Care to share some examples that don’t stem from your own mental leaps about their actual desires?
Many of the posters assert their cultural Lao-ness (often in very complex and subtle ways). Almost all of the ones who reject any notion of “Thai-ness” appear to be people from the Lao PDR, not Isaan. If you don’t see the nuance in that, I encourage you to start telling your fellow Americans that they are “really” British and need to be identifying their music, art, film, and food as such going forward.
Right. You’re just repeating your previous claim that there are not ENOUGH Isan people (in your limited experience) to meet the bigwheel042 quota for the right to be allowed to have an opinion.
And how odd that you seem to think that Americans are mostly of British origin. If you think that’s some sort of valid point of reference, it just shows your confusion.
Anyway, I’m done. I think the point that there are plenty of Isan people who resent their culture and food being identified as Thai is pretty clear, despite your ridiculous claims to the contrary and ad hominem abuse.
LOLOLOL feel free to keep just blithely inventing your own version of what I’m saying. Again, people from the Lao PDR and Isaan are not a homogeneous group. (They aren’t even remotely homogeneous within themselves!) To believe otherwise is just as reductive and ridiculous as saying “welp, British and American people speak the same language, have the same political traditions from the Enlightenment and the same majority religion, and also their music and art and literature is also pretty much the same. And they were once ruled by the same government. Thus I have proven that there is no such thing as an “American” identity and I demand that you call everything from both places ‘British.’ Q.E.D.”
I have no idea why you are so hell-bent on asserting the homogeneity of their preferences based on one profile of 5 or so local chefs…unless it’s because you’ve got some sad-ass issues with digging yourself ever deeper just to “win” an argument.
It’s clear under a non-tortured reading of Tsai’s piece that Syhabout and the other chefs profiled weren’t making a universalizing claim w/r/t their discomfort with their restaurants adopting the label “Thai”, i.e.:
We, the gatekeepers of what is and isn’t Lao, declare that nobody ever who makes sai oua and sticky rice has the right to label these things “Thai,” because they are exclusively the property of the culture called “Lao” and not that of our Thai oppressors.
Rather, they were making a very personal kind of claim:
We found it frustrating that the unsophisticated dining culture in the Bay Area creates a climate that requires us, some cooks with zero ties to the country of Thailand or Thai culture, to nonetheless label our restaurants and cooking as “Thai” if we want to stay in business.
It is totally consistent that this second, correct reading would be both wholly expected and reasonable from the perspective of someone with origins in the Lao PDR (which all of the chefs in the profile are) and simultaneously risible nonsense if it somehow came from the perspective of someone from Khon Kaen or Ubon.
Mod note: Bigwheel, David, its clear that you don’t see eye to eye on this issue, and its also clear that the issue of food labeling is beaten to death and going nowhere. I will ask that you focus on the food instead.
With Esan Classic, is there any reason to go to Lers Ros anymore? I’ve found Caviar deliveries to be better from EC than LR (Mission location), even though I get the same dishes (rest of LR’s menu has lots of fool’s gold).
Waves from Vancouver. I heard about Esan Classic from a former CHer who has become a dear friend and lives in SF. It is now her top Thai in the city. One reason to go to LR T’loin is the deepfried catfish salad, if it is still as good as it was when I last tried it in 2014. I can’t see it on the EC menu. Though I don’t know how well it would travel as takeaway…
How did you figure that out??? The full menu is not posted on their website. I went through every category that was and couldn’t find it. I’m impressed! And please do report back if you do have it before Nov 22. Seriously considering going to LR in off hours just to order it but could easily switch to EC if it is worthy there.
Hmmph. It’s on a yelp-photographed restaurant menu, but it’s not on their Caviar (delivery app) menu. Either their menu has changed, or it’s not, as you said, suitable for delivery. The mystery continues!
I think I’m going to call before we leave for the city. If I could get it at EC, I would do our final lunch there. Which would mean Lao-esque food three days in a row. Which sounds like heaven when the nearest Lao resto is a three-hour cross border schlep and Issan/Esan is absent entirely
Of note is several references to the dish I’m after at the very top of this thread, albeit with no menu number, as well as a different fried catfish one, apparently #16. So there is hope!
Replying to myself to let @hyperbowler know that he is correct, the #26Yum Pla Duk Foo Lime based salad dressing salad of fried catfish with chili and veg at Lers Ros makes an appearance on the Esan Classic menu as #32. A Thai-speaking staffer graciously confirmed today in the aftermath of my mangling the transliterated name of the dish over the phone
