Our man in the provinces could no longer move his face
He ate out several times a week, always looking for the tastiest herring, most fun wine, juiciest burger or best meat thermometer. But six months ago, journalist Marcel Langedijk traded Amsterdam for the Provinces. Is it manageable there for a lover of good food and drink? This time: the best Thai restaurant in the Netherlands.
My favorite cuisine is Thai. Call me a snob – I don’t mind, I’ve been called worse – but that seemed like a rather sizeable problem when I moved to the provinces. The provinces are known for many things, but not for the large number of excellent Thai restaurants you can find there. I don’t think that, I know it. During trips to various provincial regions, I tried several local Thai restaurants and they were – excusez le mot – crap.
Cashews in every dish
The intentions were always good, that wasn’t the issue, but the problem with a lot of provincial Thai restaurants is that they adapt to what they think the local population wants. And that is too often a cowardly version of the normally richly seasoned and generously spicy Thai cuisine. A version with cashews in every dish. A version with ten forms of sweet and sour, because ‘they here’ like that so much. A version with not too much coriander, because some people think it tastes like laundry detergent. A version, in short, that is neither fish nor fowl and most closely resembles the average bite at the neighborhood Chinese restaurant – with all due respect, of course, because there is nothing wrong with a neighborhood Chinese restaurant, but there are already quite a lot of those.
I was a little startled
So I was somewhat apprehensive when I went to Ton Nam Thai, the local Thai restaurant. I had heard good things from family and friends, but those family and friends have never been to Thailand and are also perfectly happy with a bite from the neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Even so, the website looked great, as did the extensive menu. I saw favorites such as Som Tam (papaya salad), a page full of stir-fries that you could order not only with chicken or beef, but also with duck and pork, and I saw suitable wines and not just Singa, but also Leo, two pleasant Thai beers.
Owner Jeroen welcomed us. So kindly that I was a little startled. In the kitchen was his partner Pae, a woman who has been cooking professionally since she was fourteen, Jeroen explained. The two met in the Netherlands, a few years after Pae had moved here. A little later, in 2017, they started Ton Nam Thai, a neat little narrow restaurant with dark tones and comfortable furniture.
Kob from Staphorst
Kob works front of house. Kob was born in Bangkok and now lives in, yes, Staphorst. Could two worlds be any more different? I think not, ma’am. And yet Kob is having an absolutely wonderful time there, in that village full of devout believers. Also because he has turned his backyard into a modest herb and vegetable garden, containing almost exclusively Thai produce. Morning glory, for example, a type of spinach that is virtually impossible to get in the Netherlands (water spinach, if you really want to know) and the basis of one of my favorite Thai stir-fries. Let Kob know in advance that you fancy some, and he’ll pick it and Pae will make something wonderful with it. As long as it is in season, of course, because the winters in Staphorst are bad for morning glory. But many other products used in Jeroen and Pae’s kitchen also come directly from Thailand, right down to the fish sauce and coconut milk.
I could no longer move my face
As you can tell, I’m practically bursting out of my panties with enthusiasm. And I haven’t even talked about the food yet. There’s a reason for that. I’ll come back to it next time. Not because I ate badly there, because it was better than the best food I’ve eaten in Big Cities. More refined, more authentic, more flavorful and so spicy that I couldn’t move my face for two days and needed a bath towel to dab away the sweat – my mistake, because I had boastfully announced that I could handle ‘a lot’ because I had also been to Thailand once.
But Pae can cook. And she wanted to prove that one more time by introducing me to Isaan, a regional cuisine from northeastern Thailand and her specialty. To be continued, then.
Read also:
