Category Archives: restaurant

by | 06/01/2010 · 1:44 pm

Down South

Stir-fried crab in black pepper sauce at the restaurant it's named for, "Pu Dum" (Black Crab)

As a native Northern Thai, I like to think that everything up north is gracious and everyone there good-looking. But I have to say, right now I am smitten with the South: its weather, its beatific scenery, its beaches, its food. Especially the food.

Heading southbound by car from Bangkok to Phuket offers a great perspective on what Thailand has to offer. Even better, you get to stop at reststops that feature some truly outstanding food courts, offering some of the most underrated food in the country. Now, it’s true I try to avoid most food courts in Bangkok (except for the ones at MBK and at Bangkok Hospital, which are excellent) because — let’s face it — better renditions of these dishes can be found elsewhere, we know about these places, and we have the time to go to them.

Boiling oxtails for oxtail soup, a southern food court standby

Food courts by the highway in the provinces are another story. I love how they offer dishes that are basically a culinary Cliff’s Notes of what you would be enjoying in that region, were you to stop there — a “greatest hits” of each area, food-wise. In the south, a lot of those hits mirror the region’s large Muslim Thai population and are deliciously “exotic” and Other (note the widespread absence of pork. In fact, if you see pork, chances are you’ve stumbled onto a community of Chinese, who settled down south in the 19th century). A great case in point: 

Chicken "mataba" with sweet cucumber salsa

Take the mataba, a sort of stuffed crepe with minced vegetables and chicken or beef, served with a sweet shallot and cucumber relish (achad). It’s savory, sweet and starchy, cut with the fresh, crunchy snap of the relish, a great snack on the go. Another thing I love about food courts in the south are the free (!) pepper dips provided at every table, which are served alongside some of the more exotic vegetables and leaves I have ever seen. I love travelling to the south of Thailand because every time I go, I encounter some new and unusual green that I have never tried before. On this trip: a nam prik gapi (shrimp paste pepper dip) accompanied by the likes of an asparagus-like long bean, tannic baby eggplants to counteract the spicy dip, and sator, the peppery, bitter legume (which is in season right now).

Shrimp paste dip with vegetables

Another current culinary obsession: highway-side food vendors. Notwithstanding how people manage to slow down enough to patronize any of these stalls, I love seeing the wide variety of things on sale depending on where you are in Thailand (and where you are in the season) — around Hua Hin, it might be limes and coconuts; in northeastern Isaan, probably grilled chicken and sticky rice; up north, you might encounter freshly pressed sugarcane juice. Even in parts of the south, you will find huge stainless steel steamers stuffed with steamed pork-filled dumplings (salapao) or steamed shrimp dumplings (kanom jeeb) for sale, more testament to the large Chinese communities here.

What you’ll also get is called roti sai mai — imagine a tortilla stuffed with cotton candy, and you’ve got a good approximation of what I’m talking about. It’s a popular southern streetside snack, and is chock-full of the double comforts of sugar and starch, all in one.

A typical highway vendor selling roti

But the best southern Thai food, for me, is all about the seafood. Homebound again through a torrential downpour, we stopped at Phang Nga for some good food-lovin’ at Pu Dum (Black Crab), ordering its namesake, a barely cooked cracked fresh crab smothered in a black peppercorn sauce; a handful of deep-fried Thai smelts; freshly steamed hor mok (steamed fish curry); stir-fried sator with shrimp and chilies; a piquant sour soup with coconut shoots and the plump midsection of a serpent head fish; and best of all, sauteed bai lieng (the leaves of a local tree, stir-fried with dried shrimp), a new discovery. It was delicious.

Stir-fried leaves with dried shrimp

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Filed under Asia, food, food stalls, restaurant, seafood, Southern Thailand, Thailand

by | 05/31/2010 · 3:09 pm

Losin’ It

Ronald McDonald with his muse, Bangkok Glutton

 

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m trying to lose weight.

Being a Glutton isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are the constant, relentless, unremitting questions like “When are you going to lose weight?” or “How did you get so big?” or “When are you due?” (my personal favorite). The “helpful” people who never fail to point out that “You’ve gained weight!” (for the record, thank you. I had no idea I was fat until you pointed that out to me.)  And best of all, the nagging from my Debbie Downer doctor (what’s Lipitor for?).

It’s tempting to see being fat as a blow on the side of the underdog, an “f you” to a society that sees women’s bodies as a sort of public domain that can constantly be critiqued and controlled. I especially love how the people most ready to point out your flaws are not, shall we say, paragons of conventional beauty themselves (the Law of Inverse Self-Awareness). But where does the “I” fit into this equation? Does life become a constant string of humiliations as you balloon your way to the realm of the Morbidly Obese? Or, possibly worse, does it turn into an endless parade of renunciation, making your life a joyless void of all that is fun and worth living? Should I stop, well, being Gluttonous? What would my fan think?

There are people who say that they “love food”, and then end up eating half a plate of something and a bite of dessert. Those people are annoying. Food is not a hobby for me, or even a career. It is an almost constant preoccupation. When we are eating dinner with people who don’t know me very well,  my husband will occasionally try to take advantage of the situation by pretending I cannot finish something like an entire lamb shank and about half a box of polenta by myself (of course, we all know that I can finish this, and your dinner too). Because I am a “girl”, I have to fork some food over or look like a complete pig, but all the while my brain is thinking “OHMYGODWHATAREYOUDOING?” That is what food means to me. It’s like a security blanket for my mouth.

This brings me to the title of this post: “Losin’ it” — much like the cheesy ’80s movie of the same name, complete with super-classy “‘n” (because to spell out “losing” is so, like, whack).  Right before going into labor with my son four months ago, I weighed 78 kg (yes, that’s right). After giving birth, I lost…3 kg. So now I weigh…well, I can’t really do the math. Whatever. I need to lose weight, okay?

The perfect diet food? Green papaya salad (som tum), a dish once etched out of the hard soil and uncompromising heat of the northeastern Isaan region, today the culinary darling among society mavens of a certain age. Tart, salty, spicy and a little sweet (although some versions are so sweet it’s like eating fishy candy — yuck), it’s no wonder that som tum is one of the most popular street foods in Thailand.

Som tum can be found just about anywhere there is a mortar and pestle (an integral tool for “bruising” the papaya strands with the yummy juices), but one of the better vendors in terms of variety is Hai Somtum Convent (2/4-5 Convent Rd. off of Silom Rd.). It offers the standard, most popular “Thai” version with dried shrimp and peanuts, but also a good version with pickled crabs (plucked from the rice fields and “cooked” via pickling); a horseshoe crab one; one with preserved, salted egg; a version made entirely of carrots; and one with pla rah, or Thai anchovy (kind of an acquired taste, but unrivalled for depth of flavor. If you like gapi, or shrimp paste, chances are you will like this).

Somtum Thai, with minced pork salad in background

Hai also offers an interesting range of minced meat salads (larb) as well — pork, duck, chicken, catfish, glass vermicelli noodle and squid – but these dishes are fried and, so, not great for someone trying to lose weight. When in doubt, stick to the som tum, skip the fried chicken and sticky rice accompaniments (which make you sleepy anyway), and revel in your newfound righteousness.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, restaurant, Thailand, weight loss

by | 05/21/2010 · 2:24 pm

Love letter to Bangkok

Platu, a staple of the Thai diet

Dear Bangkok,

It’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s not for lack of thinking about you. To tell you the truth, I think about you all the time — what you’ve been up to, what’s been happening to you, where you’re going. Especially where you’re going.

There was a time I was completely infatuated with you. Who wouldn’t be? You were charming, open, sunny, a little dirty, unexpectedly seductive. You showed me things I’d never seen before and were completely accepting of all my little ignorances and idiosyncracies. You made me the person I am today.

But things gradually changed a few years ago. You started getting demanding and even, at strange times, a little prudish. You started not making any sense, closing some places, keeping others open, contradicting yourself at irritating times. And then you started on that self-righteous streak where you became a teetotaller at strange times of the day. We thought it might be a phase. But it wasn’t. Gradually, more and more, you became more restrictive and self-conscious. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It was like you wanted to deny who you really were.

And then this happened. It’s sad to see you this way. You didn’t deserve this, no matter how cray-cray you were getting. But I know you will eventually prevail. And whatever it is that you need, you know you can ask me. You can ask anyone. You have tons of friends who will do anything for you at the drop of a hat (for more info on this, check out www.sathira-dhammasathan.org or call +662-510-6697).

I’d like to remember the best parts of you, the best parts that are still there. gleaming in the rubble, indestructible and obvious to anyone who looks. If people are the reflection of the place in which they live, food is the mirror to those people (you don’t want to follow me all the way out on this limb? Come on). And there is nothing more expressive of Bangkok’s freewheeling stylishness than its food.

A typical made-to-order food stall counter

What most reflects Bangkok’s spirit? To me, it is its myriad made-to-order food stalls (aharn tham sung), tiny and not-so-tiny stands armed with the best produce of the day and great cooks able to do anything you ask of them. Although some have menus in an attempt to control costs and ensure quality control (not all chefs know every dish), the real, bona fide tham sung food stalls have no menus and no rules — just fresh meat, fowl, seafood and veggies, plucked from the rivers and fields and cooked a la minute to accompany your rice, Thai rice porridge, and beer. Unsure of what you want? Just point to an ingredient — I picked out a gelatinous bowl of pork tendon that was eventually stir-fried with red pepper, shrimp and scallions — and the chef will simply make something up, on the spot.

Stir-fried pork tendon from Jay Suay in Chinatown

To me, this is real cooking and real “Bangkok”: the opposite of the frozen perfectionism and manicured sterility associated with Cook’s Illustrated and Singapore, a creative burst of self-expression that is all about … well, life, its good parts (the “glitzy” hotels and high-rises) as well as the gritty (everywhere else). Life has its highs and lows, dramas and comforts, and nowhere illustrates those extremes more thoroughly than you, Bangkok.

So take your life back by the reins and get ready to welcome people like me, eager for the best of what you have to offer, even with banks burnt to a crisp and the streets cratered with holes like a concrete teenager.  Life (and stomachs) won’t be held back, and neither will the people who supply Bangkokians — red, yellow and rainbow-colored — with what they need (good food). Baby mussels, jewel-like greens ready for the stir-fry pot, braised pork spare-ribs: bring it on. We’re getting hungry.

Love,

Bangkok Glutton

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, Chinatown, food, food stalls, restaurant, Thailand