Image: Cooper + Ricca
It looks like a bowl of noodles in curry broth, maybe Thai yellow curry, with a voluptuous body thickened by coconut cream. But dip into the bowl with chopsticks, and you’ll find that the contents are indeed stomach-warming—if not in the way you expected. Daiquiri Time Out’s signature Thai Bowl, an edible cocktail, is chilled and boozy rather than spicy and savory.
The space that now houses DTO at 2701 Market Street in Galveston, across the street from Maceo Spice & Import Company in what was once the island’s red light district, sat vacant for more than 30 years. In July 2016, a pair of Houstonian bartenders, Ian Ramirez and Brad Stringer, brought it back to life.
Since then, the friendly dive with a greenery-filled patio has been reeling them in with deceptively strong frozen daiquiris and creative fare like edible cocktails. Stringer introduced the Thai Bowl on a spring menu, and it’s proven so popular it’s remaining for now. “Everybody has their style of cocktail that they lean toward,” he says. “Mine is light, refreshing, for-the-people cocktails.”
But that doesn’t mean they’re simple. Frequently used molecular ingredients include sodium alginate, liquid nitrogen and the agar-agar that combines with coconut water to form the clear “noodles,” which are hand-cut just like the real thing, textured like a Vietnamese jelly dessert, and taste like coconut, as anticipated. Into the Thai Bowl they go, along with an intense-yellow cocktail mixture made with kicky turmeric-and-ginger-infused syrup, and floral-tinged makrut lime juice. A single lime leaf rises from the “broth,” which is best imbibed in small slurps straight from the bowl.
It all sounds quite delicate—until the fiery smack of the Plantation Original Dark rum hits, reminding patrons that this is not only a cocktail, but a substantial one.
Published in the 100 Years of Houston Weather issue of Houstonia Mag.
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