Author Archives: Bangkok Glutton

Samosas at Klong San Market

Whenever I tell people I am a freelancer, someone invariably busts out the decrepit old joke about “working hard, or hardly working hahahahahahah” like I have never heard that one before. I think of it now because I have barely been able to post much over the past few weeks, and the normal temptation is to say that I have been hard at work. The truth is, I have been hard at work watching Netflix. Specifically, the show “Lords & Ladles”, with which I am obsessed in the way that Naomi Osaka is obsessed with “the villain from Black Panther“. As in, totally.

If you don’t have as discerning taste in Netflix shows as moi (or don’t have Netflix, I’m sorry), let me fill you in: It’s three Irish chefs with a nice, easy rapport who cook old-ass recipes from dinners held in centuries past at old-ass ancient houses. It’s a brilliant concept because it’s food porn, Fear Factor-grossness porn (offal plays a big part in every meal), real estate porn and snooty family history porn all wrapped up in one, and it is irresistible. I cannot stop watching it.

Here is where you realize that: 1) Aspic really does play a huge role in these meals; 2) Testicles loomed large as a source of protein; 3) You can eat lambs’ ears if you work really, really hard at it; 4) “Hedgehogs” are the name for a type of dessert; 5) Anything can be served if you encase it in dough; 6) Everything was served “a la Francaise” (all the dishes of a particular course served all at once instead of in succession, which makes me look more favorably on Suhring’s tasting menus); and 7) Booze has always been an important source of calories.

In the last episode I watched, “pepper pot” was served as the first of 13 dishes, which is freaking insane because pepper pot is basically chili con carne with a bunch of crazy-ass off-cuts thrown in. In the US, pepper pot is most associated with Philadelphia — a bone-warming stew of tripe, veal knuckles and whatever vegetable you could lay your hands on, said to sustain George Washington’s troops as they endured winter at Valley Forge. That would become a huge enough selling point that vendors could sell it on the streets of Philadelphia years later, when those sorts of things were still sold on the streets.

This is food ephemera in the way that recalls the origins of the dish “syllabub”, another former street food of sugar and bourbon enriched with a splash of milk straight from the udder of the street vendor’s cow.  This particular dish was so popular that the vendors (and their cows) would be invited to dinner parties so that the syllabub could be made as fresh as possible. A good hostess would often milk the cow herself. Street food in old-timey America was something else.

Today of course, street food in America is often characterized as something slapdash and dirty, meant for tourists or people with little time or respect for themselves. It’s not something you travel a long way to seek out; the stuff you travel for, like pizza in New Haven, a burger at Shake Shack or Chinese food in Flushing, has long passed the point where it could be considered street food. Also, the existence of places like McDonald’s make working hard for your “street food” to seem incredibly self-indulgent, something for a dilettante with nothing better to do. And of course, many people in America no longer depend on that street food to survive.

This would be a nice future for Thailand, when street food would be an optional thing that could be sampled as part of Thailand’s rich cultural heritage and a fun pastime for tourists. We aren’t there yet, however. We are still at a place where a vast majority of Thais buy something off the street every day. Occasionally, Bangkok authorities get the message. After public outcry following the decision to “clean up” Khao San Road (please check out the tags on this linked Bangkok Post story), the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has reportedly capitulated and decided to leave it as is.  But the message has not been lost: if developers have major plans for an area, the BMA — like reverse-Samwise Gangee-type handmaidens, or real estate Dementors — can be called on to assist them on their quests.

Few projects have as much potential impact for an area as Icon Siam, expected to open later this year (!) on the Thonburi side of the river. Fang Thon (the Thonburi side) has been percolating for a while now, thanks to new developments like Duangrit Bunnag’s Jam Factory and Lhong 1919, establishing the area as a true hipster successor to crowded Aree and played-out Thonglor/Ekamai. The opening of a huge mixed-use shopping mall like Icon Siam will tip the area over into a real hub, a full-day destination just like Siam and Emquartier have become.

Of course, this inevitably means gentrification. So the stakes facing long-time markets like Klong San Plaza are high … but you wouldn’t be able to tell from asking the vendors there. A former railroad station for goods on their way to Bangkok, Klong San is today the kind of covered market you see increasingly less of: earmarked exclusively for Bangkok locals on the lookout for crazy-good deals. Think jeans at 250 baht, designer knock-offs, discounted makeup, and the inevitable scourge of streetside Thai-style sushi, you get what I’m saying.

Isaan-style steamed fish

The vendors here, who pay a fairly hefty rent at around 18,000-30,000 baht a month depending on your proximity to the river, obviously see enough foot traffic to make it all worthwhile. To them, Icon Siam and Klong San are two completely different markets, aimed at two completely different segments of the public. They can only serve to help each other. But the fear among people like my friend Trude, who is studying commercial spaces, is that Klong San’s “hyper-local” nature is what makes them so vulnerable to being taken over eventually by a neighbor with far more money, eventually to be replaced by an ersatz “street market” that really markets to the hipsters that occupy Jam Factory. Eventually, the market for bargain-hunting locals will be only what is siphoned off to them by big corporations like 7-11 and its myriad instant noodles. Think chicken rice courtesy of Burger King, congee a la McDonald’s, sticky rice and Thai-style fried chicken from KFC. Don’t pretend you haven’t already seen it.

Until then, Klong San will give you culinary bright spots like any other local market: southern Thai-style samosas stuffed with cauliflower or bamboo shoots; Isaan food catering to the construction workers next door offering spicy chili dips, pork intestine spicy soup and herb-stuffed steamed fish with sticky rice; the usual soup noodles and crispy pork on rice alongside goong ob woon sen, or steamed river prawns in glass vermicelli. And, if you have had your fill of the cheap snacks and knick-knacks, finish your jaunt across the river with something a little more substantial at — you guessed it — Jam Factory, because gentrification is here to make noobs of us all and we are nothing but the human handmaidens to our corporate overlords, but at least in this case they are Thai corporate overlords and not Hilton Worldwide. Yes, the winged bean salad is that good.

Winged bean salad at Never Ending Summer

Crab from the Crabman

(Photo by Chatree Duangnet)

I have not posted in a while because my laptop was being held hostage by my son, who used the tail end of his summer holiday to make numerous Google slide presentations for his own amusement. I have to admit I appreciated the excuse to stop writing. Unfortunately, he is back at school so I suppose I will have to start up again.

Also during the summer holiday, I was lucky enough to be tapped to do some research work for a documentary on street food. This led me to various restaurants, not all of them street food, where for some reason or other (such as, they were not street food) they did not make the final cut. One of those non-street food places was “Jok Tho Diew” (“One Table Jok”), also known as Jok Kitchen.

Jok Kitchen has been around for a while, a little over 10 years now. From the very beginning it was a success, winning write-ups from various publications and months-long waiting lists. The funny thing about this (Alanis Morrissette would call it “ironic”) is that Chef Jok came to the success of his one-table restaurant fairly late in life, after decades of kicking around Asia doing anything but cooking.

Born 65 years ago in Chinatown to a Chinese-Thai mother and a father who had immigrated to Thailand from Shantou, Jok spent his earliest years in the hospital, cared for by nurses because of a rare allergy to his mother’s milk. Fed on a mixture of chocolate and rice water, he was given the name “Jing Jok” (Thai for gecko lizard) by the nurses because although he didn’t eat much, he wouldn’t die.

This early ailment may explain why he remained the apple of his parents’ eyes well into adulthood. Gregarious and talkative, Jok was deemed unsuited to the traditional support roles in the family business, which was one of the most prominent suppliers of crab in the country. So instead of following his siblings into management, Jok became a delivery boy.

Watching what the cooks did with the crabs he delivered sparked his interest in food. His first taste of steamed fish in soy sauce, the signature dish of famed Thai-Chinese eatery Hai Tien Lo, sealed it. Determined to make the dish himself, 12-year-old Jok convinced his father to let him apprentice with the chef, Meng Jai, igniting a pattern of incorporating, adapting and improving others’ dishes that he continues to this day.

Fried snow fish on lettuce, inspired by a meal at Fuji

 (Photo by Chatree Duangnet)

Never at a loss for friends, Jok honed his kitchen skills by cooking for his friends, starting a “cooking club” where he would attempt to replicate dishes that he and his friends admired at famous restaurants. Even as he took on a more peripatetic lifestyle, embarking on various ventures in Indonesia, Vietnam and mainland China, the cooking club remained a near-monthly occurrence, his interest in food unrelenting. “You should start a restaurant,” was a familiar refrain from friends that he kept touch with, childhood friends who had since grown into positions in the military, banks, police, media, and of course, in neighboring shops in Chinatown.

This would become key later on, when his parents passed away and he was left to fend for himself. After a brief and acrimonious stint maintaining a food outlet at Suvarnabhumi Airport (he quit after one month over rent issues), he decided to essentially monetize his supper club, opening up the table typically reserved for guests to his house to food-loving members of the general public willing to make the trip down the dank, dark alleyway to his door.

By day, a bustling market. By night, the entranceway to Jok Kitchen

The concept was irresistible to Bangkokians: one table, reservation only, serving high-end Thai-Chinese food that was championed by big-name mucky-mucks in all corners of high society. Since then, Jok Kitchen has expanded to a back room next to the kitchen that easily fits two more tables; at maximum capacity, Jok Kitchen can accommodate six. The repertoire has also expanded, including special requests from guests if made far enough in advance (although his signature dish remains the beautifully steamed, fresh crab.) Other dishes are a map to his own experience: “Prosecution Fried Rice”, a delicious mix of perfectly wok-cooked Chinese sausage, egg, and Chinese kale was hatched during a late night session with lawyers working on the prosecution case against Thaksin Shinawatra; his “hangover soup”, a clear seafood soup with pomfret, ginger and pickled plum, was born after an evening spent overindulging on whisky.

The kitchen, however, remains tiny, a condominium-sized cubbyhole with four burners and a shelf full of homemade condiments, including his own version of a famous oyster sauce from a restaurant in Hong Kong. This is used to best effect in his steamed fish dish, inspired by that first bite of steamed fish in soy sauce at that restaurant in Chinatown years ago.

Beef noodles at Wuanood

Note: The owners here are actually Thais who have studied abroad in the US. The basic premise (that we cross-pollinate our culinary influences when we spend any amount of time somewhere else) holds, doncha think? 

I have never been a fan of Khao San Road. The bucket cocktails, the blaring music competing from both sides of the street, the endless parade of pad Thai/fried spring roll carts standing in for Thai street food — it’s all pretty much my nightmare, aside from being in an actual club blaring the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started” on a never-ending loop as a bunch of fraternity bros high-five each other over my head.

All the same, the decision to clear the street of its street vendors from August 1 onwards is baffling to me in many ways. It’s not just because we always thought Khao San Road would be untouched. It’s because of the reasons behind that assumption: namely, the budget-conscious backpackers who form the backbone of the clientele there, the fact that the Thai economy relies heavily on tourism, and the likelihood of these tourists wanting to see something that doesn’t look like what they left back home. What would end up taking these vendors’ place? If you guessed 7-11, Starbucks, Burger King and some nearby shopping malls in the offing, congratulations, because I guessed that too and we are officially guessing twinsies.

At a time when Thailand is undergoing a gradual strip-mallification, Thai food continues to proliferate and flourish abroad. Sometimes it is not in the form that many Thais recognize … but them’s the breaks. Was Kurt Cobain thrilled to see fraternity bros enthusiastically mouthing the words to his songs in concert? No, he was not. Was Prince thrilled to see various people maul his songs onstage during a tribute performance? No, he was not. Cooks abroad, making food for people who are not necessarily Thai, are doing the very same thing with their interpretations of these classic dishes.

Now, when I sit down to a Thai restaurant in, say, Brooklyn and am confronted with crab rangoon and a watery green curry, do I think to myself, “Gee, I wish someone would swoop in and save me/save this restaurant?” I admit, sometimes I do. But never, ever, do I ever think the answer lies in the Thai tasting robot (I will never stop talking about this forever, because it was a genuinely batshit crazy idea). I guess I am just not as proactive about these things as Thai officials are. Also, I feel like it’s a futile exercise: aside from LA, there are just not enough Thais and Thai palates in this world to ensure that dishes in Thai restaurants from Prague to Pennsylvania taste like they do in Thailand. This is unlike the situation for Chinese food in Auckland or Vancouver, where there are plenty of Chinese people around to reward authenticity. Be happy that someone else knows about green curry and pad Thai. Count your blessings.

And sometimes, something genuinely exciting happens when you grow a cuisine abroad and see it imported back to you. People saw that with Chinese-American food, a once-derided niche that is today genuinely beloved for its chop suey, moo goo gai pan, kung pao, and of course, General Tso’s chicken (all stuff that I never got to try as a kid, because my parents liked the real thing). The things that people do with sushi rolls nowadays (tempura, deep-frying, mayonnaise) are things you are just starting to see in Japan, where now even salmon is everywhere, except at serious places where it is embarrassing for you if you order it (trust me).

In that vein, Thai-American stuff is just beginning to trickle back to the homeland. Wuanood purports to serve the same recipe as longstanding fave “Nuea Grob Noodles Behind Thai Airways” on Vibhavadee Road, but they do it with a decidedly fusion-y flair. Owned by Thai-Americans descended from the original Vibhavadee vendor, Wuanood specializes in, obviously, beef noodles, but allows you — via super-detailed multiple-choice menu — to choose the cut of beef, method of cooking, and even level of spiciness, allowing a level of customization set to please even the most persnickety of diners. Beef-averse customers need not worry: you can also get pork (Kurobuta of course) and/or a plethora of sides that include yum woonsen (spicy glass noodle salad), fried spring rolls and crunchy Korea-like chicken wings. Best of all, it’s indoors and air-conditioned, so you don’t risk heat stroke from going out on your lunch hour. If this is what the coming strip- mallification of Thailand looks like, bring on the corporate overlords.

Self-portrait with noodles