Give Thai Cooking a Chance; It Might Capture Your Gastronomic Fancy

De gustibus non disputandem.

“There is no disputing tastes,” said the Romans, and there would seem to be no profit in disputing their wisdom.

A friend recently posted a letter from Thailand. In it, he described a long railway journey and the sort of snacks that itinerant vendors offered to the passengers. One of the most popular items was grilled frog skins, which he wrote were consumed by Thai travelers with the same sort of compulsive eagerness with which Americans eat popcorn at the movies. Although this friend is not noted for having a particularly picky palate, he confessed that he could not bring himself to attempt frog skin, grilled or otherwise, thus demonstrating again that one man’s meat is another man’s misery.

He did, though, discover several Thai dishes that captured his gastronomic fancy, among them mee krob, a crisp noodle dish that has captivated any number of American food writers.

Mee krob, like moussaka, sukiyaki, hamburgers, curry and enchiladas, is one of those dishes that gets around. Almost without exception, Thai restaurants around the world are said to feature it.

Tawana Siamese Cuisine, a new Thai restaurant in Clairemont, serves mee krob, and so does the Thai Hut in National City. It evidently is a great favorite at both, although at the Thai Hut--a classic melting pot restaurant--the dish faces stiff competition from the thoroughly American pizza.

It should come as no surprise that mee krob sits well on the average American tongue. Crisp and sweet, rather like certain popular candy bars, it consists primarily of fried noodles coated with syrup. Bits (very few, really) of shrimp, roast pork and scrambled egg are jumbled into the mix, which is then topped with a few raw bean sprouts and served without further ado.

Food writers have praised this dish for its contrasting textures, and for the juxtaposition of savory and sweet flavors. But the truth is that, when approached without preconception, it tastes rather like one of the more sugary varieties of breakfast cereal. It crunches sweetly between the teeth, and one suspects that if it were doused with milk it would continue to snap, crackle and pop as merrily as ever.

Both Tawana and the Thai Hut offer much more than mee krob, of course, and the cooking at both tends to be interesting.

Tawana is the better of the two, however. This small, family-run place can be hot and noisy when crowded (and a little exasperating when the undermanned service staff struggles to keep up the pace), but the menu, which features such flavorful classics as red beef curry and mint chicken, comes like a breath of fresh air to anyone who for too long has been deprived of the scent of Thai cooking.

The satays-- offering as they do hints of the most popular flavors in the Thai repertoire--make very nice starters. Skewers of grilled pork or chicken, both choices cooked so that they remain tender and juicy, arrive escorted by bowls of fresh cucumbers in vinegar, and peanut-based satay sauce. The cucumbers act as foil to both meat and sauce, but it is the sauce, with its undertones of chili-powered heat and its crisp, nutty flavor, that is the star of the show.

The “Siamese toasts” also are pleasant, although these deep-fried triangles of white bread spread with a seasoned paste of pork and shrimp seem suspiciously like the Americanized “shrimp toasts” offered by many Chinese restaurants.

Thais like soup, and they often like it hot and sour, although not at all in the manner of the famous Szechuan hot and sour soup. Fresh chilis, lemon or lime juice, and sometimes lemon grass as well, give these soups their flair. Tom yum kai, based on chicken, is Tawana’s straightforward exemplar of Thai soup; a subtler version, tom kah kai, introduces the flavor of coconut to the meal, a flavor that is almost certain to be repeated later when the entrees arrive.

Coconut and chili combine in several of the curries, in which the light sweetness of the coconut acts to counterpoint the heat of the dish. These curries (the beef was sampled and liked) are quite different from Indian curries, but are very good in their way. Be careful to specify the degree of heat desired when ordering these and other dishes which employ chilis, because they can come in four-alarm versions that will leave the average Occidental begging for water and relief.

Not every dish contains chili pepper, but most do, in either dried or fresh form. The dried version does a wonderful job of throwing into relief the other flavors in the rice noodle dish called pad Thai, which also contains shrimp, egg, crushed peanuts and raw bean sprouts. The same pepper also heightens the beef salad, a refreshing mixture of chilled greens, warm beef and spicy, citrus-flavored dressing.

Mint, which ranks with cilantro in the Thai herb chest, lends a breezy sweetness to a dish appropriately called mint chicken; the sauce, which includes a little coconut milk, can also be had over squid. Among other interesting choices are the Siamese crepe, the firecracker seafood, and the Thai iced coffee, a pre-sweetened and creamed beverage that doubles as a tasty dessert.

National City’s Thai Hut offers many of the same dishes, and does some quite well, although the mee krob was tough when it should have been crisp (perhaps the frying oil was not sufficiently hot). The fact that this modest and frankly unattractive place also serves a full selection of pizzas is at first off-putting, but the list of daily specials, printed in Thai script as well as English, is quite reassuring.

This specials list recently included an excellent salad called yum kung, a dish that balanced slight chewy shrimp with crisp cucumbers, and poised fresh mint against the chili-warmed dressing. Shrimp also figured in an entree called kung tod katiem, a pungent dish of shrimp and garlic roasted inside little paper envelopes.

Strips of red and green bell pepper gave a suspiciously Italian flavor to the Penang-style beef curry, and one wondered if they might have been borrowed from the pizza toppings bin. The curry, although it had the essential coconut milk taste demanded by the basic Thai curry technique, was oilier than most, and not terribly exciting.

The Thai Hut somewhat redeemed this dish with its version of pork satay, however, which was exceptionally moist, and which offered a deeply flavored sauce of some subtlety.

In addition to pizza, the menu lists a number of Chinese dishes, but those in search of Thai food will also find nuah path bai kapaw, or beef with green chilis and mint leaves, and tod mun pla, fried cakes elaborated from ground fish mixed with curry paste and green beans. A cucumber sauce lightens this dish.

TAWANA SIAMESE CUISINE

5535 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego

541-1155

Dinner served 4 to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; until 10 p.m. weekends. Closed Sundays.

Dinner for two, including a Thai beer each, tax and tip, $20 to $30.

THAI HUT

3421 E. Plaza Blvd., National City

474-9202

Dinner served nightly, 4:30 to 10 p.m.

Dinner for two, including one beer each, tax and tip, $20 to $30.