My Thai Momma

Did you see that picture of the Pad Thai from last week? Well, here's the story of who makes it. My first few days were spent scoping the local food scene. Some places nearby cater strictly to tourists, some strictly to locals, and some a mixture of both. I prefer the local places, but often the menus are only in Thai, forcing me to just point to someone's food and say "bring me that" These places are usually very busy too, and the workers sometimes seem annoyed having to cater to some random foreigner that got lost and wandered in. After some sampling and searching, I found my Thai momma. She runs a hole in the wall little restaurant with no real menu and random stuff just kind of scattered around her booth. She had those two magic words posted out front in English, "Pad Thai". That was enough to get me in the door. But what makes eating there great is the woman herself. She speaks exactly zero words of English, and my Thai ranges from "Hello, how are you?" to "uhhhh Pad Thai?" I went home after my first visit and looked up the word for delicious, which are "Aroy mak mak". I went back and ate there again, and she was pumped about how delicious I thought her food was. After that I was in. Now I go there everyday, and she is always excited to see me and have a laugh about how little we understand each other. She gives me extra rice and samples of whatever she has laying around. When she is cooking for someone else, she stops by my table first and gives me a scoop right from thier plate before she delivers it. I love it. Ice water is free and plentiful, which is essential when you are sweating buckets or try the wrong kind of pepper that all Thai eateries have as condinments.  She always seems happy and has that motherly instinct of making sure you are well fed to the point of bursting.  As long as she is around, I think I will be fine living in Thailand