Gorilla Gourmet/Spoon Thai trailer

Note: due to server sapce limitations this has since been removed.

Apropos of the Spoon Thai mention earlier today, I put together a quick "trailer" of some moments from the next Gorilla Gourmet production, Secret Thai Menus.

This two-minute trailer shows only moments from the Spoon Thai portion of the shoot, since we're still shooting the rest. When finished it will cover multiple restaurants and places to buy authentic Thai ingredients, as well as tips on what booze to swill with Thai food and other cool stuff.

It also puts some faces to a few of the names here, as you will see Vital Information helping out in the kitchen, David Hammond introducing papaya salad, Justjoan talking about why there are secret menus, Pdaane grabbing some papaya salad while Justjoan talks, Seth Zurer talking about making noses bleed, Cathy2 introducing banana blossom salad, G Wiv working up the nerve to eat ant eggs and, best of all, the back of DicksonD's head.

Warning: it's a 17MB download. So be aware of that if you're on dialup, maybe you'd like to let it download while you're fixing dinner or something. (Needless to say, this is a highly compressed and teeny version, the final will be in gorgeous, full-frame and motion, regular TV-style video.)

Anyway, to download, click here.

The trailer look great and instantly made me want to go to Spoon. I'm headed home from my extended road trip in the A.M. and this will be one of my first stops. I think I'll skip the Ant larve, though.

SteveZ

I think I'll skip the Ant larve, though

FYI: the Ant Eggs were brought by a friend of ours, so these are just not beyond-the-secret menu stuff available for asking. They were also very neutral tasting with a chewy texture. Not a big sensory challenge.

Gwiv

I found the ant eggs themselves, both at Spoon Thai and Nhu Hoa, to be neutral in flavor, though the two preparations were quite different. At Spoon Thai the ant eggs were lightly simmered, retaining more of their natural shape texture, they slightly popped when ate, not unlike caviar. Nhu Hoa stir-fried the ant larva in a wok, which gave them a firmer, almost dense texture. Erik M commented they had an almost kasha (buckwheat groats) like texture/flavor.

Top photo (by G Wiv)--Ant egg preparation at Soon Thai
Bottom --Ant Egg preparation at Nhu Hoa


Full earlier discussion can be found at:
http://www.chowhound.com/midwest/boards/chicago/messages/42299.html

If you are into interesting visuals, the eggs when inspected under brighter lights than at Spoon are translucent. You could make out an outline of the developing Ant. They very much reminded me of the space visitors at the conclusion of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Regards,
Cathy2

We three (Amata,' Mac Antonius' and I) loved the trailer and I'm looking forward to the completed film with baited-breath (not sure what kind of bait is involved; perhaps Moss Bunker*)... DicksonD seems to be stealing the show so far but both Lucantonius and I are hoping for a cameo performance for the Gorilla...

Thanks too for the stills, C2; those eggies look deceptively appetising (what else is in the dish?)... In any event, though, I don't have the courage Gary displayed in the film... To quote myself (Safe Southside spago):
"One man's grub is another man's larva."


A

*Moss Bunker: New Netherland (New Jersey/New York) name for the Menhaden, an exceedingly oily and smelly fish used industrially and for bait. We used to use it with great success to catch crabs.

Mike,

I hope I am not having a moment of techno-weeniness. I downloaded the trailer in less than a minute, then I attempted to open/play it but my computer fails to open something with a '.qt' extension, which apparently an Apple-MAC extension. What do you suggest?

Regards,
Cathy2

You need the quicktime movie player to view the trailer. You can download it here. If you already have it, then I'm not sure why you can't open the file.

Hi,

I downloaded the Quicktime Movie Player and successfully viewed the trailer ... Thanks!

Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:SteveZ

I think I'll skip the Ant larve, though

FYI: the Ant Eggs were brought by a friend of ours, so these are just not beyond-the-secret menu stuff available for asking. They were also very neutral tasting with a chewy texture. Not a big sensory challenge.

Cathy,

As you may remember, I had the opportunity to sample some of the leftovers at our chow event at the Mexican restaurant in HP the next night, so my refusal to try them again comes from actually having given it the 'ole college try. They weren't distasteful...just not my cup of tea.