Our local food court makes Pad Thai with a special sauce. It's always perfectly salty. Makes my tongue a little numb.

Ok, I was in living Thailand the past 2 years, I ate so much real Pad Thai that I almost hate it now (not really, just need a break) proper Phat Thai uses fish sauce for the salty taste and oyster sauce for the sweet/sour.

Just about all Thai food is cooked with fish and oyster sauce, they pumped full of super hot chilies.

Phat Ka Prao, Larp Mu and Tom Yam Deng are where the REALLY good flavors are. Pad Thai is just the one that isn't too spicy for western pussies.

No, you're a pussy.

Kee Nok!

I always have my trusty Red Boat fish sauce whenever I cook anything from Southeast Asia. It's only ingredients are anchovy oil and salt. That's all you need.

Fun fact: Fish sauce was the most popular condiment throughout the Roman Empire!

If I add sugar to stir fry or noodles, it's to offset too much "warm spice" (turmerics and the like). It usually doesn't need it. I think rice vinegar and lime make enough sweetness, and oyster sauces are packed with sugar, but that's just me.

I noticed since I've been back in the states that the soy is saltier and the oyster sauce is more sugary then what I normally found of in Asia. Even going to the Asian supermarket and getting Hong Kong brands, it's WAY more overbearing a flavor to cook with than what I typically had over there.

I'm slowly cutting it all back to find the balance, but Jesus, the Phat ka Prao Mu (pork) I made last week tasted like candied fish thanks to overdoing the mix.

Another fun fact, cursory internet searching reveals that the Dali Lama is not vegetarian.

Thai food is Chinese food with loads of coconut milk.

No, no, no. Pad Thai is ramen noodles that come in a box, which you douse in peanut sauce after microwaving for thirty seconds.

Thai food is like Chinese food, except it's good and is not Chinese.

As if his job is cooking for people and what they think of the food. smh

Right, BUT, if offered meat, they're supposed to take it out of thankfulness.

Depends on their vows, also. The Dalai Lama asserts that he eats some meat "for health reasons."

Buddhist monks are not universally vegetarian. Almost all Tibetan Buddhists who live in Tibet are not.

Interesting. When I lived with a few Tibetan monks for a time after college, they were all vegetarian and told me that it was a central tenet as part of the whole causing no harm part of the Dharma. I assumed it was like that for all monks/nuns.

I had a Tibetan Geshe who ate meat when I was studying Mahayana. Maybe they meant in their order? There are 4 major schools and over a dozen minor schools of Tibetan Buddhism... Vows differ, but most monks & nuns are vegetarian and celibate.

Not all Buddhist momks are vefetarian. I think there are certainly some monks tgat are vegetarian in every culture, but I think most Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, China are not.

My brother in law is a Tibetan and was educated in a monastery, so I can shed a little light on this. According to him, Buddhists are supposed to be vegetarian as much as possible, but the Tibetan diet revolves around yaks so that's not really possible for them. He rationalizes it by saying that yaks are big animals and one feeds a whole lot of people. I don't know if that's an official rationalization or his personal philosophy.

Now that he's in America, he still won't eat small animals, like chickens, but I think that might just be him rather than an official tenet of the Tibetan brand of Buddhism. According to my sister, it might also be his excuse for being a picky eater.

I saw a Tibetan on TV once. I don't recall him eating meat, but he was only on screen for a minute or so.

I had a Tibetan once, he was the cutest thing in the world, but one day when we were moving into the new house he got frightened and ran out into the street and got hit by a car.

The lime wedges. Tacky.

Yep.