by | 08/09/2024 · 11:24 am

Eating the forest in Chiang Mai

Finally dining in at Laap Ton Koi in Chiang Mai

For years, I have been dining on pork laap (it finally happened, I am spelling it differently now, because I’m seeing it more on menus and this is the only way to get me to change anything) made by Chef Surat at his wildly popular eatery Laap Ton Koi in Chiang Mai and not realizing it. It is merely a hop, skip and jump away from my parents’ house, so it is our “local”, for lack of a better word. I only realized that our local was considered the best Northern Thai-style laap in the country after watching a documentary on laap which features Chef Rat prominently, turning a plateful of raw buffalo leap upside-down to show its awesome stickiness and gooeyness (these are good traits for raw Northern Thai laap). In that same documentary, Chef Black Bulsuwan of Blackitch Artisan Kitchen tells us that the buffalos that we are dining on — entirely free-range, free of industrial hormones and chemicals — subsist on the very greens on the table that accompany our laap. In essence, a plate of laap and its accompanying greens are a “snapshot” of the health of the local forest, something that still blows my mind to this very day. You want farm to table? We can do better. How about jungle to table?

There is a certain breed of “Thai food bro” that is quick to point out and make fun of people who confuse aspects of Thai cuisine; mistaking Northern Thai-style laap and the Isan-style one is an error that is common. I am not here to do that. Indeed, there are some similarities between the laap of the Northeast and the laap of the North. They are both wildly economical and inventive, utilizing every part of the animal that they can. They demonstrate the prowess of the chef, who is responsible not only for making the laap delicious, but of butchering the animal himself. They both require a lot of heavy chopping and knife work which is tiring and strenuous. And because it requires a lot of butchering and chopping, many laap chefs are men, and the women work on the side dishes. Both are always eaten with sticky rice and a good plate of fresh greens.

Most importantly, to eat laap means that you are celebrating. It’s a time for feasting, for having fun, for getting together with your friends and family and maybe having a glass of moonshine or two. There’s a reason why all laap places, both in the North and Northeast, serve Saeng Som. Laap is an excuse for a party, even if it’s 11 in the morning.

A plate of pork laap (the buffalo one in back is all gone)

The similarities between the two regional styles end there, however. The Isan style is bright and lighter, with bits of mint and nuttiness from roasted ground rice kernels. It can also be made up in minutes. The Northern Thai one, alas, requires more chopping (a mousse-like mince is ideal) and incorporates a lot more ingredients, including a spice mix that differs from chef to chef and is frequently (but not in Chef Rat’s case) a closely-guarded secret. This makes the laap darker (there’s also the requisite splashes of blood and the addition of innards) and more ponderous, some would even say more bitter. Some diners, not so bloodthirsty as the typical Northerner, might ask for the intestines, tripe, and other bits to be left out, but that is akin to asking the same thing of your typical hotdog sausage. In other words, it would be impossible.

Having partaken of Chef Rat’s artistry at home, my dad and I were eager to finally try it in person. We were wary of reports that people would line up for as long as three hours, but a little after 11, we found a table easily and settled in. Then we realized why people vied to be the first diners there.

Chef Rat makes every order a la minute and according to the order in which tables’ slips come in. That means the earlier you are, the quicker you get your food. It’s a system similar to what I remember Jay Fai doing (I can no longer get a table there so don’t know if that has changed), which causes a lot of consternation and envy from people who pay attention to that sort of thing (who am I kidding, that is me when I am hungry). Dining at Laap Ton Koi requires patience — not in line, but at the table.

Which makes the fried pork at the beverage vendor next door so integral to the laap experience. I don’t know which genius thought of it first, but there is nothing better than a nice 50THB plate of fried fatty pork to tide you over while you are waiting an hour for your order to arrive. It’s even better when you order two. This is the biggest tip I can give you for the dining-in experience at Laap Ton Koi.

Another tip I can give is to order two of everything. Portions are small-ish, so you can basically budget for one plate per person. The Northern Thai-style gang om that Chef Rat’s wife makes also warrants ordering two of; it is absolutely delicious and a paragon of its type.

Gang om (and other stuff)

If you are able to make it through the hour, it’s worth it. Pork laap takes longer than the buffalo version, but both go really well with the pickled makhwaen (Northern Thai peppercorns) at every table. I have to admit I became enamored with this and ate maybe half of the jar.

Makhwaen, flowery and a little spicy

Yet another tip: Chef Rat’s own spice mix — makhwaen, star anise, lemongrass, galangal, cloves, small guinea peppers, long Indian peppers, nutmeg, cumin and coriander seeds — not only goes well with his own food, but with the fried pork from the beverage vendor. Trust me.

And finally, try the greens. They all do different things: the wrinkly ones make the laap sweeter; the tree-like sweet leaves tone down the spice; the pennywort-like ones amplify the flavor; the pak pai (soapy Vietnamese ones) make the flavor brighter. It’s really fun going through all the different ways these leaves affect your tastebuds, and also fun to imagine yourself as a buffalo (going through all the different ways these leaves affect your tastebuds).

All in all, the two of us had two laaps, two gang oms, two fried porks, and three (!) sticky rice orders, and considered ourselves well-fed for the kingly sum of 140 THB (not counting beverages and the fried pork). And here is where I leave you with maybe my best tip of all: at 12:30, the first rush is mostly gone and the second one is free to take their seats, so if you are not an early riser, this might be your preferred time slot to eat (like) a buffalo.

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by | 07/23/2024 · 1:02 pm

Glutton Onboard: Yes, really, this time in Alaska

View of Seward from the ship

(Photo by Chatree Duangnet)

Ketchikan

Ketchikan was a city that couldn’t seem to get a break. First founded in 1885, Google tells us that this town burst onto the scene, fully-grown as if Athena from Zeus’ head, as a salmon cannery, but our guide Nathan — giving strong Starsky & Hutch vibes — tells us a different story. Ketchikan was born from what most towns in Alaska seemed to be born from: the centuries-old search for gold, and lots of it. Alas, Ketchikan had none.

So then the enterprising inhabitants latched onto selling a resource that was clearly in abundant supply all around them: lumber. Alas, that was also short-lived, as the surrounding temperate rainforest became Tongass National Forest, its 16.7 million acres of largely old-growth forest protected. So then, finally, Ketchikan turned to the scores of fish in its waters: of course I’m talking about salmon.

The town’s fishermen came up with a method of “fishing” that involved huge nets that caught gazillions of fish at a time. This led not only to a drastic decrease in the fish population, but also big caches of fish that were kept frozen in warehouses and parceled out for market days. Somehow, this led to fish pirates, because this is Alaska. The pirates would break into the warehouses, steal the fish, and then sell them before anyone else had had a chance to get to the market. This turned into a full-out turf war that led to people getting killed. So that method of fishing was outlawed in favor of traditional old line-catching. And this is where we find Ketchikan today, as a thriving salmon cannery that has enabled the town to call itself the “Salmon Capital of the World“.

Of course, I do not partake of the salmon. Somehow, I find my way onto a tour that promises a feast of (thankfully in-season) Dungeness crabs. It would be an all-you-can-eat affair. Naturally, I am psyched.

I have had Dungeness crab before, in Seattle, where you are armed with a nice plastic bib and a little wooden hammer and all manner of other instruments to help you pry out every last bit of meat. We have no tools of that kind here, except for our forks. Our “crab lady”, who spends her days plonking cooked Dungeness crabs onto the plates of busloads of people every two hours, shows us how to open the crab legs using the fork like a letter opener. The shells are surprisingly cooperative, revealing large, juicy and sweet sleeves of meat. The only thing missing is (alas again!) some Thai seafood dipping sauce.

We only last two rounds until we are forced to call it quits by our traitorous stomachs, but a few champs last three. No one makes it to round four.

Juneau

Reindeer sausage “mini corndogs”

Juneau is the capital of Alaska. It is also where the real Alaskan summer begins to kick in for us, meaning torrential cold rain, nonstop. This renders things like a walk around the Mendenhall Glacier park an absolute chore, and the fact that it is a food-free zone makes it even gloomier. I stupidly forego breakfast in the mistaken belief that our tour was an eating tour, and am hungry enough to consider buying the Alaskan kelp salsa in the gift shop and pouring that into my mouth straight from the jar in a secluded corner of the visitor’s center.

I’m just setting the stage for what happens next. We are at a brewery now and there is no food at our tasting. The beer is nice (although strangely no sampling of spruce tip ale) but it’s almost 2 in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten anything. There are two food trucks in the parking lot, and I think I should be able to hide my inner monster until after the tasting, when I can run away to order something while other people are getting more free beers.

There is someone already ordering at the halibut slider truck, so I go to the next-door pizza truck, which has somehow been visited by Guy Fieri. Those precious minutes are key, after all. I am about to place my order when our guide shouts out from the bus, “We are about to go to a restaurant next!”

I know this, but do not know how much food will be offered. If it’s not enough, I will kill everyone in my immediate vicinity. This is a calculation, not only for me, but for everyone: my husband, my sister and brother-in-law, their young son Remy, and I guess whoever else is on this stupid tour.

“I know, it’s just a snack!” I shout back from across the parking lot. “I haven’t eaten all day!”

Nevertheless, she persists. “It’s a lot of food at a really nice restaurant,” she says, and I wonder if I have read the tour notes correctly, because she makes it sound like we are about to have a 10-course meal. Still, in this state, I think I can swing both the pizza and the 10 courses.

She finally relents. “You can’t eat on the bus!” she says, but that is ridiculous, there will be no pizza left, SHE NO KNOW BANGKOK GLUTTON.

I choose an artichoke white pizza and go to town under a little overhang from the rain, and eat one of my brother-in-law Sergio’s halibut sliders as well. It comes with UFO-shaped fries that Sergio offers to our guide after she continues, somehow, to talk about the foolishness of getting food when an enormous repast is waiting in the wings. She agrees the fries are good. She refuses my offer of a slice.

Finally, we pile onto the bus for our last stop, Alaska Fish & Chips Company. I think, are we about to get a repeat of the Dungeness crab fest, but this time with king crab? What we end up with is a cup of salmon chowder and a halibut fish stick with house-made tartare sauce. It’s nice. But LOL FOREVER.

So we get a table outside, and eat the king crab feast I had been dreaming about in the first place. It’s pricey (around $100 for two legs), but in this case, two legs are more food than you’d expect. I’ve had king crab before, presumably from Alaska even, but nothing prepares me for the fat, juicy, not-dry-at-all meat from two gargantuan crab legs that are easily the biggest I’ve ever seen (and that includes Hokkaido snow crab). Less popular are the mini-corndogs made from reindeer sausages (not nice, sorry) and my husband also orders halibut fish and chips for some reason. I eat some chips to be nice.

Skagway

Madame Trixie Turner at the Red Onion with original “red lantern” announcing when brothel was open for business

Our tour is not food-related today. Instead, we are going on a “Good Time Girls and Ghosts” tour, because any mention of “ghost” and my sister Chissa and I will come running. Sure enough, we are outed as ghost enthusiasts within the first few minutes of the tour, because a majority of it revolves around “good time gals”, of which there were many in Skagway.

While Ketchikan had no gold, Skagway had much. Or, more accurately, was the gateway to it. So many people flocked to Skagway to find their fortunes, in fact, that a law was put in place to force fortune hunters to bring their own 1 ton of goods to town, enough to subsist on for one year. Out of the millions who came to Skagway, maybe a few hundred found gold; about 100 made their way back to Skagway with it; and a mere 20 or so were able to leave Skagway with their fortunes intact.

Where there are fortune hunters, there are good time girls. There were three classes of these girls in Skagway: the street walkers, self-explanatory, who made about $1 every 15-minute session (overly generous?); the “boudoir girls”, tucked away in rooms off of the street, who made $3; and the ones in brothels, who worked from their rooms (free with board), had madams, and bouncers for protection. These ladies made $5. In contrast, ladies working the more “traditional” jobs — teaching, factories, food service — made maybe $3 a day.

It is during a stop when we finally discuss some ghosts (one with OCD and another genuinely scary one that Chissa thinks she can hear in the wind) when a familiar, non-scary face turns up in the park behind us. It’s @karenblumberg, somehow, entertaining her 4-year-old niece during a two (!)-day stop in town. So long has she been in town, in fact, that we almost immediately start shouting Skagway trivia to each other as we make plans for lunch later (“Do you know they had to transport 1 ton of goods all the way to Carson City on their backs?” “Did you know those goods included a mandated 150 lbs of bacon?” and so on and so forth).

Later, at the Red Onion Saloon — home to a “brothel museum” where items on display range from nighties and combs to old-timey nudes of the saloon’s ladies confiscated from the home of a local judge — we discover its main business is as a pizzeria. We finally get citrusy spruce tip ale (“Do you know spruce tip has medicinal purposes?”) and a couple of pies, as well as the inescapable salmon dip, replete with Saltines (which I believe is the traditional and best way to serve this dish).

Hoonah

In-season halibut and sockeye salmon on the grill

Throughout our journey, we have touched on the indigenous community (especially in Ketchikan with its famous totem poles, which I did not visit), but Hoonah is majority Tlingit, giving it a different vibe from the rest of the cities we’ve visited. Deer carouse openly in the grass and brown bears roam the riverside, leading to a closure of the nature trail on that very day. To get to our destination, this time a cooking class, we board a gondola that takes us to a mountaintop crowned with a complex of shops, restaurants and a strangely realistic cannery museum.

We’re here to learn from Crystal, who is partly indigenous and partly from Texas. After demo-ing a salmon dip (of course) and an unexpectedly decent “salmon nori bake”, she expertly fillets a halibut and sockeye salmon and we are left to our own devices, seasoning our pieces and grilling them outdoors ourselves. A guy outside, who informs us he would otherwise be fishing, is able to tell from sight when our pieces need turning and when they are done. All the same, I see some real culinary crimes happening, right in front of my eyes. Naturally, I think my halibut and salmon are top-notch.

Crystal with a halibut

Hubbard Glacier

And here, I’ll leave you with a photo that my dad took. This is because I did not see the Hubbard Glacier. Instead, Chissa and I were getting massages, because we thought our mother wanted a massage after she told us she wanted a massage with all three of us. She cancelled, but only for herself. Pre-treatment, I manage to see numerous chunks of blue ice in the water before we get to the glacier, and feel like I can relate to it: falling apart for the entertainment of others. On the massage table, I have several epiphanies about the need to draw stronger boundaries.

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by | 07/05/2024 · 12:32 pm

What’s Cooking: Pad cha

I am a big believer in karma. It always works, but it takes longer to set in for some. Of course, when it comes to karma visiting me, the payback is always prompt, and well-deserved. But I like to think that people who do me an ill turn eventually get their own visits from Lady Karma, too.

Now, it’s been a while since I talked about deeply personal stuff in very cryptic terms. But at the very beginnings of this blog, well nigh on 1000 years ago, it was always meant to be a sort of “dear diary” type entity, something I have tried to explain to people who contacted me about guest posts. These are my stupid dumb thoughts, I would say, so maybe you should find a better outlet. After all, it was in this blog where I wrote about friendship breakups, professional woes, and self-image problems. But I, too, eventually strayed from the personal aspect of this thing, thinking it would be far more professional and mature of me to stick to exploring Thai food.

Today, I’m like naaaaaahhhhhh. After the past few weeks I’ve had, I’m back to burn booking this shit.

And then this debate, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Meme, created by Caroline Gallegos of Seattle

Have you seen a skankier bitch? And yet somehow also a luckier one? The skank-to-luck ratio on this guy is incredible. He gets rapped for 34 counts, rambles on incessantly about windmills and sharks, lies like a 5-year-old caught kicking the dog, and yet, because our world is a flaming capitalist hellscape in which views equal money for media outlets, we’re all focused on how old Joe Biden looks. “But his stutter,” we’ll say, as our daughters become handmaidens and longtime immigrants to the US get put into camps and deported. “How did we end up with these two choices?” we cry, as if they are somehow on the same playing field instead of one on earth and the other in the flaming abyss of hell. “Wah wah wah,” writes the New York Times, and if I could cancel my subscription, I would (I’ve never subscribed because they have never asked me to write for them and I’m super mature like that). Hmmmm, what to order, the chicken or the broken glass-encrusted turd? (Thanks David Sedaris). Well, how is the chicken cooked? I worry it might be too dry.

When I get in these moods, only something as heated as I’m feeling will do. Enter “pad cha”, a dish that I’ve always wanted to mean a “numbing stir-fry” so hot that it renders your mouth incapable of feeling, like how I feel when I watch a political debate in 2024.

Alas, “pad cha” is one of those onomatopoeic dishes — like Japanese shabu-shabu, which mimics the sound of the meat in the water, or Vietnamese banh xeo, which is the sound the batter makes in the pan. “Cha” is the sound of the sizzle in the blazingly hot wok, which is what you’ll need (a hot pan will also do) when you’re making this dish. Also, and you might catch Thai cooks saying this a lot, but it’s especially true here: you need the heat. It’s not good if it’s not spicy. You don’t have to kill yourself, but a good tingle goes a long way. Make this atop a good mound of jasmine rice, and slurp, chomp, and munch your way to onomatopoeic oblivion (as well as hopes and prayers for a visit from Lady Karma for those who deserve her).

Scallops pad cha

Serves 4-6 (as part of a Thai meal)   

Prep time: 10 minutes                          Cooking time: 10 minutes

  • 10 scallops (or jumbo shrimp, or fish, you get the picture)
  • 1 Tablespoon unscented oil
  • 3-10 chilies chopped roughly, depending on spice tolerance and type of chili used (this dish does need to be well-spiced, so we recommend 3 spur chilies at the very least)
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1 teaspoon peppercorns (white or black fine)
  • 3 coriander roots, chopped roughly
  • 1-2 Tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
  • ½ cup-1 cup water
  • 5-10 “fingers” of wild ginger (grachai), julienned (or ½ cup wild ginger, julienned, if jarred)
  • 1 stem green peppercorns, picked from the stem
  • 1 handful holy basil (bai gaprao) or Thai sweet basil (bai horapa), washed
  • 2-3 stems green peppercorn, on the stem (for garnish, optional)

First, make your chili paste. In a mortar and pestle (preferably stone), pound chilies until well mashed. Add garlic cloves and repeat the procedure. Add peppercorns and mash, then add coriander roots and do the same. By the end, you should have a nice, generally uniform reddish paste.

In a wok over medium heat, add oil. WIth a spoon, scrape paste out from mortar into the wok. Stir-fry paste in the oil until golden and aromatic, about 1-2 minutes. This is when you might start sneezing. This is a good thing! It means the paste has the right amount of spice in it.

Turn heat up to high and add scallops (or shrimp). Stir to encase in the nice aromatic paste. Add 1 Tablespoon fish sauce, oyster sauce, a splash of water (not all), and sugar. Taste for seasoning. Add julienned wild ginger and green peppercorns (stemmed) and stir. Because scallops (and shrimp) cook quickly, check doneness after 3 minutes, and do not cook them beyond 5 minutes. There is nothing worse than rubbery scallops (or shrimp). Remove them to a plate next to the wok, but continue cooking the sauce.

Taste the sauce again. If it’s too salty, add a bit more sugar and water. If it’s too sweet, add more water. If it’s not salty enough, add another Tablespoon of fish sauce. The point is to make this sauce intensely flavored, like it’s been dialed up to 11, as Nigel Tufnel would say. You are supposed to eat this stir-fry with rice, after all.

Once satisfied with the taste, continue with the sauce bubbling for about 5 more minutes. The sauce should get glossy, like a red wine sauce for coq au vin. You want enough sauce that it will coat the scallops (or shrimp) and form a pool around it, but not so much that it will look like a soup. The Thai term for this (halfway between “dry” and “soupy”) is “kluk klik”. 

Right before the end of the 5 minutes, add your scallops once again to the wok, turn off the heat, and add basil and green peppercorn stems (if using). Stir to incorporate, then plate and serve immediately with rice and the rest of your nice Thai meal.

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