BUFFALO – A while back Maudie and Sven took a trip over to Jackson Hole. We found the Tetons are as breath-taking as ever.
It’s good to get away from home base once in a while, and it gave us an opportunity to try some new kinds of food. We picked up one of those “What–to-do-in-Jackson” books and read the list of places to eat.
Local restaurants have “catchy” names . . . like “Teton Thai” and “Bon Appe Thai.” We talked it over and decided to have an evening meal at a place called “Thai Me Up.”
“I like Chinese food every once in a while,” I told Maudie.
“You must be thinking of Taiwan,” Maudie replied. “I think this has something to do with Thailand.”
“Close enough for me.”
So, we put the address of “Thai Me UP” in the GPS we bought ourselves for Christmas in 1998. It had been in a box under the seat until this trip. It directed us to an empty field near Teton Village.
“I guess this GPS is out of date,” I said. Maudie guessed I didn’t punch in the right numbers. So, we asked a guy in a gas station if there was a Thai restaurant nearby. He sent us down the road. We went in and a tall blonde kid directed us to a table and dropped the photo-copied sheets (Menu) in front of us.
“My name is Eddie . . . Wan som-tin-ta drink?” he asked.
I wanted to act like a sophisticated user of restaurants, so I ordered a “My Thigh.”
“What’s that?” asked Eddie.
“You are thinking of a Mai Tai,” says Maudie.
Eddie looked confused . . . so I said . . . “bring me a beer.”
Maudie asked for ice-tea. We started to study the sheet of paper listing the specials at the place I was now calling “Thai Me Down.”
Nothing on either side of the sheet made sense so we asked Eddie for help. Eddie seemed to know his stuff.
He told us “chok” is some kind of rice soup.
And he explained there were no rodents in “kuai tao rat na” . . . only fried noodles.
We passed on the suggestion of snake-head fish served on fresh lemon grass.
I pointed to the menu and said, “how about some of this ‘khao phat moo’. . . can’t go wrong with a beef dish.”
“No,” says Eddie. “That’s pork.”
“Well, why don’t they call it khao phat oink?” I asked.
Eddie didn’t laugh
I could tell he felt he was working too hard, so we told Eddie to just bring us some soup and a nice dinner with some shrimp or pork and a bowl of rice.
“How many stars do ya want?” Eddie asked.
Thinking it was like ratings on hotels, I said we always go for the “five star.”
Thai food can be HOT!
After dinner we started looking for an ice-cream shop.
Take care, watch what you eat. We will drop a line again next week.
