Appetizers

Years ago, fellow former Zibite Rich Fox introduced me to this: Miang
Kum or Mienkham (and there's likely more variations on that). To this
day, it's one of my favorite apps, and I order it whenever it shows up
on a menu--rare in the States--so it's nice to experience it in its
country of origin.

It's a DIY kind of thing: take a betel leaf and fold into it ginger,
shallot, peanuts, dried shrimp, lime rind, Thai chili, toasted coconut
and tamarind sauce in roughly equal proportions. Eat it in one bite.
This is important: the experience is about all the flavors coming
together.

When people first encounter it, they usually have the same objections:
the dried shrimp look funny, I don't eat chilis, can you eat the rind?
And there's only one reply: try it. The whole is more than the sum of
its parts.

Like I said, it's hard to find. In San Jose, try House of Siam, though
they substitute lettuce for the betel leaves. Same story in PDX at
Typhoon, but they use spinach, which is closer. In any case, seek it
out.