Oodles of good food from a truly Thai kitchen
There’s something about Thai food that titillates the palate and stirs the soul. It’s at once salty, sweet, sour, and pungent. Its hot chile peppers can set the tongue on fire. The good Thai-dings is that you can have a taste of authentic Thai homecooking at Oody’s Thai Bar & Restaurant at
Thai chef Thepsuwan Songkhon, using only the freshest ingredients and the best Thai spices, shares his burning passion for good homecooked food via signature dishes he’s created for Oody’s Thai Bar & Restaurant. First, he awakens our jaded taste buds with his crispy mango salad (green mango zest with lemon on top of fried catfish). And then he revs up our appetite with his tom yam talei (hot and sour seafood soup with coconut milk, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, mushroom, and tomatoes). Having gassed up for this gustatory trip, we can’t wait for some real hot action as chef Songkhon dishes up the specialties of the house — some of the best the Thai kitchen can offer. Those who prefer chicken to pork can go lean with the real mean — simply excellent — chicken lemongrass (deep-fried lightly marinated chicken liberally laced with aromatic lemongrass and served with Thai sweet chili sauce), Oody’s best-selling signature dish. Of course, if pork is your dish, there’s pad kee mao (sauteed pork with freshly crushed Thai peppers, basil leaves, and garlic in mild soya sauce).
Speaking of peppers, if you’re not really into hot food, fear not. Because at Oody’s, you can choose how spicy you want your food to be. Everything can be tempered to suit your tolerance for chili-hot stuff. For instance, the pad kee mao (stir-fried minced pork, much like our giniling na tortang baboy) that’s ordinarily super hot because of the freshly crushed hot peppers can be toned down, if you like.
Here’s a hot tip: On Thai food’s five-pepper scale, medium hot is enough to bring tears to your eyes and make you sweat (or even swear). For the fearless souls who wouldn’t think twice about going for the max (that is, the five peppers), they’d probably need a gallon of water to put out the fire — or they may have to send for a firetruck.
Oody’s also carries a heartwarming selection of currry dishes (seafood, pork, chicken, beef, noodles) cooked with yellow, green or real hot red curry paste.
“We get all our spices straight from
Boasting the real deal in Thai food, how come Oody’s is very affordable, compared to the other pricey Thai restaurants (where I guess you have to pay extra for the ambience)?
“We buy our ingredients in bulk and whatever savings we make, we pass on to our customers,” says Maritel, who does not only count her blessings but shares them, too. “We have even increased our portions. We have noodle dishes that serve as one-dish meals, which can be shared by two to three persons.”
But of course, Oody’s got oodles of delicious noodle dishes. Of the fried noodles, a great favorite is the pad thai shrimp (rice noodles with tiger prawns, stir-fried with bean sprouts, tofu, egg in tamarind sauce with ground peanuts on the side). Of the noodle soups, quite popular is the Sukothai soup (Thai rice noodles with tofu, bean sprouts, minced pork, pork balls, roasted pork, hibe, string beans, dried radish, fried garlic, chili powder, white pepper, white sugar, lemon extract, fish sauce).
Curry lovers will love the Spaghetti in Chicken & Yellow Curry (stir-fried noodles in yellow curry and light cream). Now, it’s getting really hot in here.
We’re told that the best way to enjoy Thai food is to take a spoonful of one dish and then a spoonful of another, and then savor the sensuous interplay of tastes and textures. Which was exactly what I and two of my gal pals Linda Bolido and Chelo Banal did at Oody’s one late, late lunch (or was it merienda?).
The menu at Oody’s is ooh-so-extensive. Think 50 items on the menu, including 15 Thai specialty dishes, 10 fried noodle dishes, 11 noodle soup dishes, 11 rice dishes (from the standard bagoong rice to the crabmeat rice), four Thai grills, and a number of appetizers, salads, and desserts. Good thing there was Oody’s very accommodating branch manager Oscar Nunag who explained some of the dishes to us. He even shared with us the recipe for Oody’s chicken lemon-grass. Or look for the very friendly Ella Fernandez, Oody’s operations manager, who sure knows her onions — and kaffir lime and lemongrass.
There are quite a lot of sauces to go with your choice of dish. I know a lot of people who can’t eat without a dipping sauce or two beside them. At Oody’s, the tamarind sauce that’s topped with ground rice teams up well with the chicken or pork barbecue while its seafood sauce is an incredible companion to the inihaw na pusit. What makes the seafood sauce a hot fave? Why, it’s the chopped siling labuyo that’s added to the mix that includes wansuy, pickled garlic, lemon extract, patis, white sugar, and chopped red bell pepper!
Old hot Thai favorites mix deliciously well with the new look at Oody’s Greenbelt. The fresher, brighter interiors, done by architect Joji Salonga, add spice to an already spicy-hot adventure with Thai food.
But after all that hot stuff, it’s time to cool down with some Thai desserts. A hands-down winner is the Thai halo-halo that consists of freshly cooked ingredients: camote, brown beans, sweet langka, sweetened kalabasa, toddy palm, water chestnuts, and wild barley (yes, no bananas in the Thai halo-halo, unlike ours). And yes, you can eat your Thai halo-halo with coconut milk or evaporated milk. If you like bananas, Oody’s got its kwoi tot banana (fried banana in fruity batter with peanuts and served with vanilla ice cream on top). Or try the taro with sweet potato, and squash balls with sticky rice and tapioca in coconut milk that’s served warm (like our ginatan).
For the hot summer days, Oody’s offers its summer temptations: banana nut shake, strawberry tea shake, and coffee cream shake. Cool!
Now you know why dining at Oody’s will leave you, uh, tongue-Thai-ed.
