5 Thai Dishes That Chef Jet Tila Says You Need to Try
You may know Jet Tila as a judge on Cutthroat Kitchen, you may have heard about his multiple Guinness World Records (the last was for a 15,291-pound fruit salad), you may have tried his Chef Jet home meals from Schwan's, you may have taken a Thai cooking class with him, or maybe you've taken one of his tours of Los Angeles's Thai Town. But the tireless Thai-American chef's proudest title, conferred by the Thai consulate, is that of official Thai Culinary Ambassador to the United States. Last month, Tila organized the first annual Los Angeles Thai Food Festival at Paramount Studios, not far from the East Hollywood neighborhood that, he says, "is the only place in America where you can get all four regions of Thai food really well done."
As Jet toured us around the fest, he pointed out five Thai dishes that you may not know now but that could become the next Pad Thai.
1/5Khao Soi
Recalling Italian chitarra noodles in their slightly irregular texture, khao soi is typically served in a coconut-ginger curry broth, with pickled cabbage, red onion, and a little chili sauce, though they are more comforting than spicy. "This is a Burmese–Northern Thai dish," says Tila. "'Khao' is rice, the rice noodles, and 'soi' is shaved. Imagine a table-size sheet like phyllo dough, rolled into a log and shaved into a very aromatic broth." And guess what? We've got a recipe for it.
2/5Kuah Gling pork short ribs
"Unforgivingly spicy" is how Tila describes this shaved-meat dish, whose name means "dry-rolled" and which is cooked in a pan without oil, soaking up the very hot curry paste until it curls in on itself. "Indians are the masters of spices, Thai people are the masters of herbs," Tila says. "What we do best are taking kaffir lime leaves, galangal, green peppercorns, turmeric—grinding them into a paste and using that in a curry. But this is an example of cooking it down and using it as a dry curry in a stir-fry." Lum-Ka-Naad in Northridge, CA serves it with plenty of fresh lettuce, cilantro, and cucumber to offset the heat.
3/5Pang Gee fritter
Shown here surrounded by sweet "taco" crisps, pang gee is like alternate-universe macaroon. "It's got everything you would expect in a Thai dessert: coconut, taro and palm sugar, with corn," says Tila. Once common in Bangkok, Tila says, they are apparently harder to find these days. "This is one thing you don't find often. When you go to Bhan Kanom Thai in Thai Town L.A., they are cooking these all day. It's kind of become their signature."
4/5Bamee Yok, or Jade Noodles
Named for the color produced by the water spinach in the eggy dough, bamee yok are served with barbecue pork, minced crabmeat, garlic, scallion, and cilantro—for all the satisfaction of other noodle dishes, but with a lighter, vegetal, slightly bitter effect. "There's no place to get that in L.A. except at Sapp coffee shop," says Tila. "I had to beg them to come to the event."
5/5Shrimp Doughnut
"What the hell is better than a shrimp patty made into a doughnut?" asks Tila. Our answer: two of them, one with peanut sauce, the other with sweet chili sauce, as you'll find them at San Dimas's Lucky Elephant restaurant. "I think Asians are masters of the meatball—what classical cooks call forcemeat. Thais have everything: pork balls, squid balls, shrimp balls. It's kind of like pizza; even the worst shrimp ball is going to be delicious."
