Category Archives: beef

by | 08/26/2010 · 3:36 pm

Two great food stalls

Beef noodles 'nam thok'-style at Nai Soi

There comes a time … when I actually have to talk about street food. Yes, I know. I know you actually want to hear about my day, and how my minders are making me eat cardboard for lunch, and how my life is a Jennifer Aniston movie if Jen put boot polish on her hair and gained 30 lbs. But I’m going to save all that good stuff for my widely anticipated TV movie screenplay for the Hallmark channel. All you get to read about are these two relatively undiscovered gems.

Emphasis on “relatively”. Because Nai Soi (100/2-3 T. Phra Arthit, 081-487-9359 or 086-982-9042) is well-known to any journalist who works for the Manager group or general traveler-in-the-know who makes Phra Arthit Road his or her base of operations. This Banglamphu standby is popular for its gorgeously amber-colored beef noodles — slightly chewy rice noodles bathed in a garnet-colored broth and tender, flimsy slices of freshly blanched beef. Unlike my other beef noodle favorite, Raan Anamai, the broth here is thickened with blood (known as nam thok, or “water falling”) and not crystal-clear; nonetheless, it doesn’t make it any less yummy.  OM NOM NOM NOM.

Making our beef noodles

Too bad I can’t eat there right now. Another place where I can’t eat is the incomparable Aisa Rot Dee (the beginning of Thanee Rd., 02-282-6378, 081-401-1326), purveyor of most things delicious and Thai-Muslim. Mounds of soft and fragrant yellow rice, perfumed with cumin, atop hunks of slightly charred barbecued chicken; bowls of aromatic beef noodles smelling slightly of star anise; comfortingly substantial oxtail chunks in a fiery broth; sweet-salty beef satay coated in coconut milk — the offerings here turn other Thai-Muslim eateries like the nearby Roti-Mataba into mere whispers of an afterthought. There is no way you would be able to leave this hole in the wall hungry.

Thai-Muslim yellow chicken

And I mean “hole in the wall”. The only suggestion that there is a bustling “restaurant” somewhere behind all the touristy knick-knack shops hawking fishermen’s pants and flip-flops is a sign on the sidewalk — in Thai — reading “Aisa rot dee” (Aisa good taste). In the narrow alleyway behind the sign, two forbidding faces manning a beef noodle stand, and as you approach the darkness, the hint of more. After passing the khao mok gai and tripping over two or three people on the way, the darkness becomes the light, and the alleyway opens into a substantial open-air courtyard, tables, chairs — even waiters.

Aisa is a leap of faith for a hungry Indiana Jones-type searching out answers in a culinary maze. Don’t let the darkness fool you.

(Photos by @SpecialKRB)

1 Comment

Filed under Asia, Bangkok, beef, chicken, food, food stalls, noodles, restaurant, rice, Thai-Muslim, Thailand

by | 07/22/2010 · 9:04 am

Road trip up north, Part I

Waiting on a bowl of noodles in Nakhon Sawan

A terrible, unexpected thing happened that necessitated a trip up north (what a horrible sentence, I know. It will have to make do). What this … happening … underlined was that, if you can forgive the old saw, life is short, and that it should be spent doing the things that make you and the people you love happy.

So that is what we did. Maybe this was just an elaborate rationalization that people like us concoct in order to feel good about eating our feelings, but when faced with the tiny little fishballs adorning the snow-white egg noodles at Goniew in Nakhon Sawan after a crappy 24 hours and a long road ahead, the way of least resistance is also the tastiest.

Duck stewing in a vat at Goniew

Goniew is a marvel in more ways than one (and easily found. Ask anyone in Nakhon Sawan and they will tell you where it is). Not only does it offer some of the tastiest, cutest little fish meatballs around, but it also serves up a gorgeously braised bowl of duck noodles, duck and barbecued or crispy pork on rice, and a decent Hainanese chicken rice. It also offers daily noodle specials (our day, an unusual choice: duck beak noodles). And it is open at 7 in the morning, an oasis in the desert of highway minimarts after a 4:30 wakeup call with no breakfast in sight and a heavy heart.

Khao soy at Khao Soy Islam

To me, khao soy is one of the more interesting dishes in Thailand. Often mistaken for something Burmese, people are sometimes puzzled as to why they can’t find something similar to this dish in Burmese restaurants. But it’s actually “Haw”, a Chinese-Muslim group originally from Burma that gradually settled in parts of northern Thailand, bringing with them this delicious soupy mix of spice and starch. Their Muslim heritage explains why the dish, if authentic, comes in only beef or chicken, and the Chinese part possibly explains the inclusion of egg noodles.  Strangely, the “Haw” attained a reputation for bland food despite the invention of khao soy. Even now, northern Thais call something bland “haw”.

Certainly not “haw”: the thick, pungent stew-like concoction available at Khao Soy Islam in Lampang, famed for its horse-drawn carriages and the coin-shaped rice cakes cooked in watermelon juice. Both chicken and beef versions are similarly earthy, almost musky, but the beef — which appears to have been marinated in something strong and aromatic — is almost gamy, thick with spice.

A steamerful of ganjin in Chiang Rai

Finally, at our destination, Thailand’s northernmost city and my birthplace: a quick, hurried meal at Pa Suk, the city’s best and most well-known purveyor of that hard-to-produce noodle delicacy, kanom jeen nam ngiew. It’s hard to go wrong with either the pork and beef versions (pork is milder and fattier, beef more pungent), and both kinds are full of strength and authenticity — finally, after months of weak-kneed imitations back in the capital! But my favorite is khao ganjin, modeled after the Shan dish in which rice is cooked in pig’s blood and steamed in banana leaves. Here, it is served with green onions and deep-fried garlic oil, a punctuation point to the perfect “welcome home” meal.

Pork nam ngiew at Pa Suk

4 Comments

Filed under Asia, beef, Chiang Rai, chicken, duck, fish, food, food stalls, noodles, Northern Thailand, pork, Thailand

by | 04/07/2010 · 4:55 pm

Iron Chef hits Bangkok

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?

Chef Hiroyuki Sakai of “Iron Chef” fame (the one who cooked French food, as opposed to the “Chinese” and “Japanese” Iron Chefs) came to Bangkok to bring his love of delicate flavors and vegetable flans to food-loving Thais. Last night, he held the second of three dinners at Maduzi Hotel (full disclosure: my husband’s family owns this hotel, but that didn’t save me from having to shell out the 7,500++ baht like everybody else.) Needless to say, I was excited; this is the closest I will probably ever get to Iron Chef without donning a poufy wig and cape.

"Seriously, guys--is there something in my teeth?"

And Chef Sakai totally delivered. His persnickety attention to detail, illustrated by his high hygienic standards (the kitchen was cleaned after every single course), was reflected in a series of perfectly turned-out dishes despite his having to cook for 60 covers. This somehow didn’t affect the pacing of the dishes, which reached perfection at around the end of the meal.

It kicked off with a completely smooth crab flan, reminiscent in texture of Japanese chawanmushi (egg custard), paired with a deep-fried crispy scallop and wasabi sauce to cut the fattiness.

crab flan with leek and courgette soup, deep-fried scallop and wasabi sauce

A parcel of foie gras came encased in a mashed potato shell and deep-fried into a golf ball, served atop a pool of truffle sauce and topped with a parmesan tuile.

foie gras croquette with truffle sauce

Sakai’s “signature” dish turned out to be a Thai freshwater prawn tail (the Brittany langoustines shipped to the hotel for the event were unfortunately not up to snuff) wrapped in threads of blanched zucchini, braided Bottega Veneta-style over the lightly poached flesh. 

Langoustine wrapped in courgette

After that, grade 9++ Wagyu beef (apparently the highest grade there is, although I don’t understand why you can’t just suck it up and say “grade 10”) was smoked in the hotel kitchen and arrived to the table wrapped in bamboo skin like a Christmas present. 

Lightly smoked Wagyu beef baked in bamboo skin

Finally, a mango custard came layered with a green tea foam and accompanied by a salty chocolate crepe, garnished with a pinch of candied orange peel.

Mango blanc manger and green tea espuma with chocolate crepe

But the best part of the meal, for me at least, was a cold hors d’oeuvre initially described in a preliminary menu as a dreary-sounding “turnip mousse”. What came out of the kitchen was a beautiful mixed custard of Kabu turnip and sea urchin, topped with Alaskan king crab, abalone, fan lobster and scallop chunks, ringed by turnip rounds and topped with a dollop of caviar. It was among the best dishes I’ve had in a while.

This dish is the bomb.

Final verdict? Totally worth it, even if I have to snack on streetside noodles for the rest of the month. I mean, that’s what I’m supposed to be here for, isn’t it?

4 Comments

Filed under Asia, Bangkok, beef, celebrity chefs, food, French food, Iron Chef, Japanese, restaurant, seafood, Thailand, TV chefs