I have, sadly, been up to my neck in edits (some of which are in our upcoming cookbook). This is widely recognized, I believe, to be the most tedious part of the getting-a-book-you-wrote-onto-a-bookstore-shelf process. Because I have been busy pinpointing some stupid POI on a map that bears only a passing resemblance to Google Maps, or Googling “1/2 cups desiccated coconut to g” all day long, I have had little time for anything else, including this blog.
But I am a liar. I did have time to go out with friends to Charmkok for the first time, the latest in what is likely to become an ever-expanding collection of “Charm” restaurants helmed by Chefs Jai and Aew. Like real siblings, all of their restaurants are interesting in their own ways: Charmgang, the critically-acclaimed eatery featuring regional specialties; Charmkrung, the upscale wine bar where you take your guests from out of town; and Charmkok, the gastropub or “Thai izakaya”, an unheard-of concept way back in 2010 when I first started sincerely writing about food.
Back then, people barely knew what an izakaya was, much less the nuances between a yakitori joint that just happens to have other, izakaya-like dishes (like Yakitori Ise) or an actual izakaya with fewer culinary pretensions, focused on pushing as much beer and shochu as possible (like Kenshin Izakaya). When you talk about a real Thai “izakaya”, you are talking about a glub glaem (Thai drinking food) restaurant like the places littered around the edges of Klang Toey Market at night, pulsing with neon lights and menus full of sun-dried meats and sticky rice. But the gourmet “Thai izakayas”, a trend which arguably started all the way back in 2010 with restaurants like Soul Food Mahanakorn and Issaya Siamese Club, has become the go-to setting for new Thai restaurant openings, marrying decent tapas-sized bites with lots and lots of booze. Charmkok is one of those establishments, and does it very successfully, drawing lines of people on a street chock-full of cool places to eat.
The menu is full of great little surprises like old-fashioned kanom jeen sao nam (fermented rice noodles with coconut milk, pineapple and shrimp) and Southern Thai khao yum (rice salad), but what struck me most were the dishes clearly inspired by Japanese cuisine, like the “chirashi” of Thai seafood scattered over rice, or grilled chicken thigh on bamboo skewers, served with sticky rice and a healthy dollop of jaew bong (Isan chili dip).
As if to continue on this Japanese-y theme, chopsticks were available at the table right next to the fork and spoons — not because the servers were sick of fetching them for Westerners keen on showing off their chopstick skills, but because young Thais, used to years now of sashimi and ramen, have taken to eating their kanom jeen and papaya salad with chopsticks, in the same way they now don the elephant pants and shirts that once signified that you were in the presence of the most clueless of tourists. It’s ironic but not; we Thais, too, eat with chopsticks now, because eating with a fork and spoon is just too easy and convenient (but you still won’t find pad Thai — the culinary third rail of a Thai person in Thailand — on any of these menus).
To boil all of this down: Thai food is in the midst of yet another revolution. It’s always been a chameleon, adapting either through force (during the Rama V period) or through fun (when the Portuguese brought those chilies), and this period, as terrible as it seems, is no different. There were the Italian-central Thai experiments of the ’90s and the French-Thai-“Oriental” amalgams of the ’80s that made everyone scared of using the word “fusion”; today, we are, more than ever, looking northeast to Japan and Korea as their restaurants take up more and more real estate all over Bangkok. The number of Japanese restaurants alone is now around 2,700 in Bangkok from 1,400 in 2015, and judging by new openings, that trend isn’t likely to die down anytime soon. Even more interestingly, the same people who were rending their garments and beating their breasts over green curry pizza and tom yum spaghetti are strangely silent when it comes to kai yang skewers and tom yum ramen.
Some restaurants have full-on made fusing Japanese with Thai their identity. Take, for example, E-san Bangkok, mixing the flavors of Japan with those of the Thai northeast (Isan lolz get it?) Isan food is ripe for this kind of spin, especially the char-grilled meats and fried chicken, though there are also ludicrous dishes which seem more like Instagram bait than anything else:
Indeed, Isan cuisine is proving ripe fodder for all sorts of fusions, twisting what was once a little-known regional cuisine (globally, at least) into new and surprising shapes. I was denied a seat at Coffee Beans by Dao (in my old condo, no less) and ended up stumbling into the next closest restaurant, Jaonua, which serves a mix of Isan and Italian cuisine, because why not? Alongside charming dishes like “khao mai pla mun” (“new rice, fatty fish”, an Isan saying that ushers in the cool season) are Western-style salads that add fermented fish sauce (pla rah) and pastas that include cured Isan sausages, and, of course, Caesar salad (because every Western restaurant in Thailand must have Caesar salad).
But wait, I’m getting away from the Japanese thing. Perhaps the OG of seriously pairing Thai with Japanese food is Chef Black of Blackitch Artisan Kitchen, who became interested in cooking while studying in Japan to become an engineer (this also helps explain Chef Black’s preoccupation with all things fermented). When we were able to grab a table during COVID, Chef Black actually sent out an entire tasting menu of Japanese dishes (he said he missed traveling to Japan). This time, Chef Black came out with a series of dishes that included really good handmade soba, two types of sausage with grilled vegetables on skewers (what would modern Thais do without yakitori?), and beautifully treated shellfish with blanched mustard greens, a slice of tamagoyaki, a Japanese-style croquette, and the daintiest of pickled vegetables.
What does all this mean? It means that, after brushes with Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the US, we have finally been colonized, and we are 100 percent on board with it. Maybe, if I want to brush up on my Thai cooking skills, I’ll have to start firing up the charcoal grill, boiling up some yakitori sauce, and soaking my bamboo skewers. I might even have to get better at eating with chopsticks.
Bangkok Glutton 