Author Archives: Bangkok Glutton

In the movie “There Will Be Blood”, the discovery of oil turns Daniel Day Lewis’ protagonist from a humble prospector into a rabid, ever-hungry force of greed, capable only of dominating and consuming, Western capitalism personified.

Oil has changed the Arabian peninsula, too, but in different ways. It is less about a rapacious need for one’s own dominance, and more a case of making sure everyone is taken care of — for, let’s be honest, better (free education and healthcare for citizens) or worse (“protecting” women by restricting them from working on weekends). Case in point: Oman, which makes Singapore look like Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the ‘80s. In Muscat, the streets are clean enough to eat off of, the landscaping and lawns alongside so well-attended that one wonders exactly how many gardeners are employed by the government. Maybe it’s because it’s Ramadan, maybe it’s because it’s midday, but the impression is very much like a Sim city, with very few NPCs other than the shopkeepers and cafe owners catering to your various whims.

When people (okay, racists) say things like how the discovery of oil turned a bunch of desert dwellers without a culture into millionaires overnight, they are demonstrating a huge ignorance of history. Oman has a long multi-cultural heritage, represented by the patchwork of different people that comprise it. Clothes and jewelry differ in accordance with region, as do the hilts of the ceremonial daggers that men wear (a peaceful man wears his dagger on the right side in order to make it more difficult to draw). In the spring, the country’s famous Damascus roses are picked and made into rosewater for desserts; lockets carrying phrases of the Koran are worn around the neck to protect the wearer, much like Thais wear certain Buddhist amulets. But the product that Omanis are most proud of is their frankincense, taken from the sap of trees and prized most from the inland regions for their light green-yellow color and intense fragrance. These buds of resin, or “tears”, are lit on charcoal in ceremonial burners (the symbol of Omani hospitality), their smoke used to mark every celebratory occasion that you can think of.

There is one more thing Omanis can be proud of, and that is their dogged salesmanship. In the main souk in Muscat, I make half-hearted stabs at negotiating and fail at most of them. All the same, I make off with bags full of souvenirs for family back home (okay, mostly for me), even in the height of the Omani heat. 

Dubai is a similar story. Many people — including me — have come to Dubai, explored the “biggest mall in the world” with its very many attractions, and called it a day, leading most to conclude that Dubai is basically one big mall. The truth is that, once you leave this sprawling complex (and all the other malls that may come your way), you will have an enjoyable adventure, even in the sizzling heat. There is the “new town”, yes, but that means there is also an “old town”, and that is where the bulk of the fun is for both foodies and shoppers. A litany of souks awaits: textile, perfume, spice, gold, as well as the different ways to find them: bus (the bus stops are housed in little cabanas with AC!), subway, even by boat for a mere dirham. And if you were to accuse me of simply buying a luggage-load of spices and calling it a day, you would absolutely be right (give or take a fluffy beanbag cover or two and a couple of pairs of camel pants). Once again, I am an abject failure at bargaining — so much so that the shop owner gives me a free bag of chocolate-coated almonds and a couple of chocolate-covered dates filled with pistachios (which come in handy on an empty stomach in the heat).

But yes, the mall is fun, too. Besides the aquarium and the much-ballyhooed ski field, there is the walk to the Dubai Mall subway stop, a good 20 minutes away via a covered bridge that I discovered later is the longest walking bridge in the world. A shame I was wearing my sandals, though, or I would have enjoyed that walk (and the subsequent trek to the restaurant from the subway stop) much more. Because it was Wikki’s birthday, our destination was Gazebo Restaurant, which serves a wide selection of Indian specialties, but is perhaps most famous for its biryanis. We ordered chicken and lamb, as well as a spicy chicken that made people cry.

In Abu Dhabi is where my story ends. When I first arrived, in around 2009, it looked a lot like how Salalah, Oman looks now: dry, dusty, a little barren. It seems to have woken up in the decade-plus since then and realized that, oh yeah, it is actually the richest sultanate of the UAE; just about every part of Abu Dhabi now hosts cranes and construction and scaffolding.

Aside from that, I have no thoughts, since I spent nearly the entire day and most of my afternoon trying to persuade my son and my nephew to leave Ferrari World (the world’s “largest indoor theme park”, no less) or the ship would depart without us. What can I say? We had fun and were sad to leave — especially the good Wifi.

I have been to Goa before. I have even — when this blog was but a glimmer in my eye — traveled through northern India, on a train optimistically known as the “Palace On Wheels“. Every time I go, I am struck anew by how little I know, especially about the food.

Alas, our jaunt to Mumbai was but a blip in the schedule, taken up with the three (!) methods of commute — bus, boat and rickety, doddering old train –needed to get to the Elephanta Cave, which told the story of Shiva: his role as creator, his time as protector, and, inevitably, his evolution to destroyer, all in order to start up the cycle all over again.

As interesting as the story behind the cave was (first as a temple, then as a place used by the Portuguese to store their weaponry, then as a place destroyed by the Portuguese so that the succeeding British could not store their weaponry, now as a de facto monkey hotel), the only local bites managed were of a few bags of nuts offered streetside before hopping back onto the decrepit train. Happily Goa promised more: a trip to a spice farm with lunch.

Now, many of the spices grown in Goa are can be similarly found in Thailand (also arriving courtesy of the Portuguese): cashews, from which the apple-like fruit attached to the nut is used to make a brutally strong liquor called “feni”; nutmeg and its sister, the red, lacy webbing called mace; and bird’s-eye chilies, of which our guide said, to our amusement, that one would only use for oil — unless one had an enemy which one wished to dispose of, in which case one would serve these peppers fresh.

All the same, we learned things about the spices we ourselves use daily: that the different types of the “king of spices,” the peppercorn (green, black, white and red) are simply the same “berries” at different stages of aging, either peeled of their skin (white) or aged in the sun (black) to create different flavors. We knew lemongrass had mosquito repellant properties; we did not know this of saffron, the most valuable spice in the world (but then again, who would waste saffron by using it to chase away bugs?) We discovered that good cloves bear brown “buds”; when they go black, the cloves are old (a fact impossible to discern from the bud-less cloves on supermarket shelves). We were told ways in which to flavor our sugar with the world’s second most valuable spice, vanilla (halve your pods and stick them in your sugar for a week, and it will smell of vanilla for six months). And when it comes to cardamom, the “queen of spices” and the third most expensive spice in the world, you get health benefits up the wazoo, fighting everything from acne to depression to cancer.

So yes, it was a diverting morning spent rambling around the farm grounds, but it was of course all just a prelude for the real event: lunch. Once one of Portugal’s footholds in South Asia, Goa hosts a cuisine that features seafood, coconuts and rice prominently alongside pao (Portuguese bread), patoleo (rice pudding flavored with coconut steamed in turmeric leaves), caldo verde (the Portuguese love their soups) and the ever-present cashew.

A generous spread awaited us when we returned to the farm’s main building: pao and two kinds of rice, one scented with saffron; deep-fried and breaded prawns and dried, salted tranches of the local kingfish; a runny shrimp curry; a vegetable “gravy” that included pumpkin and beetroot; a watery yellow dal; stir-fried squash; a sort of “tempura” of cauliflower; spicy lime pickles; a fresh salad of mostly shredded cabbage; and my favorite, a chicken xacuti curry showcasing poppy seeds, coconut and dried red chilies.

To finish — besides the patoleo and shot glasses brimming with the farm’s own feni — was a savory drink made from kokkum, a plum-like fruit related to the mangosteen and said to aid in digestion after meals and to suppress hunger pangs before them.

Once again I had discovered something new. I relished the salty, slightly acidic flavor of the infusion, somewhat easing the sting of my cowardice in refusing the feni, made fresh on the premises by a man clad only in a turban and dhoti who squashes the fruit with his feet. My only regret is that this will surely necessitate yet another Goan trip in order to screw up the resolve to finally try the feni, as well as anything else that India seeks to throw my way.

If there is one thing that has been made clear during my world cruise so far, it is the noxious effect that colonization has had on every country it has touched. Some countries, like Papua New Guinea, have been left like empty husks sucked dry, shriveled shadows of what they might have been had they not met the likes of the Dutch; others, like Samoa, held onto simply as an accessory, divided up without its knowledge among strangers who wished to keep up with their neighbors.

Then there is Vietnam, once under the French, who were able to take back their independence after many bloody years. As much as the French claimed to have used colonization as a vehicle by which to spread their culture, quite a few of their subjects appear to have been unwilling to receive this particular gift — Northeast Thailand, full of Vietnamese communities who fled during French occupation, can testify to that.

And then there are the British. Although I personally have not experienced overt colonization, much less by the British, their way of doing things came back all too vividly after a rewatch of the movie “A Passage to India”, based on the anti-colonialist book of the same name by E.M. Forster, which was screened on, of all places, the television on our cruise ship. What I saw was that the British were particularly clever in enriching themselves on your resources, all the while convincing you that they were doing you a favor in doing so. It is a particular skill that, for example, persuades you to go to a garden party at a “whites only” club where you will not be allowed to sit, eat, or take shelter from the sun, and feeling thankful for the so-called privilege. That, in a nutshell, is being part of the British Empire. It made me better understand the prevailing attitudes around the current King Charles and his upcoming fancy hat party.

It made me better understand a lot of things, actually. Although the time for these types of empires is fading, colonialism lives on in a more modern, pertinent way, via capitalism. Like in the days of the British Raj, capitalism prescribes that some people are treated better than others, this time in accordance with how much they are perceived to be able to consume. This is usually dictated via the old rules of colonization, which tends to draw things along racial lines. Hence the old resentments about ancient jewels on crowns, and the toppling of statues, and the demand for old marbles. These are the only actions available to people who cannot protest the system that they live in.

But the most pernicious effect of colonization isn’t poverty. It’s that, when you are accustomed to being treated as “less than” by others, you persist in treating yourself (and others like yourself) as “less than”, even when the others are gone. Events like the ascendance of the Khmer Rouge and Idi Amin are pointed to as evidence of a people not being able to govern themselves, when really they are reactions: what does it matter what they do, when it’s just themselves after all?

This is a strange intro for a post ostensibly about food in Penang, but it feels like it can’t really be helped; colonization hangs like a ghost over every street.  Unlike Kuala Lumpur, which, as global as it is, still feels like a city made by Malaysians for Malaysians, Penang — with its shabby-chic shophouses and well-kept forts — hearkens back to another time. Many people enjoy that feeling; for whatever reason, Penang’s particular brand of charm left me cold.

What did not leave me cold, of course, was the food. Malaysians like their food like their durian: heavy-hitting and potent, intense almost to the point of bitter, just on this side of ponderous. Indeed, Malaysian food tastes like how dark soy sauce looks: glossy and inscrutable. We got our first helping of these flavors at Tek San, which was packed to the gills with the lunchtime crowd. Our generous hosts joked that our meal here would only be an appetizer, a threat that I, alas, did not take seriously. We ordered a dark, shiny stir-fry of lardons and another of pork with capsicum; black-flecked tiger prawns; three-layer pork with soft taro; chili-laced clams; and a stingray curry with okra. All packed enough of a flavor punch for three times as much food, but our hosts weren’t finished.

Instead of taking us back to our ship, they took us to see Uncle Tan, dubbed the “King of Noodles” in Malaysia by the BBC. Also known as the “Goggle Man” for the goggles that he wears while cooking, Tan Chooi Hong is famous for his char guay thiew, made with flat rice noodles charred by a supremely hot wok and topped with prawns. Accompanying him were vendors serving oyster omelets, lo bak (various types of tofu on skewers with a dipping sauce), assam laksa (a type of noodle special to Penang), and cendol (green rice flour squiggles with red beans, shaved ice, and coconut milk).

I’ve had oyster omelets before and the one here is generous, with lots of big, plump oysters on top; the char guay thiew, as well, was familiar yet delicious. What I was most taken by, however, was the assam laksa, which, after its first swampy sip, somehow ingratiates itself to your palate. If Thai food has a funk, this one has a whole symphony of it, a mix of nam prik gapi (shrimp paste chili dip), gang som (sour curry), and nam pla waan (sweet fish sauce) that is leavened by slices of fresh cucumber, pineapple chunks, and glass noodles. Against all my expectations, I ate it all, leaving only a little room for the lo bak and cendol.

Even with all the wonderful food, I must admit I was relieved to finally be deposited by our hosts back to the ship, having had as thorough of a taste of Penang as was humanly possible. I honestly don’t know if I will be back, but I do know that if I do return, it will be for the food.