the search
As all my friends and family know, and by now are probably sick of hearing, I am on an evergoing search for the perfect bowl of Tofu Pad Thai. I had it once, at a little joint in Chicago, and i’ve been trying to find a match since then, with no luck whatsoever. Apparantly LA, yes LA, one of the most diverse cities in the country, offering practically every type of cuisine one’s little heart could desire, cannot seem to produce a perfect bowl of deliciously sauced rice noodles with a garnish of crushed peanuts and bean sprouts and a scrambled egg mixed in. Now i’m not saying my expectations aren’t high, my palate is pretty established at this point and I certainly have a high standard, but I still am quite shocked at how unsuccessful I have been. Before this little experiment I never would have imagined there could be so many ways to screw up this dish. Too mushy, too underseasoned, too oily, too gluey, disgusting tofo, no squeeze of lime juice at the end. Come on people, its Not that hard! Or is it? I have personally made pad thai many times before, and while I found that the basic method is certainly not difficult, no matter what I added I still couldn’t quite achieve that restaurant style dish. So I figured, much to my dismay, that the secret ingredient that held all the yumminess was in fact the evil MSG. So I started requesting no MSG in all of my pad thai dishes that I ordered. And guess what, it still tasted exactly the same, in fact, most places told me that normal pad thai isn’t made with MSG to begin with! What I am missing? Perhaps the hole in the wall place in Chicago was the one place that laced their concoction with MSG and that is why there have been no comparisons. Personally I don’t buy that, I didn’t get the grease-on-the-back-of-my-throat-feeling that is associated with MSG. Maybe karma is simply playing a trick on me. Whatever the reason, I Will find the perfect pad thai, I am woman on a mission and this lady doesn’t back down from a challenge. So if I have to ride a yak into some remote village in the tiniest Thai town that exists, to beg a 90 year old grandma to make her famous pad thai for the freakishly tall american girl before her, so be it. Hey, I used to be an equestrian, a Yak certainly wouldn’t pose too big a problem for me.