Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Drunken Noodles and Pomegranates

The Titanic sunk. The noodles were drunk. And pomegranate juice is everywhere. Disaster X3.

But Thai Tanic, the restaurant, was not a disaster. It was delightful.

Tonight we enjoyed Thai cuisine at the original Thai Tanic location at Logan Circle. The service was prompt, the ambiance very pleasant, and the food very good.

I enjoyed Drunken Noodles, one of my favorite Thai dishes, and Thai Tanic's version (which included some lightly grilled tomato wedges on top of the noodles) was delicious. The portion was large and if I wasn't heading off to the west coast tomorrow morning, I would have taken the remaining 1/2 portion with me. As it was, I was happily satisfied. My dining companions enjoyed shrimp, asparagus and mushrooms in a light red chile sauce, and pad thai (which he proclaimed the best in the DC area of the restaurants where he's sampled Pad Thai).

But as wonderful as the food and ambiance might have been, the best part of the evening was the company. Dining with friends is pretty close to heaven - oddly, a topic of our dinner conversation (but that's another blog entry).

Adedayo Thomas, the pied piper of liberty in Africa (as I like to call him), joined me and my Atlas colleague, Pechwaz Faizulla, for dinner on the at Thai Tanic. Two amazing and brilliant gentlemen, and me. How lucky am I?

Peshwaz is the editor of Chiraiazadi.org, the Kurdish website and the managing editor of Cheragheazadi.org, the Persian website. Prior to beginning this work, he was managing editor of Hawlati, the highest circulation newspaper in northern Iraq, and on the editorial board of the independent news agency, Voices of Iraq. He received his BA in English from Suliemany University, and his MS in Journalism from Columbia University in New York. Little did I know that Peshwaz is also a YouTube cooking instructor, specializing in opening a pomegranate in this video! Although, I shouldn't be surprised, he is a chef in his own right (I have sampled his cooking and he could open his very own restaurant if he wasn't so dedicated to liberty!)

Adedayo is an affiliate of AfricanLiberty.org as well as its publisher. Adedayo is affiliated with the Free Africa Foundation and IMANI Center for Policy and Education based in Ghana. Through the activities of Africanliberty.org, Adedayo promotes libertarian ideas in the core Islamic institutions of northern Nigerian states. I met Adedayo 2 years ago at the Atlas TTMBA training in Virginia. He was as amazing then as now. This morning he was our guest speaker for Atlas's Liberty Cafe and shared the experiences of being a troubadour for liberty throughout the African continent. What an amazing leader of liberty he is.

And then there's me. A redheaded grandma ;).  Like I said. How lucky am I? Very lucky.

Try Thai Tanic, I think you will be very pleased with what you find, but I can't guarantee your dinner companions to be as entertaining as mine. I'll leave that to you.

Bon appetit. (And good luck with your next pomegranate!)

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