Category Archives: Thailand

by | 06/17/2011 · 10:03 am

Markets: The Train Market

A bar at Thalad Rot Fai

Life would be much easier if everyone just did what I say. Because I am the expert of everything forever! So when I heard the cool, fun Ratchada Market was being cleared against my innermost wishes and desires to make way for another iteration of the “Night Bazaar” (TM) — where Thai people smile Siamese smiles and coconut shell figurines can be had for a handful of coins — I was crushed. (By the way, that’s true, isn’t it? Because I haven’t checked, since everything that everyone says is always true, all the time! Santa Claus lives! All you need is love! Thailand is a democracy!) Update: The Ratchada Market exists! A couple of blocks down. At least, that’s what I heard!

I first heard about the Train Market (“Thalad Rot Fai” to those of us, uh, In The Know) from a guy from freaking New York who said, “Have you ever heard of the Train Market?” Because I am known for my witty repartee, I said: “Huh?” But it turns out the Train Market well and truly exists, on Saturday and Sunday nights from 8pm-1am, across from the Chatuchak Market (MRT: Kampheng Phet), and has existed since late last year. Kudos to me for discovering it last week!

The Train Market sells everything you expect to see at the Ratchada Market — sneakers, skinny hipster tees that only fit Japanese people, retro tchotchkes that would never look good anywhere — and then some: retro furniture that would never look good anywhere, and lots and lots and lots of alcohol. Lots. This appears to be the main point of the Train Market. You cannot go for long without bumping into a gaggle of people behind a table made out of an antique door, downing slushies smelling of fruit and gasoline. One of these places is called “I’ Tui Indy” which perfectly encapsulates all the values of the Train Market: irreverent rudeness and an independent spirit. Plus, their drinks are the strongest of the entire market, hints of moonshine with the special aftertaste of drain cleaner. This is truly a special place.

Ai Tui

You can characterize the Train Market as sort of L-shaped, with one side more devoted to actual buying (but both sides widely featuring alcohol). People who probably hold down office jobs during the week (I haven’t checked, but that’s what I heard!) spread their wares on the ground on a blanket, or if they are more serious, in little makeshift booths, and you are supposed to haggle (I, uh, forgot). If you look closely, you can come across little gems that will “pull the room together”, but I am not gifted at looking, or closeness. I did, however, come across some wildly inapprioriate t-shirts for babies, one of which I will share with you here:

Creepy baby's tee

Given that everyone at the Train Market is cool, young and good-looking, you are probably asking yourself, “What is Bangkok Glutton doing there?” I could very well ask myself the same question, especially after getting hungry (walking and looking is hard work), because, as everyone knows, cool, young and good-looking people don’t really eat (again, that’s what I heard!) So noshing options are limited, unless you are planning a “liquid dinner”. One bright spot is an aharn tham sung (made-to-order) stall called Raan Khao Khong at the far end of the “L”, with an especially pretty young cook whose picture I failed to get here:

Raan Khao Khong

Aside from that, there is the inevitable coconut drink:

Coconuts

And the hard-to-mess-up crispy pork:

Piggy porkiness, or is that porky pigginess?

What more could you ask for, really? At least, out of all the things that you’ve heard of.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, food stalls, markets, pork, shopping, Thailand

by | 06/10/2011 · 4:18 pm

What’s Cooking: Gaeng som

Shrimp gaeng som at Mamapapa Restaurant

The last time I went to Phuket, my husband took me to what looked like a secluded selection of shanties set over the water, accessible via a small dirt road. I was starving and, obviously, grumpy, but our beachside breakfast — gaeng som with rice — reminded me why I love Thai food, its strong clear flavors and its honesty, communicating everything that in regular conversation is all-too-often too nuanced for me to pick up.

I sought to recreate this experience — sans Phuket sand, glimmering ocean and dozing old man at the next table — in my own kitchen. With store-bought nam prik gaeng som (I know, I know), it was criminally easy, but if you want to make your own chili paste base, mix a handful of red bird’s eye chilies, shallots, garlic cloves, a pinch of salt and a few lemongrass bulbs, galangal and kaffir lime leaves into a paste. Some people add a dollop of shrimp paste as well.

Gaeng som (sour curry) (serves 4)

– 4 Tablespoons nam macaam piek (tamarind syrup)*

– 6 knobs of grachai (wild ginger)

– 1 Tablespoon palm sugar

– 1 firm, white-fleshed fish such as pomfret, boiled in half a pot of salted water (save cooking liquid)**

– 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

– 4 Tablespoons fish sauce

– 2 bunches cha om (acacia leaves)

– 3 eggs

– 4 heaping Tablespoons gaeng som paste (see above)

1. Chop grachai into small pieces and pound into a paste with mortar and pestle.

2. Deflesh fish from the bone, add to mortar and pound further. Add your nam prik gaeng little by little, mixing carefully so that you don’t get any in your eye (again), which is very painful. It will look like this:

3. Add paste to fish cooking water on the stove along with palm and granulated sugars and fish sauce. Bring to the boil.

4. When boiling, add tamarind juice.

5. Add your white fish pieces. Do not stir, or gaeng will become “fishy”.

6. Taste to correct seasoning, adding if necessary more tamarind juice (for acidity), sugar (for sweet) and/or fish sauce (for salt) as you see fit.

7. Allow to boil for another 10 minutes. Your gaeng is finished!

8. As your soup boils, chop cha om with scissors into bite-sized pieces.

9. Heat 4 Tablespoons of cooking oil in a big frying pan.

10. Whip eggs as you would an omelette and add half the cha om. It will initially look like this:

11. Over medium heat, cook in hot oil until puffy, then turn over and cook until golden-brown. Take out and drain on a paper towel.

12. Serve omelette by cutting into squares, placing at bottom of bowl and ladling your gaeng som on top, accompanied with rice.

*You can make your own tamarind syrup by steeping a tamarind pod in hot water for at least 10 minutes. A tamarind pod looks like this:

 ** Obviously, you can substitute the fish for anything else you would prefer — shrimp, chicken, and/or some blanched mixed vegetables.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, cooking, curries, fish, food, recipe, restaurant, seafood, Thailand

by | 06/02/2011 · 11:54 am

Golden Oldie

Soft oyster omelette, or aw suan, at New Kwong Meng

Getting old sucks. Granted, there are some people who rhapsodize about how it brings a new maturity, a deeper understanding of life, and some other useless blahbadiblah that no one really ever wants, but these people are usually young (and therefore stupid. I can say this because I am old, and jealous). Age announces itself in a series of sharpening steps: first, the twinges and inexplicable aches upon waking; the stuttering metabolism that thickens the waistline; the sudden urge to pee in the middle of the night; the inability to sleep beyond 7 in the morning; the face that suddenly, startlingly, turns into your Grandma’s one morning.

Before you know it, you are sitting over beers with another old fart, reminiscing over that one time Digger lost his satellite phone in the Khyber Pass and when Scoop got tipsy at lunch and threw tomatoes at the bureau chief. Who is this person? How did this happen? Where was I this whole time? These are questions that will never get any satisfying answers.

New Kwong Meng Restaurant (4-8 Padsai Road, or Yaowarat Soi 19; 02-224-2201, 02-224-2170, open 11-2, 5:30-9) is a whole five years older than me, but it seems to be wearing its middle age well, the bitch. Part of a string of excellent Teochew restaurants (I’m told most Chinese-Thais are Teochew, or Chaozhou) tucked into the Old Market side of Yaowarat Road, New Kwong Meng reminds our parents of the days when they were young and sprightly. This is probably why it is packed with, uh, our parents and all their friends. Young, hip and happening, this is not, but is that the point?

It is not when you are confronted with a soft, silky aw suan (soft oyster omelette) studded with succulently large oysters, a heartbreakingly tiny suckling pig enveloped in a crackly sheen, and slivers of finely sliced raw — is that sea bream? — strewn with sesame seeds and accompanied by a sweet soy dipping sauce.

Thai-Chinese "sashimi"

There is goat “ham”, festooned with white asparagus that looks suspiciously like it came out of a can, but a big favorite are what look like razor clams, sauteed with Chinese kale and shiitake mushrooms. Actually, they look like something else, but I’m not sure what that would be, really I’m not.

Clams, greens, mushrooms

And since every Chinese meal must end with some sort of starch, New Kwong Meng sends out a whopper: a delicately pan-fried sheaf of e mee (fried egg noodles), crispy outside and buttery within, topped with strips of ham and accompanied by a sour black vinegar Thais call “zisho”. This version is as good as the e mee anywhere in Bangkok.

New Kwong Meng's e-mee

I could go on, and talk about what we had for dessert, and how I drank too much strange Chinese whisky, and how we stumbled down the stairs into the night, where it wasn’t as hot as we expected it to be. There were wrong turns taken down winding Chinatown roads, and promises to not lose touch ever, and BFF presents exchanged that didn’t get opened. I could go further, but I’m tired, and late for my nap.

 

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, Chinatown, Chinese, fish, food, noodles, seafood, Thai-Chinese, Thailand