Saturday, December 17, 2005

Why Yen Ta Fo?

First of all, yen ta fo is my favorite dish. It has its roots among the Chinese immigrants of Southeast Asia. At its simplest yen ta fo consists of fresh rice noodle, pak boong (water morning glory)and fish balls in a red-colored broth with fried garlic oil, fish sauce, vinegar, sugar and red chili sauce. At its most complex you can have fried tofu, calamari, shrimp, white fungus, duck's blood, fried wonton and fish cake. This dish sums me up pretty much - simple and complex, all rolled up in one package.

6 Comments:

At May 10, 2007 11:41 PM, Blogger Aariq said...

So why is the broth red? I ate all sorts of crazy things in noodles when I was in Thailand, but I was always a little wary of the pink broth because I could never figgure out what it was. It's not pork blood--I definitely had pork blood in noodles, which is delicious, but not pink.

 
At March 21, 2008 5:42 PM, Blogger WackyFiasco said...

I'm pretty sure it is due to the fermented red bean curd paste that is used. Stinky, yummy goodness!

 
At April 15, 2008 5:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe it's duck's blood.

I always eat this soup whenever I'm sick. It's great! Very restorative.

 
At January 11, 2009 2:20 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Fermented red bean it is. You got it. Simple, but not easy to get it right. The only place can make it real good is New Krung Thai on N. Winchester in San Jose. Their Yen Ta Fo is almost as good as in Thailand.

 
At July 26, 2010 12:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chiang Mai in Portland, OR makes an amazing Northern Thai version.

 
At June 28, 2011 8:22 AM, Anonymous Zach said...

I just ate this in BKK recently
http://gotbangkok.com/2011/06/28/yentafo-krueng-songe/
was delicious!!!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home