Hey there my Steemit friends! Not too long ago I was eating noodle soup on the streets of Thailand; then not too long ago I was at a Thai buffet restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Uncle Kenny said it was really good and wanted to take me there to see what I thought just after spending the last three months in Thailand. So we went and I kept an open mind.
Well, lets put it this way the only thing that was truly authentic were the Thai people from Bangkok working there. I actually got into a conversation with the waitress talking about how the quality of food in the United States is simply not as good as Thailand. Not only did she agree, she said it's one of the things she misses most about her country and one of the main reasons she wants to go back home.
All the ingredients they had to use were very American and it was obvious. In Thailand you have this huge selection of Asian vegetables, fresh homemade style curry pastes made from fresh Asian herbs and spices. As you can see in the first photo of the two curries on my plate we have carrots, broccoli, cabbage, peas, chicken and beef...and let's not forget our standard Chinese American baby corn, which you actually seldom see in Thailand.
For vegetables that is about as American as you can get. In Thailand it's bean sprouts, buck-choy, Asian broccoli, snake string beans, Chinese egg plant, Asian cabbage. The flavors are of fresh coconut milk, fresh lemon grass, fresh galengale, fresh chilies, fresh Thai holy basil, salty fish sauce, not Kinkoman soy sauce.
I'm not going to sit here and say that it was bad, it was just not authentic. Coming back to the conversation I had with the waitress, we both agreed they don't have access to the ingredients in the USA for the authentic stuff. Well, technically they do; but they'd have to pay and arm and a leg for it through importation, and then pass the expense onto the customer. This would basically put them out of business. So they do what they can which is pretty much a bunch of typical American ingredients and some Thai curry paste out of a can, certainly not freshly made like in Thailand.
So it is what it is. The buffet didn't have much of a selection compared to most buffets in the United States. There was a chicken curry, a beef curry, a vegetable curry, a noodle dish, fried rice, white rice, and a cabbage soup that I had to doctor up with chili and soy sauce. After tax and tip the price came to about 12 dollars; which will buy you about eight plates of food that you will see below from photos taken in Thailand.
Like always I ate my fill and Uncle Kenny and I had a good time together. But I must conclude the food was much more like what you would find at a Chinese American restaurant just with a little more Thai flavors coming from that can of curry paste. Just arriving back from Thailand I had a very clear memory of what the food was like there. The last bunch of photos are of some dishes I had in Thailand so you can see the difference for yourself.
One good thing about the buffet, is that I could eat all the meat and vegetables that I wanted. Where in Thailand it is often served with a big side of rice or noodles. These days I try not to eat much grain and cheap carbs so I certainly enjoyed that aspect of the lunch. Now lets have a look at the buffet and then the real thing below!
Now From Thailand
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