07/29/2010

The Bitter Person’s Yen Ta Fo

Pretty fly for a bitter guy

What is that saying again? When a door closes, a window cracks ever-so-slightly open? Oh, that’s not it? Maybe not in your case …

It’s the end of the summer holidays for me, and how better to mark this than a week full of (tearful) good-byes, (headache-inducing) family dramas, a panic-stricken rush to meet a (self-imposed but unbreakable) deadline, and a handful of (missed) career opportunities? Yay, this week! Frankly, it’s enough to send me rushing off to my kinesiologist. But not before I write this post. Because at least I. Have. This. Blog. Yes.

Maybe this is what the Noodle Nazi is thinking. What, you don’t know the Noodle Nazi? That’s what locals call him, naming him after the “Soup Nazi” from that Seinfeld episode (and whose restaurant was a few blocks away from my apartment in New York, when I lived there, eons ago). Here in Bangkok, there is a man hatched from the Soup Nazi’s own formidable mold, who runs a yen ta fo cart on most days on Saladaeng Soi 2. The shop/cart: JC Yen Ta Fo. The man: I don’t know. Hence the name “Noodle Nazi”.

Maybe his mother keeps pestering him about his daily schedule, and his editors aren’t interested in his story ideas. Maybe all his friends live abroad and he only gets to see them once a year. Maybe his snotty emails about Thai restaurants in five-star hotels are always being misinterpreted. And maybe he can’t find his kinesiologist’s number. In any case, when you meet up with him, you better know your order: sen mee or sen lek? With broth or without? And tell him fast, because there is a whole big backlog of customers waiting and the lunch hour rush is just around the corner, damnit!

Last time we were there, we were chastised for eating an order that did not rightfully belong to us (okay, maybe we deserved that one). But Noodle Nazi’s words earned the eternal enmity of my mother, who has become his sworn enemy and will never set foot on Saladaeng Soi 2 forevermore. As for me, well, I keep going back for the same old abuse. It’s eerily similar to being a freelance journalist. I am glad to fulfill this role for him. Because at least. He. Has. This. Noodle. Cart.

JC Yen Ta Fo, purveyor of excellent pink seafood noodles

The noodles themselves? Well, they may play a role in my going back as well. A bewitching mix of light soy sauce, lime juice, palm sugar and salted soybean paste, chunks of fried tofu, blanched morning glory, fish meatball and the occasional squid tentacle: what’s not to love when it comes to pink seafood noodles? And these come in perfect proportions, in every bowl! Always something to aspire to!

The excellence of these noodles inspires hope. Hope to keep on, keeping on. Hope to continue being me. While I lack the expertise to open my own noodle cart (unless there is demand for a spaghetti bolognese cart anytime soon), I can continue to set my fingers to this keyboard and type utter nonsense, railing against the insipid food served at Thai restaurants in five-star hotels, waiting for that window to crack open a little bit more.

(Pictures by @SpecialKRB)

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07/26/2010

Thai Dessert Tacos: Shrimpy goodness

Persimmon and egg kanom bueang

Kanom bueang are thin crepes dotted with a thick, marshmallow fluff-like cream, festooned with a variety of toppings — from super-sweet (persimmon) to crunchy-salty (dried shrimp) — and folded in half for easy, distracted, walking-down-the-street-and-staring-into-the-sky-type dining. They can be an acquired taste (shrimp + marshmallow fluff = some, uh, getting used to) but if you keep an open mind, you can see how blurring the line between salty and sweet can end up amplifying and more clearly defining both kinds of flavors.

Now courtesy of @SpecialKRB, you can see how they are made. No room for butterfingers here!

(Video taken from in front of Rungrueang pork egg noodle shop on Sukhumvit Soi 26)

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07/22/2010

Road trip up north, Part Deux

Before I lull you back to sleep with my blatherings on how I spent the past weekend, I wanted to show you what Northern food really should look like, thanks to @SpecialKRB’s great pics.

Goniew in Nakhon Sawan's stewed duck

Last of the khao soy at Khao Soy Islam in Lampang

Nam ngiew at the incomparable Pa Suk in Chiang Rai

Pa Suk's khao ganjin

Whenever I go up north, I always make sure that I have both khao soy and kanom jeen nam ngiew – they are like the bookends to Northern Thai food: one fatty and rich, the other dense and pungent. To my mind, Chiang Mai has the best khao soy (the stalls in Chiang Rai are far too bland), but the only place to have nam ngiew is Pa Suk in Chiang Rai, where it’s made properly, with few tomatoes and with plenty of chili.

Contemplating a vat of beef nam ngiew

A trip home also isn’t the same without a gigantic breakfast of deep-fried pork, young crushed green chilies (nam prik num) with accompanying boiled veggies, saa pak made of a young fern available only during the rainy season, Northern Thai sausage (the famous sai oua), and macerated roasted eggplant, a Northern Thai version of baba ghanoush (the thum kanoon, or pounded young jackfruit, wasn’t available for some reason. And we had to actually steal the pork larb from the elders’ table). I love these dishes and actively seek them out whenever I am anywhere that claims to serve Northern Thai food.

Northern breakfast buffet

What we did not actively seek out, but what managed to find us, courtesy of a highway-side minimart: an appalling line of new-flavored Pringles chips that will set your hair on end. Tasting like a mix between bubble gum and room deodorizer, these chips (which are, no doubt, only available in Thailand) riff on the Thai fondness for the borderline between salty-sweet: lemon-sesame, blueberry-hazelnut, and most horrifying of all, softshell crab. It was the first, second, and third times, respectively, I was unable to finish a single potato chip.

In your darkest nightmares

A blow to the tastebuds to be sure, but we rebounded in Tak with a riverside trip to Kieng Thai, a lovely open-air restaurant popular with whisky-swilling local officials and famed for its clear — and authentic — spicy lemongrass soup, or thom yum (I’m no fan of coconut milk in the broth). Also devoured: tiny deep-fried Thai sardines, lightly poached fish with a lime-chili dipping sauce, a spicy-tart yum (salad) of mushrooms and raw fermented pork (naem), a whole river catfish and stir-fried morning glory with chilies.

Lunchtime in Tak

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07/22/2010

Road trip up north, Part I

Waiting on a bowl of noodles in Nakhon Sawan

A terrible, unexpected thing happened that necessitated a trip up north (what a horrible sentence, I know. It will have to make do). What this … happening … underlined was that, if you can forgive the old saw, life is short, and that it should be spent doing the things that make you and the people you love happy.

So that is what we did. Maybe this was just an elaborate rationalization that people like us concoct in order to feel good about eating our feelings, but when faced with the tiny little fishballs adorning the snow-white egg noodles at Goniew in Nakhon Sawan after a crappy 24 hours and a long road ahead, the way of least resistance is also the tastiest.

Duck stewing in a vat at Goniew

Goniew is a marvel in more ways than one (and easily found. Ask anyone in Nakhon Sawan and they will tell you where it is). Not only does it offer some of the tastiest, cutest little fish meatballs around, but it also serves up a gorgeously braised bowl of duck noodles, duck and barbecued or crispy pork on rice, and a decent Hainanese chicken rice. It also offers daily noodle specials (our day, an unusual choice: duck beak noodles). And it is open at 7 in the morning, an oasis in the desert of highway minimarts after a 4:30 wakeup call with no breakfast in sight and a heavy heart.

Khao soy at Khao Soy Islam

To me, khao soy is one of the more interesting dishes in Thailand. Often mistaken for something Burmese, people are sometimes puzzled as to why they can’t find something similar to this dish in Burmese restaurants. But it’s actually “Haw”, a Chinese-Muslim group originally from Burma that gradually settled in parts of northern Thailand, bringing with them this delicious soupy mix of spice and starch. Their Muslim heritage explains why the dish, if authentic, comes in only beef or chicken, and the Chinese part possibly explains the inclusion of egg noodles.  Strangely, the “Haw” attained a reputation for bland food despite the invention of khao soy. Even now, northern Thais call something bland “haw”.

Certainly not “haw”: the thick, pungent stew-like concoction available at Khao Soy Islam in Lampang, famed for its horse-drawn carriages and the coin-shaped rice cakes cooked in watermelon juice. Both chicken and beef versions are similarly earthy, almost musky, but the beef — which appears to have been marinated in something strong and aromatic — is almost gamy, thick with spice.

A steamerful of ganjin in Chiang Rai

Finally, at our destination, Thailand’s northernmost city and my birthplace: a quick, hurried meal at Pa Suk, the city’s best and most well-known purveyor of that hard-to-produce noodle delicacy, kanom jeen nam ngiew. It’s hard to go wrong with either the pork and beef versions (pork is milder and fattier, beef more pungent), and both kinds are full of strength and authenticity — finally, after months of weak-kneed imitations back in the capital! But my favorite is khao ganjin, modeled after the Shan dish in which rice is cooked in pig’s blood and steamed in banana leaves. Here, it is served with green onions and deep-fried garlic oil, a punctuation point to the perfect “welcome home” meal.

Pork nam ngiew at Pa Suk

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07/16/2010

Mahalo for the memories

Banana macadamia nut pancakes at The Gazebo in Maui

What I love most about travelling is the opportunity to find out more about a place through its food. You can discover so much about what is prized in a culture that way — for example, the way Thais try to “balance” out different flavors seems to point to the premium Thailand places on harmony and each piece of the whole doing its own part.

While high-end restaurants in Hawaii can be accused of submitting to a kind of “global fusion” ideal — pan-Asian food with a few French and local touches — the real stuff points to a culture more mixed and interesting. It’s American food (I have never eaten so many hot dogs, no joke), but different, with an incorporation of local ingredients and flavors. Macadamia nuts, pineapple and bananas liven up the impossibly fluffy pancakes at local stalwart The Gazebo (a popular restaurant improbably placed next to a hotel swimming pool); pineapple and bacon adorn a hot dog from a food truck next to the highway.

Hot dog breakfast in Maui

This emphasis on local ingredients makes ice cream flavors here a lot of fun. At Dave’s Ice Cream (it’s been written up in People magazine!), hidden away in a plaza on the outskirts of Honolulu behind a statue of Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler Akebono: the inevitable coconut, pineapple and macadamia nut flavors, plus ube (Okinawan purple yam), cotton candy, and acai.

The counter at Dave's Ice Cream on Oahu

And then there’s the actual street food, which in the U.S. means food from trucks: a lot of hot dogs, for sure, and tacos, tacos, tacos. In a town called Haiku on Maui (dotted with a lot of other towns like Haiku — one main street, one general store, about 40 people), in a parking lot in front of the (regrettably closed) Hawaiian food restaurant Hana Hou, not one but two good food trucks, one packed and one just starting out…

Dickie Lee of Island Tacos

Maui native Dickie Lee has worked the Texas hibachi at Island Tacos, on and off, for the past decade. His latest incarnation of the taco stand was only four days old, but still offered delicious grilled chicken, beef, pork and best of all, mahi mahi tacos ($5 each) with plenty of fixings: shredded cabbage, jalapenos, black beans, salsa, soy sauce, hot sauce, and, unexpectedly, Sriracha and Thai sweet chili sauce.

Grilled mahi mahi taco with everything

Just a few steps from Dickie, Prana Nui Cafe does a brisk trade in, uh, “vegan ayurvedic cuisine”. A collaboration between a nutritional therapist and a chef, Prana Nui makes food that might conjure up the stereotypical image of tasteless, brittle health food, but which is actually pretty delicious.  For our second lunch of the day, a great kale seaweed salad ($7) with umeboshi plum dressing and hemp seed “gomasio” (apparently a dressing used for texture), plus a “dosha” bowl ($10) corresponding to our ayurvedic type (there is a chart in front so you can diagnose yourself; @SpecialKRB and I think we are both kapha, or water, as opposed to air or fire).

Kapha dosha bowl with millet and tempeh skewer

It may be because Maui seems to draw a disproportionate number of alternative lifestyle types, but the people of Maui sure do seem to love their greens. In Makawao, which has the feel of a Wild West border town, we encountered a counter-full of good but healthy salads at the Rodeo General Store. Some were delicious (beets and greens; raw kale Caesar; pohole fern), some not as much (ahi tuna with lavender cream; a beet-and-carrot slaw called “Got the Beets Ya’ll”), but all were interesting.

Deli counter at the Rodeo General Store

A counter-point to the goody two-shoes greens: our “favoritest doughnuts evah” at, let’s be honest, a dumpy-looking Makawao store called Komoda Store & Bakery. They are glazed and baked on a stick and cost $1.25 each! Doughnut lovers, it’s worth the trek to Maui.

Komoda Bakery's doughnuts on a stick

Some of the local bounty wasn’t as palatable. Take this local fixation on Spam. Rodeo General Store offered its own paean to this: spam “masubi” (which appears to be a sort of nigiri), which @SpecialKRB likened to a slab of cat food on a handful of dry, stale rice. Sort of an apt metaphor for the end of our drive along the “road to Hana”, which is supposed to be the most “Hawaiian” of Maui towns. Not sure what that means, unless “Hawaiian” is a euphemism for “non-existent”. What we discovered in Hana: a baseball diamond, a school, a hotel, a general store and a Thai restaurant.

Spam masubi

And the high-end stuff? I’m sorry to say this, but in general Maui’s restaurants are overpriced and afflicted by flabby, affected cooking. At the end of our stay, we ended up taking more comfort in fashioning something out of the local produce by ourselves. With both Mexico and Thailand represented at our villa (thanks @sergiomireles!), we came up with grilled steak and pork ribs, Thai steak salad, fried rice and fajitas. It ended up being our best meal on the island.

Our dinner at home

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07/13/2010

Aloha, and other stuff in Honolulu

Welcome to Hawaii

A lot has been made of this collection of tropical islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Secret celebrity wedding ceremonies are always accused of being held here; ancient island curses alway threaten to ruin Peter Brady’s life. Hawaii is filled with a mystique that mere mainlanders and foreigners can never truly fathom. Or so it would seem.

The reality is that the allure of Hawaii is all too obvious: balmy breezes, azure seas, soft sands, beautiful people, ripe fruit. That may be one of the real luxuries of the tropics, the gorgeous weather that leads to such a natural abundance of food. The ready harvest gleans shoals of ahi tuna, pineapples, coconuts, sweet onions, Maui beef, and loads of other fish with strangely fitting names like opakapaka, ono and mahi mahi. And that leads to a strong preference for flavors like sesame oil, soy sauce and sugar. Especially sugar.

Ahi poke "teppanyaki style" at Roy's

The Hawaiian dish “poke” is the perfect example of the mix of local flavors: fresh, meaty fish (or steak) paired with the omniscient soy sauce and onion, with plenty of sesame oil and toasted seeds for texture. There are myriad ways to present this popular dish — sizzling on a hot plate at Roy’s, stuffed into deep-fried tacos and buried under lashings of cream at the Hula Grill, or cubed and served fresh with a splash of citrus, a bit like the poisson cru of Tahiti but without the coconut milk. We had them all.

It wasn’t all about the ahi. There were a multitude of other fish armed with confusing and sometimes similar names, to the point where @SpecialKRB said the Hawaiian language may be an elaborate joke played on the hapless foreigners with the temerity to try to master it. The fish dishes were many and varied, but mostly revolved around variations of simply grilled flesh, accompanied by something sweet, natural and generally unfussy. Attempts to go high-concept with the ingredients, like a fussy pairing of melon and hearts of palm, mainly met with disappointment.

Grilled ono with a mango salsa and pohole fern salad from Feast at Lele

And then there were the extra-special creations, examples of the evolution of Hawaiian cuisine to include more recent influences like American food, such as the strangely named loco moco (what @sergiomireles says means “crazy booger” in Spanish. Appetizing, I know.) It was many things: a lot of food, a lot of fat, a lot of grease, a lot of everything, except flavor.  The ubiquitous packet of soy sauce was supposed to shoulder that burden, I guess.

Loco moco at CJ's Diner

For many who have visited Honolulu, it probably comes as no surprise that a highlight of our time there, food-wise, was Alan Wong’s restaurant on King Street. Beautifully concocted salads included a peeled whole, fresh beefsteak tomato inexplicably paired with a “yuzu dressing” that resembled Thousand Island, as well as a wonderful aluminum pillow that, when slashed, revealed perfectly cooked shredded pork and clams. The meal ended with a luxury version of Hawaiian shave ice and a great selection of coffees from all over the islands. Alas, while the food was super, the lighting was not the greatest for taking pictures. So you’ll just have to imagine it.

I know I had almost no time, and a lot of it was spent accommodating more upmarket palates that had little to no interest in plate lunches and rickety little bakeries. I also must admit that I spent one meal eating this:

Yes, the steamed Maine lobster in Hawaii

I know, it’s Red Lobster. Let he who must deal with $60 lobsters at home cast the first stone.

Alan Wong’s Restaurant – 1857 King Street, (808) 949-2526

Roy’s Restaurant – 6600 Kalaniana’ole Highway, (808) 396-7697

Feast at Lele (yeah, it’s in Maui, whatever) – 505 Front Street, (808) 667-5353

p.s. You might have noticed most of the photos here are of superior quality to the ones you usually see on this site. That’s because @SpecialKRB is back!

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07/12/2010

Shave ice, luxury edition

Never had a chance to try the real thing, but this luxury shave ice at Alan Wong’s in Honolulu with agar jelly, pineapple chunks and vanilla panna cotta is da bomb.

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07/01/2010

Weekend Warriors

I’m going to take a little moment to say something, and then people can throw rotten tomatoes at me. I am sick of the World Cup. And no, it doesn’t have to do with the fact that the US got kicked out (ha ha, get that?OK, maybe it has to do with that a little bit) or that people I know to be dyed-in-the-wool Americans are walking around saying “football” instead of “soccer” (even though that is pretty annoying). It’s just that it’s dragged on too long, for FOREVER, and these people could be Martians playing petanque on the moon for all I know. Go…Uruguay? Whatever (people of Uruguay, please don’t be mad at me! Sports-based fatwas are against the law in Thailand. I looked it up).

I could go on and on (and on, I know you want me to) about things I’m sick of, like poncey “Thai” cafes that serve cake and “Twilight” (I’m really playing with fire here now, I know). But some things I want so much more of, like achingly cool weekend nighttime markets that sell  retro clothing, throwaway kitsch and unusual snacks, all courtesy of people who are moonlighting as street vendors in their spare time.

Wall of sneaks at Klong Tom market

The area is called Klong Tom, and it’s located between the Ratchadapisek and Lard Prao MRT stops. By day a test course for Bangkokians hoping to get their drivers’ licenses, this patch of land comes to life on Friday and Saturday nights as Thais scrape off their daytime office disguises in favor of second lives as T-shirt designers, vintage sneaker aficionados, or potato chip entrepreneurs.

The “Cocktail” bartender-type flinging coffee mugs into the air instead of bottles of rum might be the first indication that this isn’t any old kind of flea market. Then comes the merchandise on display: at first row upon row of hubcaps and unidentifiable car equipment (I know, I’m such a girl), gently segueing into food stalls hawking air-dried beef or chicken buried in cumin rice, rack upon rack of tiny vintage dresses, and tight-fitting boy shirts with the sleeves rolled up.

But a few favorites stood out: first, a tiny ”pub” run out of the back of a wheezy Daihatsu, serving nothing but different types of home-made soda: lichee, green apple, grape, blueberry. I ordered a glass of strawberry and managed my way through most of this super-sweet concoction, hypnotized by the bright colors and whirling lights.

Care for a soda?

And the food: there’s a lot of it. Fried chicken, fishcakes, meatballs, it’s all there, a moveable feast. But my favorite would have to be the N&N Potato Twist truck, which uses a nifty little gizmo to craft potato “twists” from the tuber, deep-fries them, and then shakes these twists in a can with the seasoning to come up with tom yum, BBQ, cheese or sour cream potato chips, all in a matter of minutes.

Potato "twists" in the making

On a night when England was playing someone, this market was packed, filled with like-minded souls who couldn’t have cared less about the “footy”, who Cheryl Cole is, or what John Terry did. I’m sort of sad that I kind of know these things. It is space in my brain that I could have used for something like math. But, thankfully, I won’t be hearing about them for much longer.

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06/27/2010

Back in the Old City

A rose vendor making a delivery at the flower market

 

I love the old part of town. The roughly square-shaped parcel of land along the Chao Phraya river and Phra Arthit Road on one side and the Chinese Swing, Rachadamnern Avenue and Tanao Road on the other is probably my favorite place to go in Bangkok — not least because this area has some of the city’s very best food.

Case in point: Khao Thom Bowon, a rice porridge vendor across from Bowonniwet Temple which has been serving up tasty bowls for the past six decades. This shop has mushroomed from a few tables in an alleyway to more than 50, some even grouped inside an air-conditioned room (locals gamely sweat it out; the a/c is for when you bring your parents). Its ownership has advanced into its second generation, but I like to think the old-fashioned feel and care for its food remains.

Featuring more than 30 kinds of side dishes

Khao tom is meant to be a sort of restorative concoction, which is why it is known as being particularly popular with the elderly. To facilitate digestion, the liquid in each bowl is meant to be sipped before the soggy rice is eaten with a type of side dish — be it spicy, salty, crispy or fatty, the better to go with the nursing-food blandness of the rice. That is why Thais eat rice porridge with a variety of sides, not just one: usually a crunchy pickled vegetable for its tartness; a fatty tranche of salted, dried fish; a sort of yum, or a spicy, tart salad; and a stir-fried green vegetable (indeed, Khao Tom Bowon claims to have been the first to stir-fry morning glory, or pad pak bung).

Poached prawns in a lime-chili sauce

But what sets Bowon apart are its dazzling variety of other sides — the fresh fish, the succulent crayfish, the range of gaeng jued (clear soups), the daily specials, and things like this: fresh sea prawns drizzled in a tart-spicy chili-lime sauce and dotted with mint leaves. Pillowy, sharp and green, all at once.

But the best part of Bowon, just like what sets the Old City apart from the rest of Bangkok, are the unexpected touches: solicitous, friendly service and a surprisingly beautiful canal-side view in back … a reprieve from the chaotic clamor of Banglamphu at nighttime. Stumbling across this view after dinner, we enjoyed a quiet moment in the breeze next to a dozing old man in a lawn chair listening to an iPod. The best part of Bangkok, compressed into a few seconds.

What sets Bangkok apart -- the unexpected

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06/21/2010

Bangkok’s best, or Where do I get some gravy noodles?

A friend of mine who likes to call himself an “omnivore” once said that the only thing he hated was lard na, the Chinese-inspired Thai pan-fried noodle in a thick gravy with meat or seafood and vegetables. I understood what he meant. As great as Cantonese food can be, a big knock commonly levelled against one of the great cuisines of the world is that it is too greasy, too goopy, too much like … baby saliva. Or the guy that is constantly coughing and clearing his throat in the corner of the coffee shop in the morning when you’re trying to mind your own business and standing in line for ages and WHY DON’T YOU HAVE DECAF?! You know what I’m talking about.

Actually, you probably don’t. But you might know what I mean about guay thiew lard na, which is seriously one of the great food stand offerings of the city. If a safari hunter is always on lookout for the “Big Five”, a galloping gourmet in Bangkok is sure to bump into a lard na stand on his or her way to the egg noodle, soup noodle, pad thai or rice porridge stall down the road. This city is littered with many a lard na stand serving faithfully exact facsimiles of that goopy, steaming mess that my friend so dreads.

But he didn’t know about sen mee krob.

Some of the very best — and by “best” I mean the places that are well-known by Thais for their lard na — vendors in the city deep-fry their noodles so that the crispy crunch of the starch offsets the thick gelatinous gravy they are slathered in. Like a Japanese cherry blossom clinging to the branch in late March, this is an ephemeral delight; the noodles go limp if you dally before tucking in. But it is something very real, something very genuine, a real added dimension to a dish that would otherwise be only okay. 

It is also the reason why I am wandering down this busy, congested street miles away from the nearest air-conditioning, where DVD vendors vie for your attention and the sidewalks are littered with remote controls and stereo components. We are in Baan Maw, a neighborhood in the old city specializing in electrical equipment — and, tucked behind what appears to be a hubcap vendor, lard na with crispy sen mee, or thin noodles, studded with pork, bristling with Chinese kale.

Crispy thin noodles in gravy at Rot Tip Yod Pak

Rot Tip Yod Pak (Baan Maw) is also known for its crispy pork on rice, but the lard na is what I’m there for: a cheery crunch nestled amid a burst of porky flavor. And at about 30-40 baht a plate, it’s reasonably priced.

Which is more than what can be said for Jay Fai (327 Mahachai Rd., Samranrach Intersection). With its various interpretations of the gravy noodle — with seafood, shrimp, pork, chicken or beef — hovering at around the “250+” range on its menu, one would wonder, Why? The answer, simply put, is this:

Crispy gravy noodle with seafood at Jay Fai

Now, I have seen people wander into this restaurant, sit down, look at the menu, calculate the prices, and then walk out again. But they were obviously not thinking clearly, and their places are almost always quickly filled. A meal at Jay Fai is an investment. That is because when people ask you, What’s the best place for Thai food in Bangkok?, you will be able to tell them, with some authority, that it’s Jay Fai. You can tell them about the tom yum hang, the ubiquitous lemongrass “soup” served without the broth, redolent in galangal and kaffir lime and chili; the stir-fried wide noodle with chicken (kua gai), thick with fresh lettuce and shrimp as big as the palm of your hand; and the most expensive crab omelette (kai jiew pu) I have ever seen at 500 baht — but so engorged with crab flesh you don’t really bat an eye.

Oops! What's left of the crab omelette

There is more (for example, this place is big on serving things “dry” — dry congee, dry sukiyaki, etc), but I would miss lunch, and that would be horrible. All I can say is, I’m saving up for my next meal. And taking my friend with me.

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