Our next stop is in Goldsboro, where a local restaurant is combining authentic Thai cuisine with fresh ingredients to create something truly special.

Producer Seraphim Smith digs in.

♪ - While Goldsboro is well known for the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, the arts in Goldsboro is taking off, attracting visitors and residents to downtown with eateries, murals and outdoor sculpture.

Center Street has plenty to wet your palate.

But my favorite art of the edible variety is just down the road, and yet thousands of miles away.

A husband and wife, Larry and Pick Balliou, along with her Thai sisters, have been delighting customers for over 10 years.

People love their authentic curry and so much more.

The tom kha that you all make is my favorite tom kha - Mine too.

All her recipes are that way.

My wife is adamant about producing food that she grew up with.

Everything she made for me at home was phenomenal.

I would invite friends over, they would eat her food, and they're like, "Man, you guys need to open a restaurant."

- Speaking about the food that she grew up with, the papaya salad that her mom made.

- That's a cool story, you want to hear it?

- I do.

- Okay, I'm going to tell you.

Her mom in Thailand sold papaya salad to Thais, and if you can sell a papaya salad to a Thai, you're doing pretty good.

And all four of her daughters went to college to have degrees, and she paid for those colleges by selling papaya salad on the street to Thai people.

The Thai community is small, so they're really tight.

They're very, I don't want to say secretive, but they don't need to look at a recipe.

This is how I grew up making it.

- They're DNA, right?

- Yeah, it's in their DNA.

They know what they're doing.

So trying to get that information out of them is not always easy.

So... - Well, I don't want to give away your secrets, but I am interested in finding out a lot about the ingredients and the methods and how maybe some of the flavors are obtained.

- If I had to go back there and do it, we probably wouldn't be in business right now.

- So it's good that you do the dishes then.

- Yeah (laughs).

- It starts with lime leaves, tamarind, palm sugar, and salt, steeped in coconut broth overnight.

- We're going to turn the heat up.

We're going to pour in the coconut milk in here.

I already pre-made it.

We're going to go next with galangal.

And then we're going to go next with lemon grass in here.

- Is that a lime leaf I see in there?

- Yeah, the lime leaves too.

When I do the best, we're going to cook with salt, sugar, tamarind juice, and then kaffir lime, or lemon leaves.

Yeah.

After that, we're going to put protein.

So we're going to do with chicken today, white meat chicken.

Okay.

Next, we're going to do all the vegetables.

They come with a tom kha.

We have mushroom, onion, and tomato.

So we throw in here.

You see, when the heat up like this, all the galangal, and lemon glass, they're cooking, and then you smell them now.

You smell really good when they're cooking.

- Yeah.

They heat up now, and then now, okay, we pretty much done.

We're going to put in the pot, and then we heat up on the bottom with the light candle.

It smells good.

Aroma from the galangal and lemon grass.

Cilantro, - Uh-huh.

- And chopped green onion.

You're going to put on here.

Smells so good.

- Yeah?

- Oh, it's my favorite.

This is the way how it is a tom kha.

I use chili oil.

Yeah.

Get the color, but it's not the spice taste.

Just a color.

Yeah, make it pretty.

- It's very pretty.

[light Thai music in background] It takes just over a minute for the wok's molten crucible to transform the Thai flavors of sweet, sour, and salty into smoky, complex, mouthwatering umami.

[sizzling] - A lot of people will call it krapow.

It's a Thai basil, and I probably eat it at least four times a week.

- I can tell you're salivating.

I just saw that.

- (laughs) It's a good stuff.

- Everything's home cooked, and it's really great, especially the weeping tiger.

It's their steak and the special sauce that they make.

I always have to get two tubs.

- Well, I especially love the orange chicken because it comes with rice and everything.

Everything on the menu with the tofu is amazing.

Now I'm addicted, and I'm here all the time.

- The aromas coming off of this food are just so tantalizing.

I can't wait to dig in.

What do you suggest we go for first?

- So this one, the khao soi over here, is something you cannot find anywhere else.

Coconut milk, palm sugar, and tamarind paste makes up the base of it.

And then you have the egg noodles.

And then you have the fresh bean sprouts, the fried noodles, red onion, cilantro, and a little bit of lime, put a little squeeze on there.

- Mm, mm mm mm.

- Yeah, that tamarind paste gives that a different kind of flavor, especially when you get the coconut milk in there.

- It's such a unique sweet and sour at the same time, you know?

- It's the balance.

It's that dance.

- What's been the reaction of the Goldsboro community to your restaurant?

- The community, like we started never dreaming that we were going to be able to expand to three or four restaurants, an Asia mini mart, a boba shop.

Like that was never part of the plan.

But to see the community support us in such a way that we've been able to grow and provide more offerings and different offerings, it's mind blowing, you know?

Try to do the right thing, treat people how I want to be treated, and go from there.

- Sounds like you have a recipe that's working for you.

- We're going to tie it.

(laughs) - Well on that note, I'm going to let myself out.

Before I go, I want to encourage you to try a new to you Thai dish or to experiment in your own kitchen with Thai ingredients and techniques.

A world of incredible flavor awaits you.

- Nai Thai 2 is at 1804 North Berkeley Boulevard in Goldsboro.

For more information about their menu and hours, visit naithai.com.