Wok Star Eleanor Hoh

Be a Wok Star!

Buddhist Temple

Thai Food Festival in Miami

By Leave a Comment

If you live in Miami, you have to experience The Thai Food Festival at least once in your lifetime! The sounds, smells and hubbub is quite the experience. Wat Buddharangsi Thai Temple was celebrating their 36th anniversary and every Thai person in Miami seemed to be there either selling food or eating it. Just a note if you intend to go to a future one…

BE THERE EARLY CAUSE THE FOOD GOES!
Nearly everything was $5, so bring CASH!

Do check out my foodie buddy, Brenda’s blog and video as well. We missed seeing each other at the Thai Food Festival, so it’ll be interesting to see what caught her eye. I may put together short video snippets from the Festival.

This station was a good way to try some Thai food. Smaller portions, all at $5 and comes with rice.
Look how nicely dressed this lady is. My friend, Mary recognized her. She came all the way from West Palm Beach. She was making Thai Noodle Soup.
Recognize Chef Baz, owner of Lung Yai Thai Tapas? He had to put his name down for those Thai pancakes.
This was the only stand with BBQ protein as far as I could see and had the LONGEST LINE!
Looks like hard work splitting the bamboo stick open to fill with Red Bean and Sticky Rice. Notice pile of Galangal, Thai ginger.
The most popular were Thai desserts mostly with coconut milk and a little too sweet for me.
Mango and Sticky Rice seemed to be everywhere.
My fav Thai dessert is this one, reminds me of Kuih, a Malaysian layered dessert, slightly chewy and of course with coconut milk.
My favorite dish at this festival is Ho Mok, steamed fish and scallops with coconut milk and curry. The flavor was good but no seafood detected, ha, ha!
The obligatory Papaya Salad.
The NEXT LONGEST LINE EVER was Bubble Tea, KACHING!
Khanom Krot is a rice and coconut milk pancake. Someone ordered the whole lot so she sold out. I don’t think that should be allowed because we didn’t get a chance to try this, boo!
Notice the beautifully carved papayas behind the Money Tree.
There were a few shade trees with tables and chairs.
And a HUGE tent where there was live music. Crowded and only 11am.
After a peek into the Thai Temple, we headed to sit in the side area for our lunch.
So happy this Thai Temple got built. They have provided so many wonderful community festivals for us to enjoy!
Love the monks’ orange outfits! The Thai community brings them cooked food.
The Thai community brings cooked food for the general public to share, so sweet. By the time we were invited to try, the best were gone, so GO EARLY.
Khanya and I, so good to reconnect. She was instrumental in helping bring in money to get the Temple built. Thanks to Mary for getting this shot, so fun hanging with her.
 
 
 

Songkran Festival at Wat Buddhist Temple, Food 2011

By Leave a Comment

Snapshots of Thai food at last Sunday’s Songkran Thai New Year Festival, Wat Buddhist Temple in South Miami. By 3pm, most folks had left and these were the only remaining food stalls left!  If you’ve never been, it’s really worth a visit when they have a festival, you meet neat Asian folks and get to eat good Thai food. More on the Temple and grounds in a separate post.

Img_3459

Thai Bayshore was also at the Asian Culture Festival I went to recently. They had a LOT more food offerings like this delicious Salmon Homok. I devoured one the minute I arrived, I was starving. I bought 2 more and a box of pork jerk strips with an interesting chili, fish sauce dip. You definitely need to reheat the strips to soften them, otherwise too chewy to digest.

I know how to make homok, I put fish and scallops in mine. It’s a lot of work esp. the banana leaf boats. My hubby helped me make them. It’s funny how when you’re not used to making a dish, it seems like a lot of work but every Thai person I’ve met said it’s easy. I have to make this soon.

Well, I think wok cooking is easy, so guess it’s same idea, it’s what you get used to making.

Img_3462

This booth makes Green Papaya Salad fresh in a stone mortar and pestle. I’m sorry, I’ve never cared for the strong flavors of fish sauce and the raw Papaya together. But looks gorgeous.

Img_3463

Fried bananas and taro, I would have tried it if I knew it was freshly made.

Img_3464

Colored rice noodles in the back tray, didn’t understand what went with it. I got a coconut drink with interesting jello type bits and corn which was surprisingly light and refreshing and not too sweet.

Img_3466

Thai Bayshore’s daughter posing with this tray of fritters and I can’t remember what she told me they were, think taro. I got more of the banana leaf sticky rice to take home too. Had an East Meets West breakfast next morning with the pork jerk strips for a protein hit.

Img_3465

This is a monk gift tree, people bring ‘gifts’ to place on the tree including money, food and anything you think a monk would like.Very interesting concept, I might put out a gift tree to see what people would give me?