L'Annam [Gluten Free] Vietnamese

Coconut water with pulp.

I strolled up to L'Annam on University Place & 11th street to give their gluten-free menu another try. Here's what I love: a full gluten-free menu AND gluten-free soy sauce packets. Here's what I love more: delicious food. This Pad Thai was OK. But just OK. It was incredibly salty and tasted like chicken broth, neither of which are truly awful things but I found myself wondering if it would be disgusting to dump sugar over the top of it. (Yes. It would be. I didn't.) Pad Thai is supposed to be sweet, in my humble opinion.

Granted, I ordered it from a Vietnamese restaurant. Granted, I ate the entire thing, lunch & dinner. And I guess overall satisfactory and gluten free is better than delicious and toxic.

Shrimp Pad Thai. Looks pretty damn good.

Bait and Switch: Pad Thai Edition

I was extremely excited last week because I thought I had solved the problem for once and for all: Thai food. The problem with a lot of 'authentic' Asian restaurants is that I am not fluent in one or any Asian language. [Goal: learn "gluten" in all languages to facilitate consumption of delicious spicy and exotic foods the world 'round.]

I thought I had beat the system with Lovely Day, a hipsterish Thai restaurant on Elizabeth Street. By "hipsterish" of course I mean the design of the place, the chairs, the tiled floor, but mostly what I mean is young American (English-speaking) waitresses. Who were SO NICE when I presented them with my protein-quandary, last Friday. Nice, helpful, energetic and understanding when my friend's dish was unreasonably spicy. (It really was.) Hurray! Delicious! Best! Great!

OK, except I ordered delivery from there today. The man on the phone was super-nice, again, and very honest with me about the fact that he could not be CERTAIN that their curries were gluten-free. The (main) chef wasn't in yet and the cook who was there did not speak English very well... only Spanish, which, obviously I need to improve my skills on STAT. [Who wants to move to Mexico with me? Corn tortillas? Warm sunshine? AVOCADOS? Anyone? Anyone?]

Anyway. I told him: "Don't worry about the curry, just give me the Pad Thai with NO soy sauce and NO fish sauce." Fine.


Except... not, because using my Expert Taste Buds I will tell you that the ingredients of this Pad Thai were:

Noodles
Oil
Egg
Peanut

And nothing else. In vain I dug around our office kitchen shelves for flavor, but decided against adding: mustard, mayonnaise, Pepsi, or (non-gf) soy sauce.

[NOTE: two co-workers ordered the regular Pad Thai which was full of color and odor so I could be sure it was not just a general fluke of the kitchen, say, they ran out of chili flakes or something.]

Good news: I was not glutened!

Bad news: I am still on the hunt for a consistently communicative and safe Thai restaurant, in the SoHo-Nolita area from which to order delivery lunch.

OH, the huge problems in my life. XO

FIVE DOLLAR LUNCH

I will admit that I waited a full 24 hours after eating here - before posting - to make sure I didn't get food poisoning. Five dollars? How is it NOT poison? A friend of mine suggested this restaurant by merit of it being (a five dollar lunch special) and at the direct halfway point between her apartment and my office.

Note: Please ignore this menu graphic. I thought I was so clever, swiping this at the end of the meal for blogging purposes. They have since moved and are now at:

Rhong Tiam Thai
87 Second Avenue (@ 5th Street)
212.260.8018

Menu here.

Though I LOVE a curry, I usually am in the habit of ordering Pad Thai when eating out at a Thai place. If I make it clear that the Pad Thai must be prepared without soy sauce (it usually is) OR fish sauce (not an unusual request, as a vegetarian option) I am usually in pretty good shape. Also, Pad Thai is delicious (disgusting).

The waitress seemed to comprehend my seriousness and happily agreed to give me a fresh summer roll in place of the fried spring roll, all part of the lunch special. There was also a half dome of white rice and a salad with "carrot mayonnaise dressing" - which I did not touch. Last but not least I avoided the requisite food coma by sippin' on some Thai iced tea, which is the closest thing to methamphetamines that I ever intend to imbibe.


Bonus: great people-watching through the giant window onto Second Avenue. Ridiculous Mod decor, in the style of Thai restaurants all over New York. Why? One of life's great mysteries.