Monthly Archives: June 2017

We can rage against the dying of the light all we want but progress continues apace, bringing with it a Starbucks and 7-11 on every corner. Soon we will become the shopping mall utopia that our ancestors had always dreamed of. Until then, we will still have to contend with food that does not come in plastic wrapping. The future cannot come soon enough for New Bangkok.

When I heard through the grapevine that Suan Plu was the next street to be cleared, I was confused. After all, this street is home to both the Immigration Office and the district police station. Why would they want to get rid of the places where they themselves eat, and where their own wives work? Not to mention that the quality of street food on Suan Plu is very, very good. But then I remembered that we live in Thailand (see: Thonglor) and that our corporate overlords progress is not to be denied.

And then when I heard that a new market would be opening up on the corner of Suan Plu Soi 3 (right behind Isaan hotpot vendor Jay Ouan Moo Jum), and that it would be charging vendors 30,000 baht a month for a 2×3 meter area, it all made sense. This would be the new street food model to be followed in New Bangkok — how better to make money than from street vendors who need space to stay downtown?

So when Trude and I went to Suan Plu to check out the space earmarked for the market, we were surprised to find out (from the local grapevine, our friend Jason) that plans had gone Thai-style kaput: quietly, with no information on why. After pouring concrete and marking out the plots, the owner had decided to fence off the entire space. Rumor now has it that the lot will become a much-needed hotel.

But we still needed to eat. After asking a very accommodating server at a nearby wine bar (where else would I be) where to go, we learned that the cart vendor just across the street was improbably popular, setting up at around 6 in the evening and usually selling out by 8pm. She claimed it was the best place in the entire neighborhood for grilled pork parts: tongue, ears, short ribs and most importantly, pork neck.

I have always thought that the best pork neck on Suan Plu was Jay Ouan. For an idea of what I’m talking about, here it is:

It’s fatty and slightly sweet, paired with a spicy tamarind sauce. It’s what you’d expect from a good Isaan place in Bangkok.

But we probably figured out we were in for a treat when people kept cutting in line to place their orders to the pig parts vendor (unfortunately, I do not have a name and he does not have a card, but he is across the street from Wine Out and Smalls, which is on the corner of Suan Plu Soi 1). Don’t worry, I lost my temper and complained. And fear not, he was smart enough to tell me that we were next. I was very hungry, you know.

They had run out of pigs’ ears by the time we had gotten there, so we got grilled pork tongue and asked for pork neck served nam tok style (spicy salad garnished with shallots, chilies, fresh mint and roasted rice grains). He asked us how spicy we wanted it, which is a question that vendors rarely bother to ask, especially busy ones with a long line in front of their cart. I always ask for “klang”, or medium (which actually amounts to one half ladle of dried spice and ended up being not spicy enough).

We took our stuff and ended up eating it furtively at Jay Ouan, which was slammed with customers and didn’t have time to see what we were doing. We agreed: pig parts guy was the superior pork neck, fattier and redolent of smoke. The grilled pork tongue, too, smoky and chunky with just enough resistance to make chewing fun. And the tamarind sauce, sweeter and thicker than Jay Ouan’s, if you like that sort of thing.

To grab your own bag of delicious grilled pig, make your way to Soi Suan Plu on a day that is probably not Monday, after 5:30 but well before 8 in the evening. Find the mobile cart outfitted with a silver chimney thing about 5 minutes in, on the left hand side if you are walking from Sathorn Road. And if someone cuts in line in front of you, jai yen yen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the latest stab at this street food ban thing started, my husband said everything would return back to normal by year-end. The assumption was that the political will to kick out vendors over and over again would eventually run dry, allowing them (although maybe not the old ones) to come back to the spaces they were once forced to vacate.

This has sort of happened at Asoke Intersection, prime street food real estate that once commanded up to 30,000 baht “rent” a month from the police. I don’t know what (or who) the vendors are paying now, but they are (almost) all back: the chicken bitter melon noodles, the pad Thai, the egg rolls, the strange mayonnaise-forward salads with hard boiled eggs, and most importantly, the fried chicken. The only one I am missing is the Isaan vendor in front of Maduzi, who made wonderful larb when she wasn’t fighting with her husband. I fear — like the curry rice vendor and made-to-order vendors on my own small soi — I will never see her again.

But, as of right now, the move towards progress continues apace. Forward, ever forward, spaces that have been cleared last year — Siam Square, and the Saphan Phut area next to the Flower Market — remain so, saving space for the eagerly anticipated projects set to join the city skyline. And the vendors themselves, trusting in the powers that be, have been moved to spaces set aside for them by various government agencies, with varying results.

Trude, who is actually researching Siam Square, showed me this market the other day, a sweaty 10-minute walk from the BACC (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre) past Jim Thompson’s House. Set under a highway bypass, there was once high hopes for this place, literally illustrated by the lines and numbers marking where each vendor was supposed to set up. Today, five food vendors (two beverage, one congee/chicken rice, one soup noodles with pork, one made-to-order) remain in an area originally meant for around 50; a generously-sized dining area has been placed in the corner.

Despite the promise of a full year rent-free, most of the vendors have moved to other markets like Klong Toey, said one of the beverage vendors, Sumet. “Since we are old, we thought we would just stay for the year and then decide what to do,” he said. Customers trickle in from time to time, and there is none of the urgency that you’d imagine you might feel from vendors who sell far less than they had expected. It’s easy-going, quiet, actually peaceful; worth bringing a book and lingering over a Thai coffee when it isn’t raining. That’s not to say that this market isn’t doomed, because it is.

The prognosis is murkier for the Saphan Phut Market, moved from its riverside location to a former parking lot next to the Boat Pier (Tha Ruea) off of Rama IV Road. That’s because it just might work. Marvel- and Star Wars-themed t-shirts, hair accessories, women’s underwear — you see these things everywhere, sure. Pad Thai, soup noodles, sweet waffles, and, oddly, plenty of yum mamuang (mango spicy salad). Even more optimistically, seafood cooked to order, ready to be folded into omelets or, yes, mixed with lime juice and chilies into yet another salad:

There are even the standard culinary aberrations one would expect to stumble upon at any Thai night bazaar, like innocent fried chicken, cruelly doused in “tom yum” , pizza or BBQ spices:

Or my personal nemesis, Thai street sushi, featuring heroic amounts of shrimp roe, imitation crabmeat and mayonnaise:

That’s not all: a string of bars, music blaring loudly enough to rival that of any establishment on Khao Sarn Road, shows that market organizers have every intention of making a real go of it here, cleaving to the “Talad Rot Fai” model as best as they can. But attendance is spotty because of the rain. And the vendors are starting to fall away, after only six months of the market’s opening. If the market can hold on until the cold season of Nov-Feb, the vendors might tell a different story. But right now it feels like the backyard barbecue of your least favorite co-worker, the kind of party Ted Cruz might throw, only with booze and no soup.

One thing that the Great Street Food Cleanup of Thonglor/Ekamai has done (and solely for the people who eat it for fun), is basically curating that area’s vendors for us. No longer do we need to consult guides to figure out which ones inspire a following (and that’s a good thing, because a lot of those guides would be outdated by now lololallthelulz). Instead, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has kindly done the job for us. The vendors who enjoy a steady stream of customers find places nearby in front of businesses that will have them; the ones who can’t broker these types of deals move on.

Yet, even with the knowledge that these vendors are there for us, the chance of getting a plate of food from them has somehow diminished. Let me tell you how that could be: after four (FOUR) tries, I have yet to procure a khao mok gai, or Thai-Muslim-style chicken biryani, from the Thonglor vendor since the Wonderful Sidewalk Cleanup for Citizens of Thonglor/Ekamai back in April.

tl;dr. Rainy season + laziness = zero chicken biryani, like this:

Let me tell you the odds: my friend Karen can duck into a shared-ride service in New York City only to encounter a rando she once corresponded with on OKCupid six years ago, but I cannot get a plate of this stuff from this Thonglor vendor. The butt-hurt rando can complain — six years later — about how Karen blew off their date to take photographs of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, but I cannot get a plate of this stuff from the Thonglor vendor. A movie could come out starring Emma Stone as Karen and Ryan Gosling as this rando guy where they re-encounter each other on a shared ride, only to be joined by a beleaguered government press secretary (Jonah Hill) who is on the run from a dangerous Russian mobster (Russell Crowe) charged by a mysterious entity (Nick Nolte) to recover incriminating documents that the press secretary may have stolen (call me Hollywood/ Uber/ Lyft). But, I cannot get a plate of this stuff from the Thonglor vendor.

The last time I went there was only two days ago. Not a drop of rain yet, not a weekend or a special holiday, all the stars seemed to be aligned for me. I arrived at 10am, only to be greeted by the very bottom of a large stainless steel pot, a few grains of yellow rice clinging forlornly to the side. “Sorry,” said the vendor. She advises me to come at 8 in the morning, a time when I am still mulling my life choices while drinking my second cup of coffee in my pajamas. Trying to salvage something out of my morning, I buy a spicy chicken soup to take home, top-heavy with coriander, deep-fried shallots and plenty of freshly minced chili. I then ask to take a photo of her. “Sure,” she says, resolutely avoiding the camera.

It would appear that the scarcity of street food in the area has only strengthened business for the ones who remain, which makes sense — it should hardly be a challenge to sell good, cheap food in this kind of environment. With that in mind, head to Amat Rot Dee, aka what used to be my favorite chicken biryani vendor, for your own plate of chicken rice heaven, open on Thonglor Road in front of the barber shop past Grand Tower Hotel on Monday-Friday from 8am-9am. Hurry.