Category Archives: Thailand

by | 04/05/2012 · 2:34 pm

A very Phuket breakfast

Dim sum in Phuket

There are times when “research” means stuffing yourself with lots and lots and lots of food in a very short period of time. God help me, it was the kind of research I was doing today — namely, three promising stalls, all for breakfast.

Lured by the promise of “beef bamee”, I was excited by the prospect of Guaythiew Rab Arun, a small noodlery in the shadow of Bangkok Phuket Hospital. Alas, they were not as excited by our appearance, and, double-damn, a beefy variation of the popular egg noodles with barbecued pork was also not on the cards. No, this was your run-of-the-mill beef noodle shop: choice of rice vermicelli (sen mee), thin noodles (sen lek) and thick ones (sen yai), with broth that did or did not include cow blood (nam tok). The broth was as good beef broths are, cinnamon-y and sweet; the bowl an unashamed showcase for all sorts of innards — lungs, liver and tripe.

Beef noodles without broth

All very nice — except for the bizarre delay in letting us settle the bill — but nothing I wouldn’t find in Bangkok. On the other hand, I haven’t seen anything quite like the dim sum shop we visited next. When asked the name of the place, a two-room shophouse on Sam Gong Road serving kanom jeeb (Chinese-style steamed dumplings) and a wide variety of little bits, our waitress acts like I have just asked her ATM pin code. “Just ask, everyone knows the Dim Sum Place Down The Road From The Hospital,” she said (TDSPDTRFTH for short). A trayful of plates is deposited onto your table as you sit; you pick what you want, and you are charged, conveyor belt sushi-style, for whatever you choose. Small plates are 10 baht, “big” plates (which are almost the exact same size as the small plates) cost 15.

The tray of goodies at TDSPDTRFTH

Is it the best dim sum ever? Of course not. Is it crazy cheap? Well, that depends on you, but for the most part, why, yes it is. It is indeed cheap. And that is sometimes what I am looking for.

So, a question mark on the first stall, a possible “yes” on the second. The third? A resounding I WILL BE BACK. Pa Mai (at three-way intersection of Sagul and Dibuk roads near Wittaya School, 076-258-037) specializes in curry — curry, and the Mon fermented rice noodles known as kanom jeen, what some people mistakenly translate into “Chinese candy”. A plate of the stuff is handed to you at the front by this nice lady:

Dispenser of kanom jeen

Once you receive your blank canvas, an array of curries awaits your artistry: a trio of nam ya, crab, fish and “jungle” (without coconut milk); chicken green curry, made the old-fashioned way with globs of congealed pork blood; nam prik, a speckled chili-coconut milk concoction that, unlike its terrifying name, is actually quite sweet; gaeng tri pla, or the famous — and fierce — southern fish entrail curry; and because this is the south, nam prik kapi, or shrimp paste chili dip, made to go with the innumerable garnishes that greet you at every table:

A table at Pa Mai

Is there any sight more gladdening than this one? A platter bristling with greenery: tart mango leaves, chewy cashew ones, boiled jackfruit, cubed pineapple, bitter, spice-defying baby eggplants. Soft-boiled eggs for 7 baht. Dried fish. An ajad of thinly-sliced cucumber in a tart-sweet syrup. And a happy variety of pickles (I just love pickles): cabbage, bean sprouts, lotus stems, baby garlic.

My choice (at first): crab nam ya

Best of all, you are only charged 30 baht for the kanom jeen, meaning those curries can be added, mixed, or replenished as you see fit. Really. So I first took some fish nam ya, then some crab. Some green curry. Some nam prik. And then a little left for the fiery tri pla. Don’t judge me.

We have found kanom jeen nirvana, and it is open from 7 to noon.

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Filed under Asia, beef, Chinese, curries, food, food stalls, noodles, Southern Thailand, Thailand

by | 03/29/2012 · 3:29 pm

Glutton Abroad: No place like home

What I love most about traveling, is, of course, all the (you already know how this sentence ends). Everybody does it differently. (Insert noun here) comes in different permutations; a humdrum thing like (insert something else here) becomes something completely new when somewhere else. I love that. I love thinking “Oh, that’s how they do that” or “I’ve never seen that before” or “Hey! I’m going to try that at home!”. It’s the best part of going anywhere for me.

For example, Sweden. When confronted with the everyday 7-11 or corner souvenir shop, you are presented with this spectacle …

… which is just one corner of the store. You can then draw very generalized and probably extremely off-base conclusions like, “Oh, Swedes must harbor a devil-may-care attitude (about cavities), fast metabolisms, and act somewhat batshit crazy.” I’m right, right? I mean, we’ve all read Stieg Larsson.

As for Poland, well we all have our little stories, and this is one of them:

Polish street food in Warsaw

First of all, a surprise: Polish food is delicious. Sour cream, dumplings, freaking Polish DILL PICKLES — what’s not to like?!  Let people pooh-pooh lard on toast — um, that lard has bay-con bits on it, ok? And it’s topped by a freaking Polish DILL. Who’s laughing now?

So it may be freezing, and the only street food stand you’ve seen for miles around is manned by a dour-faced old lady who obviously has been hiding from you, afraid that you will order something. And she burns your first pierogie on the grill. Who cares? She finally cracks a smile when a band of schoolchildren pass by, making “ching chong” noises at you as you wait for her to lard up your toast. You get your food, and it’s pretty good, and lunch is just around the corner. It’s a good day. Did I mention Polish food is delicious?

Czech food is a different proposition. It’s heavier, not as prone to flights of fancy like herring, or making soup out of fermented rye. There is also street food, though, and thanks to Prague’s many hungry bar patrons, that street food is thriving. There are flat pizza-like dishes, and hot honey wine in the mornings (DO NOT inhale as you sip, or you will regret it), and this:

Czech trdelnik

Sweet and crispy and straight from the, uh, rollers. Best of all, there is Prague ham, which sounds simple, but is so so good — thick haunches of pig, skewered and rotating over an open flame, fat dripping into the fire, juicy hunks hacked off onto a paper plate and festooned with thick slices of rye bread. Eaten standing up next to the clock tower at night, really, it is the best thing in the entire city, a meal that makes you feel like the world is an essentially good place.

But, still. There is nothing like reaching home, finally, after days and days and days of airports and trains and, uh, I guess the word for some of the hotel rooms would be “surprising”? Surprising hotel rooms. There is nothing better than a bowl of snail curry (gaeng kua hoy kom), stir-fried sweet pumpkin shoots (pad pak maew), a tiny beaker of spicy nam prik prik Thai aun (black peppercorn chili dip), some just-boiled duck eggs. A handful of steamed rice. And a tart-spicy “salad” of fried eggs with chilies and coriander (yum kai dao), what food writers think of when they write of Thai food as a “jumble” or “melange” or “cacophony of tastes.” There is no place like home.

Fried egg "yum" at Ruea Thong

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, Czech, food, Poland, restaurant, Sweden, Thailand

by | 02/16/2012 · 1:55 pm

Noshing in Nan

For years, sleepy Nan was sheltered from the rest of the country by a string of richly forested mountains that kept the northern Thai village relatively isolated. Maybe that is why the “Nan-style” Northern food bears a different imprint from that of the rest of the “spine” running down Thailand, punctuated by Lampang, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. With more Lao influence, less traces of a Burmese presence, Nan cuisine still boasts the earthy, bitter undertow characterizing much northern Thai food, but more stripped-down — think Peter Luger instead of, like, Gramercy Tavern.

An example of this might be the down-at-heel open-air shack lining the street off of Kha Luang Road named Pu Som Jiao Gow (take the right at the three-way intersection at the end of Kha Luang Rd., 50 m to the left after the turn; 080-674-1658, 054-750-486), which boasts a menu that is heavy on jaew (dipping sauce), various types of thom (boiled soup), grilled meaty bits and, because we are a-truckin’ along with the times that are a-changin’, various items stir-fried with oyster sauce.

Raw beef larb with bile

Another popular dish type on the menu: various raw meat salads such as larb kom (translated as “bitter larb”, pictured above, made so with the addition of nam dee, or bile) and saa nuea (“beef salad”. Confusingly, saa here refers only to meat instead of vegetables). In addition to jaew, Pu Som serves an additional dipping sauce called kom, liberally flavored with bile and reminiscent of liquid air freshener. There is also raw pork salad, which, to be honest, is the menu item I greeted with alarm; everyone has a line, and that one there is mine. No raw pork, thanks (unless it is guaranteed to be delicious, like naem. I have standards!)

The menu is also heavy on the thom (boiled meats in soup), all appearing to be a variation on the famed Isaan standby thom saeb (spicy, tart soup), but with varying degrees of spiciness. There is thom kom (there is never too much bile) and, if you’re a great big scaredy-cat, thom om (which is what I ordered and still very spicy), free of the freshness and dill you see in Isaan but also without the satisfyingly deep flavor of a gaeng you might find in the rest of the north.

Thom om

And then there is awful. Oh, I mean offal! I usually like it, especially liver (here grilled and dressed in a yum-like sauce — yes, I’m talking about thub waan) and tongue (here referred to as lin yang, thin slices of beef tongue grilled). But I must admit, I have never had the pleasure of encountering a plateful of pigs’ lungs until this trip, where they are steamed and referred to as maam nung, resembling something a bit like boudin noir but spongy, with the slightest hint of springiness, tasting so gamey as to recall the deepest, glow-in-the-dark depths of the sea: the stuff you find in the opened crab shell, the dead man’s fingers and the like. That is maam nung. I managed two pieces.

It was one of the more adventurous meals I’d had in a while, made more so by having a giant bottle of Chang Beer to myself  (honestly, is there really no other size?) and having to navigate a crowded street crossing (watch out for that bicycle!) on the way home. In a few days, I look forward to returning to Japan, where my biggest challenge will be to keep myself from breaking a bone out on the ski slopes. Nihon ni ikoo!

Steamed lungs

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, Isaan, Northern Thailand, restaurant, Thailand