July 2008

Who would've ever guessed nine whole months would pass between Sripraphai visits? But that's how my life has been. Peter ordered some takeout when I was out of town a few months ago, but unfortunately I lost the record of that order.

Here's what we got tonight, via takeout:

A-1: Papaya salad. You know the drill

A-24: Grilled meatballs with spicy sauce. I picked these by going to my favorite thing (A-23: BBQ beef with chili and mint), and then just going for the next thing. Sort of a generative psychogeography approach to the restaurant ordering. I opted for beef over pork, as I was ordering another pork dish.

This is the only thing I've ever eaten at Sri that I thought was too sweet--or sweet at all. And they were a very bouncy texture--not my favorite, but somehow consistent with a larger Asian aesthetic for chewy-bouncy. The first couple had a nice earthy spice to them that I couldn't quite identify; then the next ones I ate were too coated in sauce to really get anything else out of them. Oh, and another quibble: These did not seem to be grilled at all.

O-14: Pan-fried mussels with bean sprouts. 'O' stands for 'Over rice,' and yet this dish specifies '(no rice)'. In fact, I got no bean sprouts either because I didn't notice them in their separate container until I'd finished stuffing myself full of the mussels. They were in sort of a big ol' egg batter/pancakey situation. They sure looked deep-fried, not pan-fried to me, but I'm not arguing at all. They came with a sweet-ish red hot sauce.

C-17: Saute pork leg with chili and basil sauce. Mmm. Soft, easily shreddable pork (with the squishy skin still on--funny, I can happily eat that when it has a little crisp too it, but couldn't go for it in this state), which tasted very star anise-y, then mixed with the chili and basil. This basically tasted like a mix of the pork in O-1 (Pork leg with mustard greens) and the sauce in N-1 (Saute drunken noodles), although with none of the smokiness of the latter. Good.

What restraint--that was it. Oh, except we also got a bag of lettuce leaves, carrot sticks and lengths of long bean...I guess these were meant for the meatballs? Unclear...but I appreciated how they'd been portioned out exactly: two large lettuce leaves, two small ones, two beans, two carrots--and no fighting with your brother!

At the rate I'm not plowing through the Sri menu, I'm thinking this ought to be a wiki instead. I'm sure there are some people out there who could make short work of it...