Author Archives: Bangkok Glutton

I’ve been away from home for a while, and so have been busy the last few days gorging myself on all the stuff I didn’t expect to miss in Thailand but did: grilled chicken smothered in a mountain of fried garlic, searingly hot shredded bamboo shoot salad, steamed seafood custard, perfectly stir-fried pumpkin shoots, even proper sticky rice. But now, of course, I find myself thinking more about what I left behind over there, like gorgeously juicy oysters, breezy beachside walks and appropriately-priced booze. Them’s the breaks I guess.

I learn more about New Zealand every time I visit. Stuff I didn’t notice before, like how meat pies are to Kiwis what hamburgers are to Americans. They are the staple food, ruefully described as junk but irresistible all the same.

I knew about the penchant for bare feet everywhere you go, but not the obsession with fries on a menu, even at Chinese takeaway and American barbecue spots. We all knew about the sheep, but not the inexplicably overwhelming popularity of Jason Derulo. And then there is the — what I see as new — interest in local produce, presented in novel, thought-provoking ways using ingredients like surf clam, seaweed, manuka honey and mutton bird. Of course, I’m talking about Pasture.

Imagine a place where — yes — they make their own bread and butter and the menu changes regularly (standard Brooklyn hipster moves), but also features pairings of “juices” like fermented white asparagus alongside wine and declares its fondness for acidity over sweetness on the menu like a mission statement, or a warning. That is not to say that everything works, because, like in any place that tries something new, there are hits and misses. But it comes across as sincere, instead of as a cynical exercise in justifying an inflated price tag by providing an “experience” that makes the flavor of the food a secondary concern.

The Asian food scene is still something I am unpacking. Malaysian restaurants are abundant, packed, and good, and a whole range of Chinese food from Sichuan to Shanghainese to Cantonese is available. Thai food is different, somehow, and can either be characterized as a casualty of its own global successes (pad thai, sweet green curry) or as an entity that has moved beyond “thing” into the realm of “concept” — big enough to be subject to interpretation like the Mona Lisa, or what George really meant by “Song of Ice and Fire” (I don’t think it’s Jon marries Daenerys and they live happily ever after OK?).

Like any true and patriotic Thai, I was annoyed by terrible Thai food that curdled the spirit of the culture and turned the generosity of cooking into flat-out scams (see: my trip to a NY Thai restaurant). I understood the impulse to create a neutral arbiter, a superhero who could prosecute every culinary crime, like an official food robot. But what the Chinese, and Japanese, and Italians (and everyone else who has achieved worldwide food stardom) understands is that making things the way you think they should be is a pipe dream. Actually, that is probably a hard lesson to learn for everybody, not just food people.

When I worked at a news agency that I will hereby refer to as “Root Canal”, management frequently talked about how “fresh eyes” were needed to see things in our culture that we had grown used to, people like Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan (we can discuss how often “fresh eyes” ended up being white guys later). Through them, we could see new things about ourselves, even if they didn’t know as much as we did about the local nuances.

So why does that go out the window when it comes to food? This is the question I’m still asking after visiting Kiss Kiss , a Northern Thai-leaning restaurant that only just recently opened in Auckland.

The first thing you notice is that it’s super cute. There’s no BS about trying to make this place look “authentic”, or that Thai people have ever really set food inside. The colors are bright-bright, like a Wachowski movie. The cocktail menu is viewed via Viewmaster. The soundtrack veers between cool Western obscure stuff and cool Thai obscure stuff.

The next thing you’ll notice is that it’s packed. New Zealanders love this place. It is full of the sort of young New Zealander you would expect to find in magazines like i-D and Paper. When you talk about it with other people, they will invariably say it is delicious.

I only point these things out because it wasn’t to my taste. I found it sweet and bland, and some dishes were full-on bad ideas, like the “naem” rice salad topped with shredded sai oua and fried sticky rice balls that looked like a way to utilize pesky leftovers. I admit I did not have the guts to order som tum. It wasn’t Thai food that Thai people would eat.

But is that the point? Is it bad if it’s an homage, done by people who loved something enough to be inspired by it, who then tweaked it to their own tastes? Like David McCallum’s “The Edge” versus Dre and Snoop’s “The Next Episode”? And what if people like the new thing better? What about it if I like the remade “Evil Dead” versus the Sam Raimi original, where Bruce Campbell makes too many stupid faces and is useless? (I realize this is horror fan heresy). There is a world different from us, a world where people might actually prefer a cappella versions of songs to the clearly superior originals. Shall we blame them? Or just accept that people have different tastes? And see their “remakes” as tributes to the original? (I realize this is Thai food lover heresy).

 

Maybe you move in different sorts of circles, but I have been told a couple times to eat a bag of dicks. Not to my face, but I read it a lot. It is very evocative and memorable. I have never partaken of this bag, however.

I have eaten cod sperm sacs several times, either doused in ponzu and grated daikon radish, improbably battered in tempura coating and dipped in salt, or grilled gently on a slab of pink Himalayan salt. These were all good ways to eat fish sperm. I have also had poached rooster testicles, simmered in a hot pot seasoned with scads of Szechuan pepper. These were also good.

But I had never actually consumed animal dong (don’t worry, I will try to use as many slang words for wiener as possible). That is, until Matt — who was the first person to tell me about the Talad Rot Fai years ago, despite being from New York — mentioned a particularly memorable meal at Wattana Panich where he had both beef and goat wang for lunch.

I haven’t been to Wattana Panich (336-338 Ekamai Soi 18, 02-391-7264) since I first moved to Bangkok in 1995. A mangled cockroach in the chili pepper-studded vinegar made me not want to return ever again. But Matt made me want to go back, as did many, many publications such as BK Magazine, which exhorted readers to revel in the “lumpy and gooey” beef broth (said to be 40 years old, simmering in a vat that is topped up with more broth daily but never washed out). They also recommended customers try “their famous goat meat in Chinese soup, too” which may or may not be a nasty trick to play on unsuspecting readers.

In any case, diners eyeing the goat meat may opt for the “thua un thua diew” (literally translatable to “one per body”, 200 baht) and risk the shady side-eye of the servers, who will act like you have just ordered a porn video on the corner of Nana Road. After pointing you out to the other servers, they will eventually come back bearing the “thua un” in a “lumpy and gooey” broth, just like its beef counterpart, which is a tad cheaper at 180 baht.

Both meats are tender, as soft as anything I’ve ever been served in a bowl which isn’t sperm. That doesn’t sound great but it actually is, because sperm sacs are very soft indeed. I suspect it’s more about the texture than the broth itself, which looks goopy enough for Gwyneth Paltrow and bears the mild flavor and faintly medicinal aroma of many of my least favorite Chinese dishes. Beef tasted better to me than goat, which was both gamey and gloopy, a double-handled chore. Surprisingly, my husband — who loves both Cantonese food and beef noodles — did not care for it, either. Maybe because there’s no hiding what it is, a bowl of doinkers.

And finally: in the pickled chilies, another bug. A little one this time.

Despite all of this, it is packed to the rafters, one of the few street food shophouses left that still draws everyone, from all corners of society, to its tables. This is genuinely the case of a place that is just not for me. We finished our lunch next door, at Nomjit.

(Photo by @garethdoestheatre)

Tuesday, Aug 8

I never planned on going to New York. It was purely a spur-of-the-minute decision. But when Karen invited me with the promise that I would be able to fulfill all my greasy spoon fantasies — at a time when diners are becoming to NY what mobile cart vendors are to parts of Bangkok — I could not say no. Also, my Gold Card status was expiring at the end of August.

So I arrive in New York at like 10 in the evening, meet up with a super-jetlagged Karen who has only just arrived from South Africa a few hours earlier, and … fall asleep.

Wednesday, Aug 9

The very first thing we do when we wake up — super early, because we are jet lagged — is go to the first diner we can think of. That is City Diner, which I love unreservedly because it offers everything you would expect out of a diner: greasy, hangover-dispelling breakfast plates paired with gigantic hash browns, crispy shards of overcooked bacon, and bottomless cups of hot coffee. Everything is, of course, delicious, but mostly a vehicle for Heinz ketchup, which is far more delicious in the US than it is in Thailand. For some reason, Thai Heinz ketchup is sweet and gloopy, like red sauce at a really bad Eastern European Italian restaurant, or a mousse at most molecular gastronomy restaurants.

I go to bed at like 5 in the afternoon.

Thursday, Aug 10

I love, love, love Barney Greengrass and try to go every time I’m in New York. Actually, it’s usually the first place I go to when I arrive in the city if I’m not already fixated with some other food genre (see: diners). I also love the story behind the Barney Greengrass type of restaurant — referred to as “appetizing shops”. Apparently, they were brought to New York by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s, and encompass all the accoutrements that accompany bagels: salads, smoked fish, herring, cream cheese and eggs, separated from the smoked meats of “New York delis” like Katz’s due to the Kosher rule of separating dairy from meat. The “appetizings” (here a noun) come from the cold appetizers (forspayz) served at the start of the meal. Even though these types of places have thinned out a lot from their height in the mid-1900s, the story of the New York appetizing shop is the typical story of the American Dream.

At Barney Greengrass we always end up ordering the chopped herring, whitefish salad, and Nova platter, because the salmon comes from Acme, considered the best smoked fish purveyor in the city. Karen always gets the pumpernickel bagel, but I am happy with anything vaguely bagel-ish, and if we are feeling ambitious, we also get scrambled eggs with onions. And yes, we are super judgy bitches, because we never ever get individual sandwiches and think people who do don’t know what they’re doing. Always order a platter to make your own sandwiches with, since it costs less for more food. Duh.

Karen and I stay up late enough to have dinner with @garethdoestheatre at Cafe Un Deux Trois, where Gareth apparently lives. I have lots of red wine and a steak tartare with fries and more Heinz ketchup, even though I am still completely stuffed.

Friday, August 11

Breakfast at Metro Diner. It’s a difficult balancing act, being a good diner: you have to be friendly but not creepy, comfortable but not so comfortable that people end up there all day long with one cup of coffee. I don’t number this place as a place I have to return to. My favorite diner ends up being The Mansion, which has an old-timey feel and super efficient service, directed with “soup Nazi” precision by a guy who is always on the floor.

Dinner with Gareth at Vaucluse, where the chef chooses what we get: grilled leeks with anchovies in a mustard seed vinaigrette, a dainty Nicoise-style salad and New York strip steak with a battery of sauces, none of which is ketchup.

 

Saturday, August 12

We hatch plans to trek to Greenpoint in Brooklyn to have Polish food, after which we will visit the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD). The one we choose is flagged by a couple of life-sized medieval knights in front, Krolewskie Jadlo (it means something like “king’s feast”), and the menu is suitably large and imposing. Karen wants to order every borscht on the menu, but after slogging to Brooklyn in 90-degree weather, I am happy with just the cold version. All the borschts we order come with a side of mashed potato (?). We also get plenty of sliced bread with lard and pickles. We also end up with pierogies, potato pancakes with Karen proclaims as excellent, and a plate of venison and walnut meatballs bathed in a brown gravy. They are out of the stuffed cabbage.

Instead of taking a nap like we want to, we walk to MOFAD, where the current exhibition (until mid-February 2018) is appropriately enough entitled “Chow”, about the Chinese-American restaurant. It chronicles the story of the Chinese-American immigration experience, where the first Chinese-American restaurant opened (San Francisco) and the stories behind some of the genre’s best-known dishes, like “fortune cookies” (which began as a Japanese-American thing, until they were all interned during World War II and the Chinese took it over). My favorite part of the exhibit are the old restaurant menus, some dating back to 1910. This one is from the 1980s:

That night, we go to a midtown bar to wait for Gareth and split a slider plate: I have the beef and Karen has the chicken. We are going on the train to Long Island to go to the beach the next day.

Sunday, August 13

I wake up in Oyster Bay feeling strange and out of sorts, and even though we go to a perfectly nice diner (Taby’s Restaurant, if you are interested), I can’t manage a single bite of my one-egg plate (which Gareth refers to as a “child’s plate”) and drink copious amounts of water. After breakfast, on the street in the middle of town, I throw up for the first time, ruining my Birkenstocks and my new Eileen Fisher menocore pants. I throw up two more times (in the park, in a discarded brown paper bag next to an empty bottle of vodka) and in the ambulance (my first trip!) before I’m in the emergency room. Gareth, Kathleen and Karen spend an idyllic morning in the waiting room of the Oyster Bay Hospital. The doctor informs me that it was probably food poisoning, from the slider (or the condiments — did you know bad ketchup can make you sick?) and that my red blood cells are extra-large, meaning I’m a drunk (I’ve never heard of this before, not the drunk part but the red blood cells part). Later my therapist says maybe I was just stressed.

I still find time for dinner though, because who do you think I am? I get a big bag of sea salt popcorn from Duane Reade and eat that while Karen gets us takeout from Ollie’s. I go for the steamed white rice with steamed veggies and tofu, no sauce.

Monday, August 13

For breakfast, I have the cold miso soup that accompanied my Ollie’s order, straight from the fridge. Karen says I am slowly turning into her.

For dinner, we meet up with Bryn Mawrter friends Laurel and Adele for early drinks at Maison Premiere in Williamsburg. It’s the kind of place where the service seems very good, except that it takes an hour to get a platter of oysters, and where every woman is beautiful but you want to punch every man in the face. Also, where you need to make a reservation even though it’s 5:30 in the afternoon.

I know I was hospitalized for food poisoning the day before, but I cannot resist fresh oysters when they are sitting right in front of me. I have maybe 12. ANASSA KATA.

Having successfully gone barf-free at the worst bar in New York to ever barf, I feel confident enough to steer my friends towards a Thai restaurant in Williamsburg. We then proceed to have the worst Thai meal any of us have ever had anywhere, including anything cooked by my own hand. The warning signs were not really there; the staff was fully Thai, after all. However, we could have been tipped off by the “crab rangoon” on the menu if we had really paid attention, and not thought it was a kitschy nod to the past. The green curry is reminiscent of … a green curry you would get at a molecular gastronomy restaurant (I have that on the brain right now, sorry). But when the “Thai seafood salad” comes as boiled shrimp dumped on top of a mound of iceberg lettuce and doused in a “spicy Thai” salad dressing, the alarm bells really go off. It’s not incompetence or lack of knowledge. These people genuinely do not give a shit. I know I made fun of the Thai government’s food robot a while back, but now I can truly understand and even sympathize with their feelings. Nobody wants to be blamed for spicy Thai iceberg lettuce salad. I certainly didn’t, and I didn’t even make it.

Tuesday, August 14

Like Godzilla devouring a Japanese village, I manage to inhale an entire gluten-free Vegana pizza at Keste, after having downed an entire lobster and a passel of oysters at Chelsea Market. It’s my happiest food day by far.