Category Archives: pork

by | 10/19/2012 · 5:52 pm

My favorite street food things

Fried wontons with homemade plum sauce at Bamee Gua

(Photo by @anuntakob)

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered from voraciously reading blogs and glossy weeklies, it’s that there are not enough lists out there posing as articles. To address this obvious imbalance, I’m going to try my hand at a few “list” stories, because I know that everyone, everywhere, is starving for more lists.

Such as: who do I blame first when something goes wrong?

1. My parents

2. My lost iPhone

3. Thailand

Or: What are my top three recurring nightmares?

1. Being chased by voracious man-eating crocodiles

2. Being chased by angry man with chainsaw

3. Going to a buffet and getting paralyzed by the immense variety of choice before finally coming to a decision, only to discover that I’ve lost your way back (OMIGERD SO AWFUL).

Or how about: Which successful eating spots leave me completely baffled? (aka I DON’T GET IT, YOU GUYZ)

1. Smith (I’m sorry)

2. Coffee Bean (it’s because of the cakes, right?)

3. MBK Food Court (this one most of all. If you must go a-food-courtin’, just amble on down the road to Platinum Mall, where it is MUCH BETTER. Really).

But why wallow in negativity? We should dispense with this talk of nightmares and food courts. What about my favorite three street food dishes right now? If you asked me about this a year ago, I would have said something along the lines of bamee kai (egg noodles with soft-boiled eggs), fried chicken, and, uh, bamee kai. But things change. What I can’t wait to eat now:

1. The minced pork noodles with egg at Bamee Gua (guaythiew moo san gub kai dip)

I’ve written about this fabulous noodle place before, but I want to emphasize how much I absolutely love this stand (sandwiched between the Vietnamese restaurant at Luxx XL hotel on Langsuan Rd). Everything here, down to the pickled turnip bits they use as garnish on their noodles, is homemade: the bamee, the wonton wrappers for their giew (dumplings), the plum dipping sauce for their fried wontons. While street food is, first and foremost, a convenience thing — “fast food” — it doesn’t necessarily mean everything should be some mass-produced whatever, all instant noodles, MSG and some processed squid strands. The food should be a convenience for the diner, but not for the vendor. The very best street food should be a labor of love (think In-n-Out Burger, not McDonald’s).

Bamee Gua embodies this, especially in a dish like the minced pork noodles, which are hard to find nowadays. Sort of like a Thai adaptation of spaghetti bolognese, it features thick rice noodles topped with a thick pork ragu, fragrant with curry powder and topped with a bright raw egg yolk for that extra somethin-somethin. I could go on and on, but I’ll just say: It is absolutely delicious.

2. Grilled fatty pork shoulder at Moo Jum on Suan Plu (kaw moo yang)

One of my editors put me onto this place (located at the entrance to Suan Plu Soi 3), which I had heard about for years but never went to. After writing a story that I thought pretty comprehensively listed all the places in Bangkok at which you could eat Thai food, he asked: “HAVE U HEARD OF THIS PLACE WITH THE FATTY PORK NECK? THE PHOTOGRAPHER TOOK SOME GOOD PICS THERE” and I was all: “NAH” while thinking mind yer own freakin beeswax, photographer guy. 

Despite the fact that Photographer Guy liked it first, Moo Jum is a great place, and not just because of the fatty pork neck, which is tender, meaty, saucy, even a little sweet. It’s got great service, a loyal clientele, and a super range of sides — the spicy squid salad comes to mind — as well as the Isaan-style sukiyaki that is the namesake dish. In short, it’s got everything, and I’m glad I finally made it there.

Fatty pork at Moo Jum

(Photo by @SpecialKRB)

3. Yen ta fo noodles at a whole bunch of different places like Guaythiew Pik Gai Nam Pung on Sukhumvit)

There is nothing that says THAI FOOD to me more right now than yen ta fo (seafood noodles in a pink fermented tofu sauce), which is funny since this is a Chinese-Thai dish. Whatever. The mix of flavors and textures — tart, sweet, spicy, slithery and crunchy — tell you everything you want to know about the interplay of all the elements that come to hand in Thai food, from the lip-puckering tartness of the red sauce to the surprise savory crunch of the deep-fried pork rind garnish.

You must choose carefully though; yen ta fo made badly is a bad, bad dish, all insipid sweetness with no depth whatsoever, the Playmate of noodles. The worst one I’ve had was at (and here we come full circle) the MBK Food Court, but I’ve had far more bowls that were fantastic, all over the country. Like everything else that’s worth the effort, explore and find your own favorite.

A bowl of yen ta fo noodles

(Photo by @SpecialKRB)

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, food stalls, noodles, pork, Thailand

by | 10/12/2012 · 3:59 pm

Just Delish

Something different: naem tod

It will probably not surprise you when I tell you I think Bangkok street food is the best in the world. It’s not just the flavors or the “above-the-title” dishes: the pad thai, the som tum, the I’m-gonna-kill-you spices or soothing coconut cream. It’s the sheer breadth of it, the mind-boggling variety — from soups and salads to grilled hunks of meat to curries to porridges to desserts and everything in between; even the formats change, from shophouses to mobile vendors to cafeteria-like khao gub gaeng (curry rice) to aharn tham sung (made-to-order). There is so much variety that sometimes people argue over whether something is even actually “street food” or not. Having been to a few countries over the past few year, I can tell you that this is a great luxury, to get to argue over what category So-and-So place actually falls into. Thailand is very blessed, food-wise.

To me, naem tod is an example of the awesomeness of Thai street food: a recent discovery that I now can’t help seeing everywhere I go. Naem, the beloved sour fermented sausage originating from both the North and Northeastern regions of the country. Usually made from a mix of pork, crunchy piggy bits like cartilage or skin, chilies, garlic and a bit of sticky rice, naem is wrapped up and “cooked” by leaving it to ferment for a few days, lending the meat its characteristic tang (for the record, my mother’s favorite naem maker is “Naem Anchan” in Chiang Mai).

Thais like to make sure everything is presented in its own special way, and naem is no different. The “proper” way to serve it — the best way to offset its acidity and slightly gummy texture — is with whole fresh bird’s eye chilies, fresh ginger, bits of rind-on lime,  slivered shallots, roasted peanuts and fresh cabbage. What naem tod does is to basically combine the shredded sour sausage (or, in some vendors’ cases, pork skin or cartilage) with its accompaniments, chopped salad-style, and top it with Northeastern Thai-inspired “croutons”: shredded bits of deep-fried sticky rice. The ensuing salad is then tossed lightly in a spicy yum-like dressing (a mix of fish sauce, lime juice, chilies and sugar).

Naem tod vendors can be spotted by the glimpse of croquette-like deep-fried sticky rice balls they usually place on their carts — these vendors are almost always ambulatory. The fixings that go with naem are also included, alongside “fresh” veggies like the aforementioned cabbage, sawtooth coriander and/or betel leaves. As for the name, well, the naem is occasionally wrapped in the sticky rice and deep-fried, which I think is ingenious. But sometimes it’s just shredded, or there is an approximation of it via just using the crunchy pig bits, and that’s ok, because the flavors and textures are all still there: fiery hot and tart, mitigated by some crunch and a bit of bounce.

The vendor I photographed here is in front of the Kasikornbank near Sukhumvit 33; he is on Sukhumvit 23 in the afternoons. There is another one at the entrance to the shortcut to the Polo Club from Rama IV Road, next to the Esso gas station by the muay Thai stadium there. My favorite, though, is at the entrance to Petchburi Soi 14.

The naem tod vendor’s typical wares

 

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, food stalls, Isaan, pork, Thailand

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by | 09/03/2012 · 12:56 pm

Misson: Sort of possible

Beef noodles at Niyom Pochana in Lampang

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me when I say that I’m terrible at directions. No matter how hard I try, my mind sort of switches off as the landscape flashes by, and before I know it, I’m where I need to be through no effort of my own.

So maybe it was a bad idea to go to Lampang for the express purpose of trying out some beef noodles I had eaten a few years earlier that I remembered were pretty good. My directions to the hapless, Chiang Rai-born driver we hired for the day: “There are some famous beef noodles at a stall near a temple in town. There is lots of greenery around it.” If we were lucky, this would be enough. How big can Lampang be, amirite?

Not a surprise, then, that we got lost. Many times. It turns out there are lots of temples in Lampang, the third-largest town in Northern Thailand and home to a large deposit of lignite. Go Lampang!

There are also lots of different definitions on “famous beef noodles”. Whereas I meant “delicious noodles with beef in them”, other people took it to mean “the closest noodle shop to where I am right now at this moment”, “that place that I heard might have noodles across town”, and “the barbecued pork on rice place”.

We bulled our way onto various temple grounds, disturbing monks doing their laundry and workers eating their lunches.  We squeezed our van into various dead-end alleys and one-way thoroughfares. Worst of all, we walked — from one end of a road to another, up and down sidewalks, investigating every sign. Let me tell you (please! Let me!), it’s not cool in Northern Thailand’s third-largest town at the moment. It’s not even a little breezy. More than once, we thought: maybe these noodles aren’t that good? Maybe we’ll eat somewhere else? Somewhere close and convenient?

But that’s not what we’re about. The whole point of our existence is to find that One Special Place that will serve us something good and/or do it in an interesting way. It took about three hours to chance upon the one man — a driver of the horse-drawn carriages for which charming little Lampang is known, if Lampang is known for anything at all — who told us to go straight, turn left, turn right, and then left again. Simple! Beef noodles were to be ours, after only half a day spent searching.

Niyom Pochana shopfront

Niyom Pochana — known also as “Oyo” (I don’t know why) — is actually located in the shadow of Muangsat Temple (I knew there was a temple somewhere) on Charoenmuang Road. Its specialty is actually its meatballs, both beef and pork, as well as its generous additions of boiled pork, freshly-blanched beef slices and stewed beef atop soft rice noodles, a clear pork bone broth and a handful of shredded cabbage leaves.

Niyom Pochana meatballs

Don’t be late, because the meatballs can and do run out. Perhaps, next time, barring any more delays (I mean, I can’t get lost again, right? Right?) I will get as many brimming bowlfuls of beef meatballs as I can possibly eat. At least we found the place, and I can rest easy and sated knowing that our hours-long search was worth it.

(All photos by @SpecialKRB)

 

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Filed under Asia, beef, food, food stalls, noodles, Northern Thailand, pork, Thailand