Thai Suvarnabhumi
Today we made dinner plans at a Thai restaurant here in Torrevieja. Restaurante Thai Suvarnabhumi located near the visitors center. This is our first visit after living here for almost four years! What took so long? Well, I cook a variety of Asian style foods, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laos, Chinese and of course Thai. We are lucky here as we have a well stocked Asian grocery store (located near the main bus station) so I can get all my ingredients, kafir lime leaves, galangal root, lemon grass, thai chilis, banana leaves, dried goods and of course a variety of condiments so I guess that would be one reason.
I am happy to say we were very pleased with the experience. The food was legit, I was not disappointed and they made it just as spicy as I requested it (explosively hot), along with a side of firey Nuoc cham, a combination of Thai chilis, lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, lemon grass, rice vinegar and palm sugar.
We started off with something unusual for us, the combo starter plate of fried foods. We never do this but it was a lot of fun. It consisted of Satay gau (Chicken satay), tod man pla (Thai fish cakes), hoy jor (deep fried roll filled with meat), goong hom pla (prawns wrapped in pastry deep fried) and poh pia tod (fried spring rolls). These were served with two sauces, the typical sweet chili sauce and a peanut sauce with a salad in the middle. It was a lovely appetizer for two people.
Next we chose a light seafood salad, the Yam Woon Sen (Thai Glass Noodle Salad With Seafood) This was my favorite dish of the night. Squid, musles, shrimp in a light sour spicy fish sauce with black fungus, very tasty and light. Full of flavor and guilt free. I could eat this every day.
Of course, no Thai meal in my opinion, is complete without a coconut based curry, and so that is where we ended our feast. This is a typical Thai red curry (Kaeng Ped) and I asked for tofu though it was not offered on the menu. For some reason I just do not find myself associating Thai curry with meat.
I have always ordered it with either tofu or tempeh, the latter of which I have yet to find here in Torrevieja. I recently researched making my own tempeh at home but the process seems problematic. I would still need to order the fermenting ingredients and so far I have not found raw in the husk soy beans here. It would be easier just to order some pre-made tempeh.
And this concludes our Thai feast at Restaurante Thai Suvarnabhumi. Believe it or not, we ate the whole thing. I am really glad though I did not order that extra dry curry dish, next time.
