Bill and Sheila Eat Thai

Since Sheila had a fairly invasive test early yesterday morning that required moderate sedation and deep body puncture, the docs recommended she not drive for a few hours. So, I took her to work after the test and came and got her that evening. We decided to have Thai food on the way home.

The "Bangkok Thai Super Buffet" on Harvard near 32nd is something of a legend in Tulsa. It is located on the edge of one of Tulsa's wealthiest, old money neighborhoods. Any lunchtime you are liable to find the place packed with Tulsa's business and social elite rubbingelbows with workers on lunch hour and ladies of leisure who lunch.

The food is always superb and the place is inevitably spotless. They close down on Sundays and scrub it down from top to bottom every week. The owners didn't tell me this. The Thai lady who used to cut my hair told me about it. It seems she knows all about every Thai person within a hundred miles of Tulsa. The folks who run the Bangkok are remarkably warm and friendly. They and their employees make every visit much more enjoyable just by their presence.

They cook the food in small portions for the buffet so it is always fresh and if that weren't enough, Thai food is by nature low in fat and sodium and does not contain MSG. The tables are arranged in orders of heat. The first table from the East is mild and the second is only mildly hot. The third table however, approaches the levels of fiery goodness that an actual Thai might eat (and consider mild in all likelihood.) I have found that even if I eat the hottest dishes, it doesn't usually bite back since it is so low in fat.

This is a picture of my plate. The meat on a stick is Satay Chicken, bits of chicken cooked in a peanut butter sauce that adds a unique, nutty flavor to the meat. The noodle dish is Pad Thai. Rice noodles stir fried with eggs and vegetables, including chili peppers. It can range from mild to spicy and the Bangkok serves two versions. I prefer the spicy. The chicken dish with green peppers is a pungent little number. And, I would add that those long pepper strips are not bell peppers. They are jalapenos, a local substitute for whatever they would have used in Thailand. The dish with chopped squash is Thai Green Curry. It is spicy and pungent and tastes wonderful over rice. The coleslaw appearing dish under my spring roll is Thai Fried Cabbage. It is lightly stir fried with what tastes like sesame oil and soy sauce. It is good. The little meat patties are a mild chicken sausage.

The tiny dish of sauce on my plate is the Thai equivalent of the Vietnamese favorite nuoc man. It is made by placing thousands of small fish between plates of sheet metal, weighting them down, setting them in the sun and collecting the juice that drips out. The juice is then processed and turned into a thin clear sauce that tastes very much like best quality light soy sauce. Natives mix it with fiery red chili paste and used it as a dipping sauce for a lot of things. I restrict my use of it to spring rolls.

Sheila was being kind to me last night. I know that there are places she would rather have eaten. But, we were close and she knows that I love Thai food. And, we had a good time eating and recounting the day's events. It was really our normal Friday night I suppose, but it was a good one.