Oulu is a city which revels in great international food because of a vibrant foreigner population trying to eke out a living doing small businesses.
Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Greek, Mexican, are some of the good cuisines that are available. Even the best fast food restaurants are run by foreigners.
There has so far been one Thai restaurant run by an enterprising Vietnamese lady, providing quite good Thai dishes.
Now we have Pailin - the Blue Safir, a great new restaurant, run by a Thai couple, which dishes out really great Thai food.
Pailin, which is located in Intiö, is run by a Thai couple.
Pailin and Unnop are the owners.
It is the restaurant where the Thai residents of Oulu go to eat.
(Address: Kenttätie 9, 90240 Oulu. Tel: 08 - 311 6919).
It is advised that you ring and book and also order the food from their web page so that Pailin gets the food ready for you. She likes to give each dish her tender loving care when making it.
My good Chinese friend, Bill Zhang, Annikki and I decided to go there to entertain a business visitor from Gabon. Unfortunately, the Gabonese gentleman was working as per African time, so we had to ditch him.
Our starter was spicy chicken soup Thai style.
We learnt that there is no such thing as starters in Thai food as the soup is eaten alongside the main meal.
The main meal consisted of green curry with beef in coconut milk, fried chicken with cashew nut, and fried mixed vegetables.
Although it is called a curry, unlike Indian curries, there is not an overflowing of liquid. In Thai food the sauce is nice and thick. A small amount on the rice adds a lot of flavour.
I helped myself rather liberally to the freshly made sliced chilli sauce in fish oil, a house speciality. It added a great deal of taste to the already delicious food.
Bill did us a favour by taking a picture of three royal couples!
King and Queen of Thailand, and Unnop
This is an outstanding restaurant, both for food and a fabulous couple who are the host and hostess. Annikki and I have no hesitation in recommending this for a great evening meal.
They also have a Thai buffet for lunch on weekdays.
Oh, by the way, if you are a fast food addict they also serve up good pizzas, kebabs, hamburgers, french fries, and all the different parts that make up a good fast food, at a very reasonable price.
Pailin is a trained restauranter having qualified in Germany. She is also a science teacher by education. Unnop is an arist and does all the artwork for the restaurant.
They are also great parents as their sons, Soda and Sodium. 14-year old Soda a great boy and my good friend.
When I went to pay the bill, Pailin calculated the sum and was intending to charge me substantially lower than what the meal was worth. I got rather angry and told her off for undercharging. I paid her the correct sum.
Just then a Finnish man was at the counter. He heard me complaining. He asked me what was the problem. I told him that they were undercharging us.
He came towards me and said "May I say something - Shadup!"
We roared with laughter as this gentleman was obviously hoping that Pailin would also give him his meal at half price!
No comments:
Post a Comment