Dean's last meal before climbing Everest

Pad Thaiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!

Sending off Dean seriously took over a month, first it was him going away to 'Stoon'. To commemorate that we had two parties for him on two separate weekends... then, a couple weeks after we had to send him off again! This time it was because he was going away to 'find himself' by climbing Everest. (*cough* mid life *cough* crisis*cough*) So, Mike, Mavis and I got together with Dean for one more 'send off' to possibly eat some Western food that he might miss. Hmm... Hello Alberta beef? However, when we asked him what he wanted to eat, he wanted to eat Thai... um ok. This kid just can't get enough Thai food, he went 2 other times in the last week for it too. Whatever, it is all good.

We choose to go to Bua Thai Restaurant (10049 113 Street NW)*

Bua Thai is a tiny restaurant and I find the Thai food here a lot sweeter. I absolutely loved this experience, it is my favorite Thai restaurant in Edmonton so far!

Tom Yum Soup with Seafood.

For those of you not that familiar with Thai food let me give you a quick run through of this soup. Tom Yum Soup is hot and sour, the main ingredients are chicken stock, lemon grass, kaffir, lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce and chili peppers. Then you can add seafood (the most popular thing to add is prawns), or you can add chicken, i love oyster mushrooms in it. I personally love lemongrass, when I was in Thailand I bought some prepackaged herbs for making tom yum soup. I realized that the more lemongrass you put in, the spicier the soup is. Another great use for lemongrass is in tea. Thai massages are the best and when you go to the spa they serve you fruit and lemongrass tea.

Pad Thai aka 'Phat Thai'

At this restaurant I found their pad thai very sweet and that is the way I like it. I love adding dried chili flakes to this dish as well when I get a chance so that it's sweet, savory and spicy!! What exactly is Pad Thai? It is a stir fry of rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, bean sprouts, green onion, tofu, shrimp and crushed peanuts. My two musts for Thai food is Pad Thai and Tom Yum. Yum!

Glass noodle salad with ground pork, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro (lots of it) with a herb vinegar dressing. I hate cilantro but this dish I crave sometimes! It's a very refreshing dish. I love it! I highly recommend it from Bua Thai. The first time I had this was when Sharon made me some and hers is so awesome. I cannot wait until she starts her cooking classes!

Crying Tiger Steak

Honestly, we ordered this dish because it sounded so fierce! To our luck it was delicious! This dish is a medium rare grilled flank steak and you dip it into a vinegar/herb dip. This dish is so tasty when the me

at is done right and it was tender and perfect.

Banana Leaf Fish Curry

... the next picture is of the banana packages opened up

This was spicy but so good. The fish was so fragrant with the banana leaf. My conclusion is that anything wrapped in a banana leaf is good. But watch out for the bones!

Green Thai Curry with Chicken

Green curry I find to be one of the most mild curries but at Bua Thai it was so spicy!!

Green Curry with Chicken, Chicken Green Thai Curry, Green Thai Curry with Chicken... whatever the order of the words are, it is all the same. It was served in a small little pot, this curry I find is one of the mildest but still super spicy. This is great when it is paired with coconut rice!

So as I am re-reading/editing this I realize that my grammar is the worst! I keep going from past to present tense and back to past... It is like I am trying to relive the experience right now at 10:50 pm on the Monday night... That is how good this place is.

Anyways, can't wait to see the pictures of you on the mountain with your hat Dean!

*not to get confused with Boun Thai Restaurant (10056 107 Street Nw) no worries I have pictures from Boun Thai as well.*

Eating with my Brunei La-diessa

Strawberry Shortcake cake

So, how it works at my bank is that every Friday one person is designated to bring a snack for snack day. One of my favorite snacks is this really good noodle that my co-worker's (K) mom makes. It's got homemade Asian style BBQ pork, eggs, tiny shrimp and some sort of special oil that it is tossed in. Background: K's parents used to own their on restaurant in Brunei!! Let me explain how great these noodles are... The first time I had them in my possession another co-worker had gone to a potluck at K's house... she packaged noodles and fried chicken wings in a tiny container and told me "Danielle you need to try this! It's so good!" I wasn't crazy about noodles at the time so I took it home, put it in my fridge for the next day. Next day, I found the empty container on the dish rack... My grandpa had came to me and said "Which restaurant did you get those noodles from? They are so good!" Background on my grandpa: He is a picky eater.

Also, when it is noodle Fridays people come flocking from all departments to get some. The noodles are gone by 10:30 AM... Usually chip and dip is sitting there until 5:00 PM

K's Spring rolls go nicely with her noodles.. These spring rolls are vegetarian ones with peas and carrots in them and they are so sweet! I love them, I can eat them cold and without the fish sauce and carrot mixture.

Aside from her spring rolls and noodles, her mom also makes a very tasty laksa!!

How to Laksa..

1) Get a bowl

2) Place your rice noodles into the bowl

3)Then your toppings, like a boiled egg, fish cakes, bean sprouts, shrimp, cucumbers...

4)Top with hot laksa soup

5) Take a picture and then Eat!

At the branch there is also this other gal (T) that is also from Brunei and all I hear about is that this fabulous food that she makes. And there are these potlucks where she just cooks like there is no tomorrow, these ladies take days off to prepare these meals!! However these potlucks are very very exclusive and they don't just invite anyone... So finally one day T asked if I liked Laksa and I told her I have never had them so she invited me to the food parties and I have been going ever since... These are the pictures from all the parties. Please put on a bib

T's satay chicken and beef skewers. I used to love Tropika's skewers but those are NOTHING compared to these ones. Trust me...

T's way of frying chicken wings, she has got equipment in her backyard to fry them!! These wings are marinated in shrimp paste. They are so salty and crunchy, they are divine!

T's Laksa spread. You take all the things you like, put it in a bowl with noodles, then pour the laksa soup over top. Sort of spicy, sort of curry like and 100% tasty.

This is a really yummy dry shrimp dish.. I need to get the exact name. I love this!!!

This is the mother of all birthday parties.... T's little girl's bday....

Cakes GALORE!

T's sister is a pro baker... please examine

CHECK OUT THE DISHES!

Mango and Prawn salad

This is a lot like laksa.. the soup is laksa

Homemade Cali rolls. They were so soft =)

Assorted veges

There were two types of fish, one was stuffed with mini dried shrimp the other one was done with a laksa like flavor. Both very good!

BBQ pork sausage and prawns

Banana leaf wrap with rice and assorted stuffings (These were so unique!)

My plate.

I'm hungry....!

It's been too long...

Sorry I haven't been posting anything in a while... I promise more regular postings this month, the last couple weeks has just been super busy!!

Let me give you an update on a couple things I'm working on. (listed in no particular order)

1)This blog

2)Action to save money- I am not going to dine out for the month of October! No worries, I have a lot of food pictures to blog about, I need to catch up on informing the good public about the great places that I have already ate at. Also, I am doing a lot of cooking with Vince =) so win, win... Although, I did sort of break the pact today a little bit because of the third thing on this list....

3)Convert Vince to like Asian food (Gasp! Who doesn't like Asian food?!) So...Why did I break the pact? Cause today Vince offered to eat Viet Pho with me!!! (This does not happen very often...) Although he does not like pho he went with me to Pho Ahn (next to Lucky 97) because he knows how much I love the #21 Hot and Sour Pho. Vince had the Satay Chicken instead of Pho but that's okay! It's still Asian! Also, This was a well earned meal out, On Saturday we both volunteered to clean up the River Valley and we did the CIBC Run for the Cure... So Pho for doing all of that is okay =)

4)Wedding Planning stuff. No, not my wedding! I am a certified wedding planner and I should do something with that hey?

5) Plan out what I want to eat in Los Angeles!! I'm going in November =) Check out this blog! http://eatingla.blogspot.com/

6) Map and plan out this year's Thanksgiving dinner! I absolutely love making this meal. If I find any awesome tips I will for sure post them up complete with recipes and pictures! 8 days left until Thanksgiving!!! YAY!

Okay... now that my to do list is typed out I feel a bit more organized! Stay tuned actual food blogs are coming soon!!

Vince eating a Spring Roll