Two-Timing Thai at Nidda

A brief review of my history with Nidda...a long time ago I went to my first Thai restaurant, Patu's in the Village, and loved it. Later on down the road, one of Patu's original owner's, Marty Chuenpreecha, opened Bangkok Place in the spot near Erotic Cabaret on Westheimer near Waugh. It wasn't the best place for a restaurant but he did his best. The food was amazing but for some reason the customer base wasn't strong enough to stay open. In comes an interested partner who takes over the place and reopens it as Nidda.

Our family became very close with Marty and his small staff before he moved to California to be with his wife and children who had been living there for a while though he continued to work in Houston. He was so kind and sweet and the chef he had in the kitchen came with him from Patu's, a tiny little Thai lady name Nao. So I was spoiled with their love and delicious authentic meals-- she'd even let me in the kitchen where she prepared the food in a wok large enough for her to take a bath in. So spoiled that after Marty left, I shunned Thai food for several months. When I would finally try it, I was extra critical and couldn't enjoy the meal. Where was the love?

I haven't fully gotten over my first true Thai love but under Nao's tutelage (she stayed on for a while to help the transition) the kitchen at Nidda has started to grow on me. I've been going there for a while now, but usually stuck with my usual, the gang panang with chicken, green beans and carrots. I finally took a leap of faith and ordered the Chu Chee Snapper.
One of my favorite meals with Marty was the Chu Chee Shrimp- a perfectly sweet and pungent 'curry' with lightly battered shrimp and snow peas. The snapper is still prepared the same way and I have to admit that I enjoyed every bite. But I still miss my friend Marty and hold everything Thai to the standards he taught me by.


The kids finally tried something besides Pad Thai. These are the Drunken Noodles and they were good, though I'm not a huge flat noodle fan.


This is the Basil Seafood, my husband's healthy standby.

Tom Yum Soup- It's no tom kha kai but it's tasty nonetheless

Thai Spice Express- The fairest of them all

You know you're in the vicinity of authenticity when you see something like this: a hearty meal conveniently wrapped for someone who doesn't have time to stay and eat. Think fast food. This is basically a #4 with fries, Thai-style.



Thai Spice Express is located at 8282 Bellaire near Fondren. There are eight other Thai Spice restaurants in the family, cousins if you will, like Thai Spice in the Village, which is good but a little pricey due to the location and definitely doesn't offer the pre-packaged meals pictured above., Thai Spice Asian Cuisine in the Heights and Thai Spice Buffet at Voss and Westheimer.

Thai Spice Express may sound far off for some folks in my neck of the woods (Montrose) but if you jump on 59 S. you can be ordering in 15 minutes. The "Express" factor means that the food is on the table so fast, that even in the midst of some of my grumpiest hunger bouts, I have made the drive there for dinner knowing I would be feeding the monster sooner than I would be at a restaurant in my area.

We go here quite often and about 93% of the time I order the Tom Kha Kai- the spicy lime and coconut milk chicken soup elixir, which comes in a big bowl and every bite is the perfect love child of all of the best taste sensations. If a place gets this right then you can bet on most of their dishes being A OK.

On our last visit, for the sake of this blog, I would forgo the soup and order something different. Yum Nur is a salad of charbroiled sliced beef, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, mint and cilantro tossed in a spicy fish sauce and lime based dressing. It's a simple dish with complex flavors and being that it's a salad, it's pretty healthy, but the tender meat makes it filling and worth ordering for dinner. I was surprised and pleased that Express' version included the mint. It really makes the dish and I've seen other places omit it, not doubt due to not selling it and having it go to waste.

My husband always has to order something 'special' like this dish of mixed 'whatever you've got' greens, and squid. They usually have all kinds of greens but the selection was limited this time to mostly vegetables. Boring.

There will be more on Thai Spice in the upcoming posts so stay tuned, or better yet, just go there.

Menu- See for yourself.
http://www.thaispice.com/expressmenu.htm

Thai Spice Express 8282 Bellaire Boulevard, Houston (713) 777-4888

http://teethpicks.blogspot.com

Fist of Basil and Pla Koong at Nidda

A couple of years ago I pilfered some Thai Basil seeds off of my friend Brittany's plant, stuck them in a pot, and they decided they wanted to grow. The leaves are smaller than what you get at a Thai or Vietnamese restaurant but they are still full of flavor and help add an essential flavor layer when trying to recreate these cuisines from home. I don't do a lot of Vietnamese dishes at home only because it's so cheap and accessible and we eat it all of the time. On the other hand, I'm infatuated with Thai food and the beautiful simplicity of the ingredients that combine to create a sensory symphony of flavor (waxing a bit too poetic, I know.)

Nidda used to be Bangkok Place and I was really good friends with the previous owner, Marty Chuenpreecha, one of the founders of Patu in the Village. Marty took over the space at Bangkok Place (inopportunely located next to Erotic Cabaret and their window display of mannequins bedecked with fabric daisy pasties and fishnets.) The teensy little Thai cook named "Nao" (NOW) came with him and I swear she could have taken a nap in the giant wok she cooked with in the kitchen. When Marty moved to California to be with his family and a friend took over business, Nao stuck around long enough to see that the recipes were passed on correctly to the other cooks. I don't know if she's still around but you can still tell that she was there.

Bangkok Place epitomized Thai food for my palate because of the love that I knew was in the food. But every now and then I come across it again and I can tell that the cook is stirring the dish with their heart. I've tasted it at a handful of places like Asia Market (1010 W. Calvacade), Thai Restaurant (5757 Westheimer), and finally Nidda (1226 Westheimer).

Pla Goong @ Nidda
Spicy Charbroiled Shrimp Salad w/ Lemongrass, shallot, keffir lime leaves, fish sauce, lime juice, Thai chilies