Friday, January 25, 2013.
Temporary Bachelorhood. Thai Pepper.
Mary Leigh was up at mid-morning, and headed right off to her retail job. On her way out, she said that she would not be back until Monday, and would be sleeping with friends on the South Shore, as she has done often.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Mary Ann is not entirely happy she made the trip there. Between his work and his girlfriend, Jude didn't have as much time to give his mother as she would have liked. Which is, of course, all of it. She is a mother, after all. But this competition for our son's attention from the GF is something she hasn't quite worked out yet.
And there I was, facing a weekend as a bachelor. I am very good at this, having been single until I was 38, and spending months at a time alone in the year after Katrina. But I'm less secure about it than I used to be. That broken ankle of two years ago showed me how helpless I can get.
I stayed home today because, frankly, I wanted to start the weekend a earlier than usual. After signing off the radio, I was off to Thai Pepper, the oldest of the six Thai restaurants in the Mandeville-Covington corridor. What with a string of disappointing Thai meals--due mostly to ownership changes in the formerly best places--I suspected that the Thai Pepper may have risen to the top.
It's been awhile. I forgot how much different its menu is from the other local Thai restaurants. I had not forgotten, however, what happened last time, when even though I specifically told the lady to bring out one course at a time, I wound up with three hot dishes in front of me anyway. They tried to pull that one on me again, but I managed to stop them in time. I think they mean well, believing that most people want to eat quickly and leave. But their food is good enough to linger over.
I began with a soup I'd never heard of, but the name grabbed me: tom juude voon saine. It's a chicken broth with shrimp, garlic, ground pork, glass noodles and a few other things. Good, and different from the usual Thai soups.
The entree--kang kheaw whan--was also unfamiliar to me, although I suspected that it was pad prik king with a twist. Which is a spicy curry base with green beans, bell peppers, and an alluringly musky flavor I've never been able to credit. I ordered the with beef; it also came with bamboo shoots and eggplant. I found it very good. It's only problem was a lack of eye appeal. Some Thai restaurants are so good at presenting their food that when you run into one that isn't, you miss the beauty, regardless of the flavor goodness.
Back home at around nine. I continued the enormous project of uploading all my photos to the cloud. This has been ongoing for over two weeks, and I'm not halfway through it.
One thing's for sure. I never run out of things to do.
Still, I feel pathetic somehow.
Thai Pepper. Mandeville: 1625 US 190. 985-624-3057.
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