The other night, Dan and I went with a friend (BW) to a Chinese restaurant in North Pole, which is a suburb of Fairbanks (located to the South of it!). The restaurant was BW's suggestion; he had tried it before and liked it. I admire BW's spunk. Most people from areas with not many Chinese people wouldn't have the courage to recommend a small-town Chinese restaurant to a Chinese person!
The place is called The Pagoda. Here is their website. It actually was pretty good. I've long said that I do not mind Americanized Chinese food, because, hey, what am I but an Americanized Chinese person? It's actually quite good, because it eliminates the elements of Chinese food that do not appeal to my Western tastebuds (e.g., chicken feet, tiny dried shrimp, excessive oil, shrimp that are not deveined). The menu featured entirely Americanized Chinese favorites such as broccoli beef, deep fried wontons, chicken chow mein, hot and sour soup, lemon chicken. But all of it was quite good, for what it was. I did wish they would have had some noodle soup, though!
There is also a pho house in Fairbanks, which advertises with a big sign on the street proclaiming "hot noodle soup" and who can resist that? It was really quite good, although they lacked the fresh herbs. But the broth base was on target. It does not have a website nor a review on Yelp, so no link will be posted here, but it is called "Little Saigon," and it hosts a booth at the Farmer's Market in Summer, where it sells Chinese food.
There are also about fifteen Thai restaurants, and almost all of them are excellent and on a par with anything you'd find in the Bay Area. And they are all staffed by Thai people who barely speak English. Where did they come from? What are they doing here? I can't figure it out.
3 comments:
That's pretty wacky. I wouldn't have guessed a large Thai population. Geez, imagine immigrating from warm, tropical Thailand to freakin Alaska. That's pretty harsh.
So what kinds of food can you get up there that you -can't- find down here in the bay area? I'm sure they don't sell seal at the local supermarket, but there must be a ton of local, interesting foods, right?
I so envy you!!
How I miss our Thai restaurant! The owners were wonderful. It was damaged during Hurricaine Ivan and never reopened. There's another Thai place in town, but it's not as good.
Good local foods? Well, the area is of course known for salmon, but I got pretty darned good salmon at the fish counter at Draeger's, so that's not so much to me. What is special here to me is the potatoes, carrots, and cruciferous vegetables, the latter of which we can only get in Summer. The locally-grown Alaskan potatoes and carrots, which taste like heaven and were probably grown by magic elves with fairy dust, are for some reason I cannot fathom available in the supermarket year-round. There are also the local berries, which are seriously the best on earth. I could not believe how absolutely amazing my blueberry pies came out last summer. Wowza, they were wonderful! :P We also have Alaskan King Crab legs for ten bucks a pound! Weirdly enough, though, the one thing I'll miss the most when I leave here is Moosetard! I'll probably bring twenty jars of mustard back down with me! I eat that with EVERYthing nowadays!
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