Kung Fu Plaza Restaurant in Las Vegas

Kung Fu Plaza Restaurant is one of the first restaurants you see as you enter Las Vegas Chinatown from the strip. I can't stand the name of the restaurant, but the food is not too shabby. A few years ago, I thought this place was the bomb, but I think because of the combination of food we ordered, I left feeling underwhelmed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't so spectacular either. This restaurant offers both Thai and Chinese cuisine.

Gotta have Tom Yum. We ordered the seafood. For 13 bucks, they didn't give us much soup, and the seafood was sparse, but it tasted alright.

The Pad Thai was decent. Kind of hard to mess up pad thai.

My sister ordered the Cashew Chicken. This was just an average dish.

The Pan-fried Catfish was everyone's favorite. The fish wasn't perfectly fried by a long shot, but the sauce was very good. I'm not sure why it says that the sauce is "curry like" on the menu, but it was a bit spicy, and the basil added fragrance. I love spicy!

Ok, let me tell you about this dish that hubby ordered. He has a history of ordering bad dishes. This was the Pa Nang Curry with Beef. It was like scooping a spoonful of peanut butter into my mouth. My mom said it was "so weird" in Vietnamese. It was.

I'd come here again since the restaurant is so accessible and we've had good experiences here in the past. But, I still have yet to visit Lotus of Siam, which I've heard has been called the best Thai restaurant in the U.S. by several sources. So next time I'm in Vegas, this will be my destination for Thai food.

Kung Fu Plaza Restaurant is located at 3505 S. Valley View Blvd, Las Vegas NV (702) 247-4120

Thai Fish Cakes (Tod Mun Pla) with Cucumber Sauce

Having three kids mean lots of parties. Lots and lots of parties. At almost every one of these parties where my in-laws were present, my mother-in-law would bring her Thai Fish Cakes with her as one of the dishes. Hubby's mother is herself Chinese, but her husband is Thai-Chinese.

As hubby's family doesn't share much info and hubby himself doesn't know much about his family's history, I got the scoop from hubby's cousin, who I chat with because we have kids of the same age. It turns out that hubby's father used to own two of the very first Thai restaurants in the LA downtown area. Cousin-in-law used to work there waitressing tables. After awhile, the family sold their businesses, and eventually the restaurants closed down under new owners . In the course of chatting about the restaurants, hubby's cousin also shared with me their recipe for Tod Mun Pla.

Recipe for Tod Mun Pla:
1 lb white fish paste
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
3 kaffir lime leaves (6 kaffir lime leave halves), chopped finely
1/3 cup of Chinese Long Beans, chopped
1.5-2 tablespoons red curry paste

If you can't find fish paste in your locale, you can process a pound of white fish such as cod or tilapia with a teaspoon of cornstarch, 1 tablespoon sugar, a teaspoon of salt, and an egg. Usually I purchase my fish paste in tubs from the store, and these already has egg whites, salt and sugar pre-added.

The red curry paste can be found in Asian supermarkets. If you can't find it, you can substitute a mix of red curry powder and chili powder, but it won't be as fresh.

First chop up the kaffir lime leaves and the long beans. The lime leaves are tough to cut. I stack them on top of each other and cut lengthwise first, then gather them and chop crosswise.

Add all the ingredients to the fish paste. Mix well, and then form flat 1/4 inch thick patties about 1.5 inches in diameter using a spoon to aid you.

Meanwhile, start a pan with about an inch of vegetable oil on the bottom on medium high.

Once the oil is hot, drop in some of the patties, well-spaced, and fry for about 2 minutes per side. Once golden brown, remove the patties and let drain on paper towels.

I like to make all my patties beforehand and then scoop each patty with a spatula into the pan one at a time once I start the frying. But you can also shape each patty as you drop them into the pan. Just do it quickly before the oil stiffens them up.

Since I didn't ask hubby's cousin about the cucumber sauce, this is my own creation, but I've got it pretty much down pat since I've eaten it for so many years at so many parties and family dinners. The only thing I added was the shallot because I like the taste of it in my sauce.

Recipe for the Cucumber Sauce:
1 cup hot water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 red chilis, sliced
1 cup cucumber (i use pickling cucumbers), quartered and then sliced
1 shallot, sliced (optional)
1 teaspoon chili garlic paste

Dissolve the sugar in the water. Add in the rest of the incredients and then chill. The longer this sits, the more time for the flavors to come out into the sauce, and the better it tastes.

Kaffir Lime Leaves

As the years passed and I found myself cooking more and more Thai food (my kids and hubby are part Thai), I've discovered that I could not live without kaffir lime leaves. Good thing mother-in-law has a huge tree in her front yard, so I never have to buy them, as they're not exactly cheap.

My mother-in-law gave us a tree when we bought our first home, but once I pruned it, it started producing leaves that were definitely not of the kaffir lime. It must have been a graft and the tree must have reverted back to producing regular citrus leaves or something. Anyways last year, I gave my mom a tree for her birthday gift to plant in her yard. The tree is coming along nicely.

Kaffir lime leaves are essential in Thai cooking, but it's also widely used in other Asian cuisines. My mom uses them in her canh chua.

The lime itself has this funny bumpy texture, and the leaves are also interesting. They look like two hearts stuck together, and they have a wonderful aromatic, citrusy scent to them. Interestingly, according to wikipedia, the term kaffir is offensive in some cultures, but I usually refer to these in their Vietnamese name, la chanh thai (Thai lime leaves) in our family anyways.

This post is a teaser. Tomorrow I will post my family's Thai fish cake recipe, using kaffir lime leaves, of course.

Coconut Bay Bar and Grill in Rowland Heights

J had a birthday recently, and to celebrate, I was gonna drag my family to Happy Harbor in Rowland Heights. When we got there, we noticed there was a wedding party there, and hubby was told that the whole place was booked for the wedding. So we improvised and headed across the street to Coconut Bay Bar and Grill.

It took a while for our whole party of 13.5 to arrive but the waiter was quite patient with us. I'll get back to that .5 in a bit. The waiter took our order electronically, and as the food took a while to arrive, we had time to check out the football games projected on the walls or broadcast on the screens hanging everywhere in the restaurant and enjoy yelling at each other across the table to get our conversation across.

We ordered quite a few dishes, most of which birthday boy himself couldn't possibly eat. Not until I desensitize his little tongue to spice. My favorite of the night was the Homok Talay. This is a hodge podge of seafood (shrimp, crab legs, mussels, clams, fish, and mussels) mixed with chili and coconut milk. Not pretty to look at, but it had a nice kick and was very tasty.

The Three Flavors Sand Bass was fried nicely and was quite crisp on the outside. The sauces made it sweet and tasty, but the meat was a little dry.

The Tom Yum Koong was my cousin's favorite. It was very spicy, which I like, but it was also on the salty side (not a downside for me at all). Believe it or not, the first time I came here with friends, it was even saltier and spicier, so much so that in our party of four, I had to eat the whole pot by myself because no one else could take the spice. Some people might be turned off by the saltiness. One pot was not enough for our party, so we ordered a second pot, and cousin noted that this one had more soup and less food than the previous pot did.

The beef Nam Tok was ok for me. This is a dish of beef covered with roasted rice powder and mixed with herbs, onion, and lime juice. Could have had more flavor.

Hubby ordered the Paradise Duck. This was roasted duck mixed in a red curry/coconut sauce. It was good and had a lot of flavor, but I really don't like duck too much because of the tougher texture. Also, I was turned off by the measly serving of this dish.

The Lemon Fertile Calamari is seasoned with lime and is served over mung bean noodles. The calamari, although fresh, definitely needed more lime or spice or something because it was basically tasteless, and the noodles were sparse. The presentation was great though- it was served in a fish shaped metal dish over a flame.

Update on 11/2/08 See comments below regarding the Lemon Fertile Calamari. My cousin failed to tell me that there was a sauce that went with this, so to be fair, I will have to re-review this dish in the future.

I didn't get to taste the Chow Mein, and neither did hubby, but the kids liked it. This was eaten before I got to take a photo of it.

The kids also liked the Chicken Macaroni, which I absolutely did not like. This was a sweet dish of penne pasta (not macaroni) mixed with tomatoes, shrimp, and chicken.

The BBQ Chicken Fried Rice was good. The rice was average, but the chicken was nicely done inside and out.

The Lagoon Noodles is a rice noodle dish with shrimp, crab claws, and shitake mushrooms, but I didn't get to taste it. Hubby said it was good, but I take his judgement with a grain of salt because he really has a different sense of taste than I do. Afterall, he liked the Chicken Macaroni.

The Clam Chili Paste was my other favorite. It was spicy, tasty and fragrant with basil.

A lot of young groups frequent this restaurant, but so do a lot of families. There is a sign posted for free karaoke on Friday nights, and a happy hour for cheap drinks. Also advertised is a pool table room, which I didn't see. For me, I'm just happy getting the free refills on the Thai iced tea and Thai iced coffee.

Some rumors have been flying around about the relationship between Coconut Bay and Banana Bay, another Thai restaurant further west. All that is important to me is that the food at Coconut Bay is better than that of the other one. Now back to the .5 bit. This would be my 5 month old, R. As my family was getting up to leave, the patient young man who had taken our orders and had served us many times over came over to say bye. At that moment, R used his amazing cheek magnets to lure him over, and it worked because the waiter started asking about him and commenting on how cute and big he was and of course had to pinch them cheeks. I got into a brief conversation with him and found out that he was the brother of the owner here, and I asked him about Banana Bay. All he said was that they used to own Banana Bay but not anymore, and I didn't dare to delve any further.

I'm glad we came back to Coconut Bay because my first visit here gave me a bad impression. I cannot remember what we ordered at that visit besides the Tom Yum Koong, but whatever they were were not the right dishes to order, and I guess being a measly party of four placed us in a booth and at the mercy of the younger waitstaff that was not as adept as that of the night we went with the larger party. I also know there are authentic Thai behind the scenes here because when hubby, who himself is part Thai, called on the phone to order for catering last week (which we ended cancelling), he could hear the conversation on the other end of the phone was in Thai. I do recommend Coconut Bay because of the above average and authentic Thai food. It's great for large groups and late night eaters, but be prepared for loud, long waits for food to arrive, some dishes being pricey and smaller in portion, and iffy service if you're a smaller party during busy hours. I think for me, heading to Krua Thai in West Covina is a better deal as their food tastes better to me, and their portions are larger with prices being cheaper. But it is further for us to drive there.

Coconut Bay Bar and Grill is located at 18922 Gale Ave., Rowland Heights, CA (626) 913-9933

Chinese Long Beans Stir-Fry Thai Style

Last week, I bought some Chinese long beans thinking I'd chop some up to put into some Thai fish cakes, but since I never got around to cooking it, I ended up using them in a stir-fry dish. The long beans I usually get from my Asian supermarket always comes in giant bunches, a couple of pounds each or more, so I had a lot of leftovers to cook for future dinners.

Chinese long beans, also called yardlong beans, are absolutely healthy for you. They are high in vitamins A and C and folic acid. Each bean is about 2 feet long (not quite a yard in my experience), and they are more slender than the regular string beans you might know of. When used in stir-fries, the long beans wrinkle up as they become more tender.

This dish uses a recipe adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks. I love the Quick and Easy series, and this one is from the Quick & Easy Thai Cuisine: Lemon Grass Cookbook and is titled "Beef with String Beans". Since my kids have a tough time chewing chewy beans, I fried the beans separately first to get them more tender. You can find this dish in Chinese cuisines too, but the sauce would be soy sauce based and not fish sauce based.

Recipe:
Cut into 2 inch slices 2 cups of the long beans.
Chop 4 cloves of garlic.
Cut 1/2 small bell pepper into slivers.

Stir-fry the beans in a bit of oil on medium high for a few minutes (about 5 minutes) and remove from heat.
Add in a pound of ground beef with the garlic and stir-fry on medium high until the meat is cooked through.

In the meantime, prepare a bowl with 2 tablespoon fish sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, dash of black pepper.
Add the beans back to the beef, and add the bell pepper along with the sauce ingredients. and stir until the beans and pepper are as soft as you'd like.

Quick and easy, for sure, the way I do most of my cooking nowadays.