my father in law (from Bangkok), and her cousins and asked them about this dish. None of them had ever heard of it. That says one of two things to me:
1) Its an Americanized dish
2) Its a Thai dish that has another name in Thai and that its just called "swimming rama" at this one place.
Not saying that to discount Thai food in Seattle, but I didnt bring it up at the time.
California in general, LA definitely has an edge over most of the rest of the state though. I've eaten plenty of good thai up here in the Bay as well, especially in Oakland.
I remember there was a thread not too long ago about this topic. Someone had said there was a dish served in Seattle called "swimming rama" that they had a hard time finding outside Seattle and therefore Seattle had the best Thai food.
I went to my wife (who is from Thailand), my mother in law (from North Thailand), my father in law (from Bangkok), and her cousins and asked them about this dish. None of them had ever heard of it. That says one of two things to me:
1) Its an Americanized dish
2) Its a Thai dish that has another name in Thai and that its just called "swimming rama" at this one place.
Not saying that to discount Thai food in Seattle, but I didnt bring it up at the time.
It's called by a bunch of names in American Thai restaurants--pra rama long song, rama chicken, etc...it's nothing special--basically just chicken with peanut sauce. Yeah, I heard someone from Seattle ask about "swimming rama" in Portland as well and was confused.
Basically I find a lot of Thai food in American Thai restaurants fairly mediocre--it's like American Chinese restaurants at this point. There's so many places serving the same dishes--pad thai, red curry, green curry, yellow curry, tom yung goong--that it seems kind of boring. I like places that really specialize in certain regional Thai cuisines or Thai street food--- Los Angeles has a much larger mix than most places(though I've eaten Thai food there a few times there but I don't think I went to the best spots--though going to Thai New Year in Thaitown was a lot of fun with some good food stands too).
Where I live in Portland, there's maybe three exceptional Thai restaurants that do something interesting, and then there's a lot of dime a dozen Thai places, that are good for quick takeout but fail to impress. But sort of for that reason, when I travel around the US I rarely go eat Thai food--I'll pick Malaysian or Cambodian or Burmese which I'm still interested in trying more of. But it's a shame, because I like good Thai food, I just don't really care that much about the sort of average, cover everything in peanut sauce or green curry Thai places.
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