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Food

A taste of home on Sundays

Along a peaceful river, affordable and delicious food, along with Thai hospitality, await visitors to a weekly food fair at Wat Tampa.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published March 7, 2007

Visitors to Wat Tampa's weekly food fair enjoy their lunch at picnic tables along the Palm River.
	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: ] An Inparawichian, left, and Alex Piamjoroen pour a fresh batch of coconut rice cakes.

PALM RIVER

Only a half-mile off U.S. 41, on any Sunday, the average local may feel disoriented and inclined to ask, "Where am I?"

The palm trees, old ranch houses, picnic tables and parking lot full of MacDill Air Force Base decals are familiar. But there's a large, peaked temple with red eaves and gold dragon prows. Beside the Stars and Stripes, there are red, white and blue in stripes of a different order. On special days there are saffron banners decked with red wheels. And sheriff's deputies to direct traffic.

This is Hillsborough County, and thousands of Thais, Buddhists of all nations, Asian-Americans and anyone who loves Thai food know it as Wat Mongkolratanaram. More simply, it is Wat Tampa, a very special, small patch of country that could be mistaken for a village in southern Thailand.

When it springs to life every Sunday with market stalls and robed monks, chatter and chants, they know that the important question is: "What size rice noodles?"

The noodle stand at the far end of 200 feet of food stalls has thin angel hair noodles, medium fettuccine and hearty broad noodles splayed out in a flat bowl. Pick one, and it starts the assembly of a perfect soup, made right before your eyes.

A tougher question is how many of the coconut rice cakes puff up in the pockets of four big griddles. They are poured one by one by Alex Piamjoroen and six more hands of her friends, plus occasional help from teenagers with goatees and blond streaks.

One pours a teapot of coconut rice batter, then a small ladle of green onion batter for zest. A final delicate move lifts out the pancake puffs and pairs them like a muffin yo-yo.

So how many will it take to fill you up? Six pairs for $2 or a tray full for $5?

Six is the correct answer, and you should plan on sharing. The cakes, kanohm croke in Thai, are rarely seen here, cheap at twice the price and a lovely pop of coconut perked by the onion.

Also, the money goes for a good cause that is evident all around. Much of the temple and grounds have been built with the cash dropped in big bronze pots at every food stall. The stalls themselves surround a gym-sized auditorium, and there's a school building where children can learn Thai in the summer. The just-completed vicarage houses eight monks, and there are various pavilions for altars and sales of calendars, temple-logo shorts and mementos. Last month, pallets of glazed tan tiles delivered from Thailand were set out awaiting a blessing to finish the temple roof.

All for one, one for all

Buddhist temples in other cities with large Thai populations have similar weekly food fairs, yet Tampa's stands out.

"Other communities ask how we can do this and build things so fast," says Amnuay Thambundit, who helps organize the volunteers. All ingredients and labor, plus the proceeds, are donated, an effort that would impress fundraising committees of any congregation.

Many of the dozens of cooks, like John and Porjai Mascarelli, start at 6 a.m. and are ready at 10:30 to serve hundreds of people. Every Sunday.

The temple has been here at least 25 years, according to the embroidered legend on the blue ball cap of a man tending a cooler of soft drinks. Over the years, it has attracted perhaps 1,000 congregants, Thai men and women, some U.S. military veterans, who met their brides overseas years ago, and the next generation that assimilated and married. There's a still younger, diverse group that belong to Hollister Nation and Club Alt showing more flash than the non-Thai foodies in flannels and black T-shirts.

Here, Thai immigrants have re-created their homeland, where temple grounds are more than places of worship. They host markets, erect playgrounds for the kids and operate outdoor kitchens for feeding the monks and serving the public.

Wat Tampa has all these amenities, with bright slides for the kids and women selling fresh lemongrass and pomelos. Instead of a temple pond, there is a pier on the river no fishing; life may not be taken on the grounds, plus altars for incense and offerings. Wat Tampa also transplants gentle Thai hospitality and Buddhist tolerance.

The comforts of home

A dozen tables are set up by the food stalls, and many more are under the palms. Fellowship 5,000 miles from home is special comfort for immigrants and a warm welcome to new neighbors and compatriots.

They come from Brandon, St. Petersburg and even Kissimmee now. Conversation is in both English and Thai and, occasionally, Cambodian or Vietnamese.

Besides rice cakes and soup, there's pad Thai of course, and other hot entrees, lush milky teas, sizzling chicken satay, boxes of cold yum noodles and salads of fresh green papaya, shredded while you watch. Thai or Lao-style? The first is rather sweet; Laotians are partial to the zing of anchovy sauce.

For a sweet finish, there are cakes, puddings and gelatins of beans and exotic fruits, yet the prize desserts come from a big black wok the size of a cauldron bubbling by the noodle stand. Slices of plantains, sweet potatoes and taro root turn gold, the best finger food on this side of the planet.

Exactly how it is done is confidential. Susan Maynard, who owned Thai House in Tampa for 20 years and has cooked goi phad at the temple for half that time, admits to a coating of coconut shreds and sesame seeds fried in boiling oil.

"If I told you, you know I'd have to kill you," she kids and points to Pirojn Tontharadol. It's his recipe, as good as you can get outside Thailand, maybe better. "One woman visiting from Houston had them, went home and called her friend in Ohio and told her they were the best she'd had. That was my wife's cousin. She called us," Tontharadol chuckled.

It is long, but happy, work, for each stall is staffed by a crew of four or five, mostly women, with a few husbands and kids, who have worked together for years. Some wear yellow temple gear trimmed with fashion pink or Burberry plaid, others wear picnic or resort casual, but all are smiling and laughing .

"I have no home," jokes one person shredding papayas. "I work for food." Hardly.

The salad the papayas will make, the noodles, the rice cakes, the fried plantains are noble gifts.

Chris Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or csherman@sptimes.com.

If you go

Wat Tampa food fair

Wat Mongkolratanaram, 5306 Palm River Road, Tampa, is off U.S. 41/50th Street, a half-mile south of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway and State Road 60.

Food is sold Sunday mornings beginning at 10:30 and ends in the afternoon. Prices range from $1 to $5.

For information on the temple, visit www. wattampa.iirt.net/tampa.

[Last modified March 7, 2007, 09:55:25]