Restaurant: Shana Thai
City: Mountain View, CA

Several coworkers and I went to a Thai restaurant near work for lunch yesterday. I had the pumpkin curry with chicken. Pumpkin curry is basically yellow curry with pumpkin. Some Westerners might think freshly chopped pumpkin isn’t edible as it’s typically used for carving into Jack-o’-lanterns as a Halloween decoration. Did you know that there are green pumpkins as well? They’re green on the outside, but orange on the inside (see the second photo below). The green pumpkins are also known as kabocha.

Shana Thai’s pumpkin curry consisted of bamboo shoots, pumpkin, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, asparagus, bell pepper, and sweet basil with your choice of protein (beef, chicken, pork, salmon). There was also the taste of coconut milk in the curry.

Some info about yellow curry, from Wikipedia:

Yellow curry (แกงกะหรี่,) is one of three major kinds of Thai curry that are commonly found in Thai restaurants in the West. There are other curry types in Thai cuisine, several of which are yellow. Pre-packaged curry powder of Indian origin is sometimes also referred to as yellow curry in Western countries but is a different blend of spices from Thai yellow curry.

Thai Yellow curry, outside Thailand, usually refers to the Thai-Muslim dish kaeng kari. This curry is richer and creamier than other Thai curries, since coconut cream is used in addition to coconut milk. This richer curry tends to tone down the overall spiciness of the dish, hence its popularity on menus outside of Thailand. The primary spices in kaeng kari are cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, garlic, salt, bay leaf, lemongrass, cayenne pepper, ginger, mace and cinnamon. Sometimes a touch of palm sugar or a similar sweetener will be added, depending on the sweetness of the coconut milk.

Thai yellow curry can be made with duck, chicken, shrimp, fish or vegetables (squash, sweet potato, or pumpkin) and is eaten with steamed rice or round rice noodles known as khanom chin.