Category Archives: dessert

by | 06/09/2010 · 3:46 pm

The South lives on

More than a week after my trip down south, I am still infatuated with southern Thai food. Luckily for me, there are a handful of great food stalls in Bangkok featuring some truly tasty Thai-Muslim fare.

One that deserves a visit from any lover of the time-honored “chicken-and-rice” combo is the Khao Mok Gai stand on Convent Road, off of Bangkok’s central business thoroughfare, Silom. Literally translated as “chicken buried in rice”, khao mok gai is one of the more well-known Thai-Muslim dishes and usually features a succulent hunk of chicken (always on the bone), paired with a mound of yellow, cumin-colored rice and a sweet-spicy red sauce. A side of chicken broth spiked with shredded chilies, deep-fried shallots and sliced cilantro is the Robin to this Batman.

(Courtesy of pbinbkk)

Although this stand sells the soup separately, which I think is kind of a gyp, I still love how the chicken is always carefully prepared, the rice just-so, the soup brimming with fresh cilantro and sharp with lime juice. Despite the fact this stand is swarmed by lunchtime office workers on the go, everything comes out well-made and fresh-tasting — still green and spiky and warm. Alas, this stand is only open during the day.

A more around-the-clock type of proposition is Roti-Mataba, huddled at the curve of picturesque Phra Arthit Road along the Chao Phraya River. It’s a lovely site, and an even lovelier food stand, provided you can stand the smoke from the spitting roti (a flat bread like its Indian counterpart, but flakier) and mataba (stuffed flatbread) on the griddle next to your table (there are tables upstairs, but service is spotty — a flight of stairs separates you from the kitchen — and the view not as good).

Those aren’t the only temptations on offer here: aside from the expected chicken, the khao mok here includes beef, mutton, fish and prawn versions, and on our last visit there, it even looked like some sausage rolls (!) were being made — a sort of strange menu item for a Thai-Muslim restaurant.

"Hot dogs" and "burgers" -- a universal combination

But the main draws here are the irrespressible mataba and roti. While it’s the sweet-sour ajad (cucumber-and-chili dipping sauce) that makes a star of the mataba (also available with “sweet” pumpkin and banana stuffings), the roti — accompanying a slew of thick-gravied southern curries like massaman and the standard gaeng gari — are fresh, flaky charmers in and of themselves. The best: dessert versions including banana, chocolate syrup-and-condensed milk, and a combination of the two. How (very, very) sweet it is.

Banana, chocolate syrup and condensed milk roti

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, chicken, dessert, food, food stalls, rice, Southern Thailand, Thai-Muslim, Thailand

by | 05/17/2010 · 4:04 pm

Happiness in a bun

It’s a sad sad time for Bangkok, full of strife and fear, so I thought it might be a good time to remember a love of something that we all share (in case you need the other shoe to drop, that thing is food).  This is what I’m talking about:

Thai coconut ice cream in a hot dog bun

Ice cream ruamitr, a mix of jackfruit and water chestnut flavors against a coconut cream background, is drizzled with carnation milk and served in a hot dog bun. This is the way Thais — rich and poor, young and old, big and small (okay, usually pretty big) — have been enjoying their ice cream for decades. This dessert/snack spans from the humblest streetside mobile vendor’s offerings at 10 baht a bun to a more “hi-so” (and dare I say, overpriced) version with black beans, palm sugar fruit and mango at 10 times that price. A reminder that, as bad as things have gotten, we all have something in common.

Ice cream dish from Ruen Mallika restaurant

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, dessert, food, Thailand

by | 04/25/2010 · 9:53 am

Gluttony in Hua Hin

When I was 12 (bear with me here, I think I’m going somewhere), we had a Secret Santa exchange at my dorm before the Christmas holiday. I combed the mall for something I could get for Leela, a sort of serious, studious older girl who was a prefect (I think she ended up going to Brown, so studying hard does get you somewhere, people). I ended up with caramel corn, which I thought was the perfectest gift ever: sweet and crunchy, with an underside of salt.

Unfortunately, Leela didn’t like caramel corn, although I made her eat at least three handfuls before I turned away and she could chuck her present somewhere else. Poor Leela. But I thought back to that caramel corn when I traveled to Hua Hin last week to sample some edifying sticky rice desserts that play with the sweet/salt balance that Thais are so fond of.

Long before Werther’s Originals, way before Guy Martin started making ice cream out of fennel and black olives at Le Grand des Vefours, eons before Gramercy Tavern was turning out caramel tarts sprinkled with sea salt, Thais were turning sugar and salt into dessert. And this salt does not come in the form of a hit of peanut butter, or a slip of fleur de sel: shrimp, dried fish, kaffir lime leaf, cumin — these are the ingredients of many a traditional Thai dessert, including  khao niew sarapat (sticky rice with toppings and steamed in banana leaves). It is hard to find in Bangkok but readily available in the beachy (and very crowded) resort town of Hua Hin.

These sticky rice offerings, bought at the central Chatchai Market opposite the Meechai Hotel on Petchkasem road (you cannot miss this main road, mainly because you will be stuck in traffic there next to the rest of Bangkok on the weekends), involved black rice, which is mixed with coconut juice to sweeten and soften it (white sticky rice is often mixed with cumin to turn it yellow and contrast it nicely against the red or brown toppings). The toppings themselves were myriad and intriguing: minced, sweetened shrimp; sweet, sticky dried fish; sankaya (coconut milk custard); gracheek (shredded, sweetened coconut) and shredded glauy, a type of root vegetable that is apparently a bitch to prepare — it is dug out of the jungle floor and alternately washed under running water and dried for 15-20 days. If not prepared correctly, it can make you drunk. 

Black sticky rice topped with dried fish and coconut cream

The effect of the seafood-topped desserts was strange and illuminating: the salt actually enhanced the sweetness of the rice, added sugar and coconut milk, while the fishiness added a titillating savory edge.  

Black sticky rice with minced shrimp

 There are other ways to play with seafood-y desserts. Meechai, a mango sticky rice stand next to the Meechai Hotel, sells a sweetened shrimp topping you can put on your own mango sticky rice, or to eat on its own if you like it that much. While many vendors bulk up their minced shrimp with shredded coconut due to the expensiveness of the shrimp, Meechai serves it full-on, with a bit of chiffonaded kaffir lime leaf for flavor. It adds that extra bit of danger to your mango or sankaya sticky rice — even if that danger comes in the form of lines that stretch down the block for a trifling bit of dessert.

Duo of coconut milk custard and sweet shrimp toppings

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Filed under Asia, dessert, food, food stalls, Hua Hin, seafood, Thailand