The dinners so far

Some of my favorite meals along the Mekong last year were in Cambodia and Laos. This dinner is my way of sharing those flavors here in Brooklyn. This menu took more testing than anything I've cooked for these dinners. The amok went through more than five versions before it set the way it should.

I grew up partly in Kuala Lumpur, and if I could only keep one cuisine it would be this one. Nasi lemak off a banana leaf on the sidewalk, laksa on a hot afternoon.

This is the food my mom made for homesick Burmese kids when we first got to the States, and the food I miss most.