Foods: Surin West Thai restaurant

Saturday night my family and I went out to eat at Surin West in Five Points. It was the first time I’d ever eaten there. I’ve had a bit of Thai food before, but not much, and I wasn’t sure how authentic it was. We ordered a couple plates of Thai noodles (or “phad thai”), which is the only Thai food that I have had before, a plate of chicken masaman with avocado, a plate of a variety of vegetables in Thai sauce, and fried rice. All of the food that we ordered was delicious. I’d heard a lot about Surin’s before, and many people I’ve talked to have referred to it as one of the more authentic Thai restaurants around Birmingham. It was great food and a great experience. I’d love to go back again.

It’s hard to say whether eating at a certain culture’s restaurant should be considered similar or different than my own culture, because food tends to cross cultural boundaries more easily than other things. For example, “American food” might invoke images of hot dogs and hamburgers, yet, if you ask a handful of Americans what different kinds of foods they eat, you’re likely to get a handful of completely different answers from each. “Foreign” foods are becoming less and less foreign worldwide. So I guess that I could say eating Thai food is different from my non-Thai culture, but it is becoming more and more similar as different culture’s foods spread throughout the world.

Hearing that Surin’s was one of Birmingham’s more authentic Thai restaurants, I envisioned that the restaurant itself would be smaller and more casual, and that it would have a larger percentage of Asians than non-Asians. I was surprised to see that it was a larger, fancier restaurant with a mostly Caucasian population. I think there’s a stereotype that most of the different ethnic/cultural restaurants within the States are not very authentic, because food has to become “Americanized” (think fortune cookies or Chinese buffet) for Americans to appreciate it; however, eating at Surin’s made me wonder if more Americans than we realize are actually looking for more and more authentic “foreign” foods.

I don’t know that there’s one particular Anthropological term that I can relate all of this to, but I believe it can be compared to the way that anthropologists attempt to understand not only cultures, but also the blending and meshing of different cultures as they come together. It’s interesting to see parts of different cultures like fashion, music, or in this case food, travel across cultural boundaries as they are embraced by people of other ethnicities in different countries all over the world. It’s also interesting how a place such as Surin West in southside Birmingham can be a representation of two cultures: A little taste of Thai culture in downtown Birmingham, as well as a picture of a newer broader culture forming in America as pieces other cultures from all over the world are incorporated into our own.