Portfolio part 1: remix of place essay

The “Ode to Joy”, one of Beethoven’s greatest works that describes the composers unsurpassed joy and gratification. This, symphony of delight is what immediately started to play in my head the first time I tasted TOTT’s, short for Talk of the Thai’s, food.

I remember the first time I walked into TOTT’s, three or four years ago the first thought that came to my mind was “DUCK!” being that I thought that the neon lime green walls of this quaint little hole in the wall Thai food restaurant were about to slap me in the face. Erasing the very surprised look on my face I walked up to the counter and told the hostess that I wanted a table for two. As I sat down I thought how surprising this little Thai food joint was. The restaurant is situated on the corner of Alameda and Garrison (here's a map to get to TOTT's) in the farthest west corner of the small strip mall that occupies the intersection’s southwestern most corner. The outside is flat gray, a little dirty, and can’t be seen from Alameda, at all. I had half expected to be greeted by a drab little Asian restaurant with the lights dimmed, and a bored hostess absently flipping through the channels of his TV. Instead what I see is six lime green walls, an assortment of different shaped lights, some very new age art on the walls, and a smiling Buddha statue that looks like it belongs in the smoke filled basement of some teenage pot head. As I sit down at our clear glass table, with chrome chair accompaniment, I notice more odd things about the restaurant: like how there is a bookshelf full of various blown glass art and how everyone around me has an artfully prepared looking meal.

I was very hungry after seeing all this artsy and delicious Thai food so I started to scan the menu for a tasty looking lunch entrée. My eye was immediately drawn to the fact that in the dessert section of this menu there was no Asian dessert; Neapolitan ice cream, tiramisu, crepes? What kind of Asian restaurant serves only European dessert? My hopes of having a truly exceptional lunch experience had been significantly lowered. So when I choose to order the Mongolian beef I wasn’t expecting much. All show and no go I was thinking as I walked to the bathroom at the end of the one room restaurant. The bathroom was actually one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. It had one of those fancy basin sinks and the whole thing smelled like some exotic fruity fragrance.

After washing my hands and heading back to our table I was happy to see that our food was already there. I thought to myself, this could either mean that my meal was made badly and quickly or that the chef knows what he was doing and that it didn’t take him very long. Sitting down it did look really good. The whole plate was a square shape with folded up edges that made the whole thing look kind of like the building of some Asian palace. Even how the food was arranged on the plate made it look better. The beef was glazed in a delicious looking brown sauce covered with onions and surrounded by broccoli. There was also a sliced and arranged orange in the top right corner above the mound of fried rice that I had ordered with my meal. As I took my first bite of the slightly spicy Mongolian beef I knew this was the best Mongolian beef I had ever tasted.

Since my first time coming to TOTT’s I have tried many and more of their lunch, and dinner entrées. The peanut chicken, the Thai noddle bowl, the orange chicken etc….. And from all this the only conclusion that I can come to is that, TOTT’s is my favorite restaurant and that it has some of the best Asian-Thai food in Denver and maybe all of Colorado. So, if you ever find yourself in the neighborhood, I hope you’ll enjoy the life changing Thai experience that it TOTT’s.