ANNOUNCER: Funding for "Lucky Chow" has been provided by... From the kitchen to the grill, Soy Vay sauces and marinades add an Asian twist to your favorite dishes.

[ Bell dings ] Recipes and more are available at soyvay.com.

MAN: The way of Thai -- our way of unique happiness, and it begins with the people.

ANNOUNCER: And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

CHANG: The cuisine of Thailand, a sweet, sour, spicy, salty palate -- the perfect balance of incredible flavor.

Like most of us, my first taste was pad Thai, but since then, I've been exposed to so much more.

Over the past 40 years, Thai cuisine has been developing in our country, from pioneering chefs who are leading the Thai-food scene today, along with celebrity chef Jet Tila, whose family played a pivotal role in the establishment of Thai cuisine in America.

Thai food is now found on just about every street in America.

But unlike the Chinese and the Japanese, the majority of Thais did not immigrate to the U.S. until much later, in the 1970s.

In 1972, my mom and dad opened a little store called Bangkok Market in Hollywood, California, and it was the first Thai market in the history of America.

It was a place where you could get all the Thai ingredients.

CHANG: Today, Chef Jet Tila has invited me to join him on a shopping adventure as we prepare for a tour across the country, from Los Angeles to Vegas, and ending up in New York City, at the famed James Beard House, for a special celebration.

But I'm not quite sure what Jet has in store.

JET: I'm over here!

-CHANG: Jet Tila.

-JET: Glad you made it.

-How are you?

-CHANG: This is exciting.

JET: Here, have a seat, relax.

Welcome to my office.

Thank you.

Love hanging out on the stoop.

Right, it's like we're in Manhattan here, -hanging out, right?

-Yeah.

JET: There's a lot of activity going on.

They're preparing for an upcoming festival.

This is gorgeous.

Tell me about this temple.

JET: You're sitting in the largest and first Thai Theravada Buddhist temple in America.

It was founded around 1978-'79.

And I was born '75, so it gives you, you know, some perspective.

It's been here a long time.

Did you come here a lot when you were growing up?

JET: I literally grew up here.

You know, my father helped build this temple kind of brick by brick, so, yeah.

It's basically the religious hub of all Thais in the Western United States.

Wow.

That's incredible.

You really are the royal Thai first family.

Yeah, we just happen to be the first guys who opened restaurants and markets, so I guess, automatically, we became the first food family.

But you established such a legacy for Thai cuisine in America.

Yeah, and again, you know, I only get half the credit, because my family did the first, you know, from 1960s to the '90s, and I kind of took over after that.

It's a pretty cool space.

We're protected by these two giants, what we call yuks.

They are basically, you know, spirit protectors of the temple.

It's pretty phenomenal.

It really feels like you're in Thailand.

CHANG: Yeah, it definitely does.

I guess this is more of a community center for L.A.'s Thai community.

Yeah, this really is the religious and kind of, um, I would say, you know, spiritual and kind of cultural hub for all Thai people in America.

Is it a misnomer to think that Buddhist cuisine is necessarily vegetarian?

JET: I think most people assume that Buddhist food is automatically vegetarian, but our type of Buddhism is not always vegetarian.

But there are Buddhism -- There is a type of Buddhism that is always vegetarian.

We eat everything.

I would think about the temple as being kind of the center or the hub of cuisine during holidays.

CHANG: So, tell me about what you eat at these special festivals -- we're going to New York, where you're going to be cooking for Thai Songkran at the James Beard House.

What foods are eaten at that celebration?

Well, I was thinking Songkran, and I'm thinking the temple.

And, you know, there's always a curry.

Right?

There's always going to be fresh herbs.

And I'm going to incorporate all of these kind of ideas into the Songkran dinner in New York.

You know what?

Why don't we start by taking in the temple?

I have a few surprises for you.

My mom is in there.

She's set up a really fun little blessing.

But a few rules of the road -- one, you definitely want to take your shoes off before you get into the temple.

And never direct contact with the monks.

Like, you know, no shaking hands.

So, just follow my lead.

-I'll follow your lead.

-You'll be fine.

JET: Let's go.

[Chanting in Thai] Danielle, this is my mom, Mary.

-MARY: Sawasdee Ka.

-CHANG: Sawasdee Ka.

JET: She was nice enough to arrange everything -here at Wat Thai L.A. -CHANG: Thank you so much.

What we're gonna do is called a Sangathan, which is an offering for the monks here.

And in return, they're going to give us a little blessing, or make merit.

So, shall we?

[Mary and monk speaking Thai] JET: Welcome to the Bangkok Market.

You've just stepped into the first Thai market in the history of America.

This is one of the largest Thai communities, where we are right now, in L.A., is it not?

Yeah, and L.A. houses the largest Thai community -outside of Thailand, period.

-CHANG: Really?

JET: So much so that we're known as the 77th province.

This was the store to any and all Thai people in L.A. Thai food is four flavors -- hot, sour, salty, sweet.

So, we have to start with hot, which is spicy.

So, I'm gonna get some chilies.

We're cooking for a ton of people, so I think -- I think this is more than enough for 200 people.

CHANG: What's differentiates Thai chilies from, say, like, a jalapeno?

JET: Thai chilies are known for their extreme amount of heat, right?

On the scale of the hottest chilies in the world, we're about third.

Sharp heat, but it quickly drops off, so it's not that sustained heat like habanero or Scotch bonnet.

It's a very different heat profile.

CHANG: Where is most of your produce from?

Is it from Thailand, or is it grown in California?

My dad, 30 years ago, you know, kind of smuggled a lot of these things in from Thailand.

and he grew them in Mexico.

Right?

So, between two zones, right?

So, in the summer, all of our produce comes from the Central Valley in California, but when it gets too cold, that shifts down to Mexico.

The French people have their mirepoix -- celery, carrots, onion -- the start of all French meals.

We have this trinity -- lemon grass -- I'm gonna give that to you.

Galangal -- this is a key item.

You're never supposed to do this in a market, but I always recommend people going for it.

The only way to explain galangal is for you to smell it, first of all, right?

Most people sub ginger for this item.

Not -- There's no substitution.

It's got such a beautiful, herbaceous, floral spiciness to it, that we're gonna need a bunch of galangal.

And the last of the Thai trinity is Kaffir lime leaves, right?

Extremely floral, citrus note.

And they look like two leaves stuck together.

These three ingredients are the base of all of our nam kaeng, or curry paste.

And you can't cook Thai food without that.

A few things that I wanted to point out that are kind of fun, that are uniquely -- I really shouldn't say "Thai," because other Southeast Asian people get mad -- this is a banana blossom.

-Have you ever seen one of these?

-I haven't.

All right.

But if I'm a banana palm tree, I drop this flower.

As the flower opens up, take a look what happens.

That's gonna be a bunch of bananas.

-CHANG: That's gorgeous.

-JET: Isn't that pretty amazing?

JET: In this form, they're flowers, right?

And we can eat them.

And we'll use these for curries.

We'll use them for -- but not today.

Did you grow up working in this market?

I started here literally probably around six years old.

As soon as I could stand, I could put items on the shelf.

And as soon as I could do that, I could bag groceries.

So, there's no position in this market I haven't worked in.

The next crucial aisle here is gonna be the aisle of all Asian sauces, including, you know, fish sauce, curry paste, coconut milk.

Do you cheat, or do you make your own curry paste?

JET: You know, you call it cheating... but I'm gonna ask you the same thing.

Do you make your own soy sauce?

No.

Do Italians make their own olive oil?

No, they leave it to the masters that do that thing extremely well.

It's always the non-Thai chefs that want to try to make curry paste, and all the Thai chefs know all the great curries.

What you can do, though, is add to the curry paste, right?

If you add extra spices, which we're gonna do to make Khao Soi.

So, curry paste is here.

Coconut milk, obviously.

CHANG: Okay.

So, what's the difference between the milk and the -- and the cream?

Coconut milk is made from the darkest coconut.

Does that make sense?

We throw away the water -- -CHANG: I see.

Okay.

-And scrape the flesh down, and you press it into coconut milk, like olive oil.

-CHANG: Right.

-JET: The lighter the coconut, or the younger the coconut, the sweeter the juice and the actual fruit, or the meat of the fruit.

Does that make sense?

So, this is all made from that.

So, we've got our fish sauce, we've got our curry paste, we've got our coconut milk.

But before you head off to the airport, I want to take you through Thai Town really quick and take you to one of my favorite dessert shops, because there aren't many of them, and we have to go to this one before you go.

CHANG: Okay, let's do it.

JET: Welcome to Bhan Kanom Thai.

It translates to "The House of Thai Desserts."

You know, there aren't many places in L.A. that make desserts, and this is the absolute best.

They have really fun things.

Some things, they make.

Some things, they bring in.

So, you know, the rage right now in America is Japanese versions of Oreos and Kit Kat -- they have those.

They have all these other hand snacks that they directly import.

But the best thing here is what they make in-house.

So, let me introduce you to my good buddy.

This is Alvin.

Alvin, this is Danielle.

-CHANG: Hello.

Sawasdee Ka.

-ALVIN: Sawasdee Ka.

Pretty amazing -- Alvin, like myself, is first-gen Thai.

-Bred, born here.

-CHANG: Were you born here?

Yes.

Right down the street, actually.

And now he runs the best Thai dessert shop in America, I would say.

-I can say that.

-It is.

That's the truth.

So, tell us some of the things that you have -- like, some of the big features.

Well, actually, there's like three main ones that we have.

One is pang chi, which is basically kind of like a cookie.

It's basically taro, coconut, corn.

There's some flour to kind of bond it.

And it just makes it, like, a little cookie that we do on a griddle.

Mmm.

It's, like, the perfect kind of sweet-potato fritter kind of taste.

And in between, it's got, like, this really sweet coconut notes.

CHANG: It's not too sweet.

I mean, I feel like I could eat it for breakfast.

JET: And don't you find that, in Thai food, there's always a hint of salt in anything that's sweet.

Is that pretty true for all the desserts?

Pretty much.

Salt and sugar in everything.

I think we need to try the roasted coconut milk, too.

-ALVIN: Right here.

-JET: Have you eaten one of these yet?

-CHANG: No, I haven't!

-JET: Oh, good.

Basically, what it's made with is, the bottom part, with a little bit of flour, just so that it solidifies when you cook it.

And then the top part is actually a coconut milk with a little bit of salt.

Oh, that's incredible.

It's nice.

This is, like, the perfect dessert, wouldn't you say?

All right, last one.

We got to talk about tokyo.

-ALVIN: Tok-YO.

-JET: Bring over some Tokyo.

-ALVIN: All right, you got it.

-JET: I say it wrong.

I say TOK-yo.

Why don't you educate me.

Well, technically, they spell it that way, but it's actually tok-YO.

Think about it this way -- like a pancake, put a little bit of pandan custard in the middle, and just kind of roll it up.

And it's Thai, right?

"Tokyo" doesn't mean Japan?

No, no, no, no.

-It's spelled that way, so... -ALVIN: Yeah.

It's funny, actually, you won't be able to find these in Japan.

-JET: Right?

-ALVIN: Yeah.

So, are these typically eaten as dessert, or are they just snack food that you can eat?

-ALVIN: Oh, snack food.

-CHANG: Oh, yeah?

People eat it all the time, morning to night.

What is that about Thai culture, right?

I mean, dessert is not for after your meal.

For sure.

The word "Khanom" itself, it doesn't just mean "sweets" and it doesn't mean "dessert."

It kind of means, like, a snack.

-Doesn't it?

-Pretty much, yeah.

JET: Thank you very much, Alvin.

It's good to see you.

Hope you guys had fun.

JET: Didn't you have a good time, huh?

CHANG: It was amazing.

I have a sugar high now.

Yeah, right.

So, we're gonna take that sugar high to Vegas, and then we're gonna take it to New York.

I know you feel bad for me.

[Laughter] -I'll see you later.

-ALVIN: All right, thank you.

Sawasdee Ka.

CHANG: Inspired by Chef Jet, I invited him to join me in Las Vegas, home to pioneer chef Saipin Chutima, who runs, along with her family, what has been called the best Thai restaurant in America.

Saipin immigrated to the U.S. and cooked out of necessity, but her hard work has paid off.

She's even received the James Beard Award as best chef of the Northwest, the equivalent of an Oscar to the food world.

On the other spectrum, Portland-based chef Andy Ricker fell in love with Thailand as a young backpacker touring the country.

After seeing a magazine article about Saipin, he was encouraged to focus on Northern Thai cuisine.

BOTH: Sawasdee Ka!

[Both speaking Thai] All the chefs from LuckyRice are coming tonight.

We got a lot of work to do, I think.

SAIPIN: Yeah.

Oh.

Shall we go and cook?

CHANG: Years later, they both met that James Beard Award, where Andy was also awarded best chef of the Northwest.

Today Andy considers Saipin to be his auntie mentor and has devoted his cooking to bringing traditional Thai dishes to the U.S.

This evening, for the first time, they're collaborating on a special menu for a group of celebrity chefs in town for the LuckyRice food festival.

ANDY: It's a very interesting dish.

In the North, it's made with this very complex spice mixture called phrik laab.

There's as many different types of phrik laab as there are people who make it, almost.

I'm really excited to learn about how Khun Saipin makes her phrik laab.

This particular phrik laab has maybe 18 different things in it.

Lemon grass, chilies, garlic, shallots, all the dried spices, a lot of different things all put together.

[Speaking Thai] Okay, we don't have much time, so we got to get to work.

Ah, we're gonna add a little bit of galangal, some lemon grass, Kaffir lime peel, minced cilantro, coriander seed, and a little bit of white cardamom, or Thai cardamom; black peppercorn, which is called phrik thai dam -- -Thai pepper.

-SAIPIN: Makhwaen.

ANDY: Makhwaen, which is the black prickly ash.

Bai-kra-wan, otherwise known as bay leaf.

Thao qua, which is the black cardamom.

Mmm, very smoky, almost tobacco-y smell to it.

-SAIPIN: Yira.

-ANDY: Yira.

So, this is cumin seed that's been toasted and ground.

The process for making this is, you grind it or pound it all together first.

You have to do this for quite some time in order for it to all come together.

Some roasted garlic and some roasted shallot.

Okay.

[Both conversing in Thai] ANDY: The process for pounding this is you're releasing the oils in the spices and the aromatics.

There's a lot of stuff that goes into here.

And it must smell good -- most Thai cooks cook by the sense of smell.

She knows when it's done when it smells right.

As you can see, this is very labor-intensive.

Making lab, in Thailand, is often an all-day-long process.

Comes up to kind of a wet paste.

Phrik laab, in its wet version.

All that wet stuff is in there, too, but, actually what you have here is something that looks not entirely unlike just chili powder.

It's time to laab the meat.

"Laab" actually means to mince.

I'm gonna chop, and Saipin is gonna tell me what to do.

We have the beef.

The idea is to mince the beef very finely.

We're also gonna add some herbs to the laab, to -- And what this does is makes the smell of the beef less pungent.

[Saipin speaking Thai] Now, Khun Saipin is going to yam the laab.

Now, what we have is called laab dib, or raw laab.

There's actually only really one way to know whether you've done it right or not, is to taste before you cook it, is to taste it raw.

Mmm!

[Speaking Thai] So, tastes really delicious right now.

Oh, my goodness!

That's kind of spicy.

We're gonna head out to go to the wok to cook this up.

Just a little bit of garlic oil in there.

And as she's cooking it, you can smell the phrik laab -- the smell of the chili paste and the garlic and the meat all mixed together.

And then adding some more of the herbs and the garlic at the end, so that the herbs don't get cooked and the garlic stays crisp.

Ah.

There you go.

This is finished laab kua.

-SAIPIN: Laab kua.

-ANDY: And we should taste it.

It's very finely cut.

BOTH: Mmm!

[Speaking Thai] Thai food is always eaten with a spoon and a fork, not with chopsticks.

Chopsticks, in Thailand, are served at restaurants that serve noodles or Chinese food.

Thai people eat with a spoon and fork.

They use the spoon to pick the food up.

JET: Here, I'll demonstrate while you speak.

And the fork pushes the food onto the spoon.

And if you try it this way, you're gonna find that eating -- it changes the experience of eating Thai food.

Just wanted to thank the two of you again for this incredible collaboration and really magical feast.

[Applause] The James Beard Foundation in the West Village of New York City celebrates Americas diverse culinary heritage.

Tonight is the first dinner fully devoted Thai cuisine.

-Hi, chefs.

-MAN: Hi.

CHANG: Hi, Kate.

How are you?

Good to see you.

Cheers.

WOMAN: I'm very, very excited to see regional food of Thailand prepared by our famous chefs right here at the James Beard House.

Songkran festival is Thai New Year.

And when you heard about Songkran festival, the first thing that came to mind is Water Splashing Festival in Thailand.

But Songkran is more than just Water Splashing Festival.

Food plays a very important role during these Thai New Year.

CHANG: So great to see you.

Oh, Danielle, it's great to see you.

I'm Izabela Wojcik.

I'm the program director at the James Beard House.

It's always so exciting to come to the Beard House.

This is the fifth year we've actually done a collaborative dinner together.

IZABELA: James Beard was an educator, first and foremost.

He was very passionate about food, about sharing it with others, teaching.

When James Beard passed away, his friends rallied to preserve this house, because it had been so meaningful.

These days, what the James Beard House is known for is a performance space.

We liken it to Carnegie Hall for chefs.

Almost nightly, chefs are coming here from all over the country, sometimes the world, to cook for a New York-based audience, essentially performing in New York.

Tonight is a Thai Songkran dinner.

Yes.

What do you think is gonna happen?

Oh, well, the thing I know is not gonna happen is a big water fight, which is something that happens in Thailand and around Songkran -- or maybe.

I don't know, we'll see.

During the day, all of the scrambling restaurant behind-the-scenes work happens.

The chefs are using a very small space.

MAN: Somebody moved the bacon in the box?

Who moved the bacon?

JET: Where are the limes?

IZABELA: It's very different than cooking in their own restaurants.

There's a lot to get ready for.

There's gonna be a leaf, and then we're gonna put a little coconut, a little of everything in there.

All right, thank you.

MAN: I'm Pichet Ong.

I've cooked Asian food my whole life, both Thai and Chinese.

WOMAN: This brings back to my childhood memory.

I cook modern Thai comfort food.

[Speaking Thai] Hong Thaimee, chef and owner of Ngam, and it's such an honor to be at James Beard tonight.

CHANG: This Thai Songkran is the most important day in the Thai calendar, and it's really such an honor that we're able to bring three of the best Thai chefs cooking in America today together.

And this is actually the first time that they're collaborating.

JET: All right, two or three packs of mushrooms and the limes.

Thank you so much.

All right, Roger, thank you.

I want to introduce my friend from Thailand, Srimala, who's going to tell us about Thailand Songkran and how you celebrate it with water.

[Speaking Thai] On the occasions of Songkran, I would like to give some blessings for Danielle.

Could you please -- Yeah.

I would like to give you good health, good luck, and have a great success throughout the year.

CHANG: Thank you.

Am I supposed to put this over my face?

-SRIMALA: Yeah.

-Okay.

What does this gesture represent?

It's just, when you have some blessings from the elderly persons, it means that it comes to you all.

-CHANG: You want to receive.

-Right, yeah, right.

-All the blessings, yeah.

-CHANG: I love this.

Thank you for adding this to our dinner.

Sawasdee Ka.

I know everybody's hungry, so let's bring out the canapes.

This is Pichet's shrimp toast.

MAN: Do you want one?

-That's really, really good.

-Yeah.

It's, like, his modern take on a traditional Hong Kong shrimp toast, with lots of butter.

I know that this is Jet's dish.

You know, I wish I could tell you more about this, but, hopefully, the chef -- JET: Well, I can do that myself if you want me to.

-CHANG: Oh!

Chef Jet!

-How's it going, everybody?

For my appetizer course, it's a very fancy Thai canape.

It's called Miang Kum.

On a betel leaf, we have an assortment of all the Thai flavors -- so, coconut, ginger, you have lime, little bit of dried shrimp, and on the top, we tie that all together with a palm-sugar jam.

You want to take a rounded side and fold it over itself.

And what happens when you do that is it becomes a cone.

Then, you just kind of put it in your mouth and enjoy those flavors there.

So, there you go.

-Bon appétit, everybody.

-CHANG: Thank you so much.

You bet.

MAN: Don't think my fold was quite as good.

[Laughter] CHANG: The thing with Thai food is, the visuals are such a major part of the cuisine, right?

Here she is!

I brought you some delicious food inspired by hometown of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

How is everybody, so far?

CHANG: Really good.

What did you bring?

HONG: It's Laab Muang.

So, I put in pork liver.

And I fry Kaffir lime leaves on the top and have some chili chips, chili paste that I put in, like, 10 different herbs and a lot of, you know, greens, for you to have it as a condiment.

CHANG: Well, thank you.

HONG: Thank you so much.

MAN: Do you want the vegetables?

CHANG: So, I was reading up on this dish, and apparently, like, the Northern style is a bit different because there's not as much access to meat.

Pichet!

Whoo!

[Cheers and applause] Yay!

Jet!

Whoo!

-MAN: Bravo!

-CHANG: Oh, my God, so, how was it, cooking today in the James Beard House?

It's really hard cooking with two prima donnas, I guess.

[Laughter] It's not very easy.

CHANG: I don't think we had enough food -- what's next?

PICHET: For the last course, we have coconut custard pie with pineapple and Kaffir lime.

CHANG: What was your inspiration?

PICHET: Well, I draw inspiration from all my favorite ingredients and not Thai desserts, per se, but Thai cuisine.

So, I have pineapple, coconut, and Kaffir lime.

CHANG: You're spoiling us.

You guys, it's been such an amazing dinner.

Well, it's a big celebration that revolves around food and water.

CHANG: Yeah?

We have a surprise for Danielle.

Happy New Year!

[Laughter] CHANG: Thank you for the blessing!

[Laughs] JET: It's a blessing.

It really is.

I swear.

[Laughter] CHANG: Cookies, anybody?

MAN: Oh, yeah!

[Phone plays sound of camera shutter] Through my journey across the country, I've learned how Thai food has evolved beyond the beloved pad Thai and chicken satay that I grew up with.

Thanks to these passionate chefs and others, we're all beginning to understand the distinctions between regional Thai dishes.

Through food, we're not only expanding our palates but also our cultural horizons.

ANNOUNCER: To learn more about "Lucky Chow," please visit luckyrice.com.

Funding for "Lucky Chow" has been provided by... From the kitchen to the grill, Soy Vay sauces and marinades add an Asian twist to your favorite dishes.

[ Bell dings ] Recipes and more are available at soyvay.com.

MAN: The way of Thai -- our way of unique happiness, and it begins with the people.

ANNOUNCER: And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.