Bangkok Glutton

(Note: I don’t usually get into these types of discussions because I think it’s a waste of time, but I am spelling “larb” this way instead of laap, laab, lhap, laebpt or whatever other way you feel is correct, because this is the spelling most often seen on romanized restaurant menus. This is also why I spell it “pad Thai” instead of phãatd Taï. “Debates” on how something should be properly spelled in a different language and alphabet from the original are, in my opinion, attempts at gatekeeping, much like how “street food experts” debate buildings and walls instead of food and culture. Periodt.)

I was reminded what the ’80s were like — truly like, not like in “Stranger Things” where everyone suddenly has stellar music taste and no one has ever heard of Taylor Dayne — when I came across a social media post “celebrating” (I guess?) the release of Poison’s “Look What the Cat Dragged In” 40 (?!) years ago. Out of all the things to have not really made it past the ’80s, like Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Nu Shooz, Shannon, and Donnie Iris, the genre known as “hair metal” is one of the most surprising, simply because it was so pervasive during its time. Prettier than Def Leppard, poppier than Van Halen, more glam than Bon Jovi, far less intimidating than Guns ‘N Roses, these guys were “metal” in name only, all surface. Arguably the most famous of these bands was Poison.

If you were to see these guys around today — shiny lip gloss, generous lashings of mascara and eyeliner, stripey pageant queen blush, flowing long locks — you would see an accompanying tornado of online furor over “trans influence” and the “death of masculinity”, fanned by people who most likely listened to bands like Poison in their formative years. For some reason there is no cognitive dissonance from these very same “alpha” males about their own childhood influences. David Bowie is classic rock, Twisted Sister and Kiss are tough macho men, and Axel Rose’s falsetto squawk is so manly that Donald Trump plays it at his rallies. Go figure. I wonder what these guys all have in common?

Anyway, because everything is political and a reflection of our times, I figured I could help macho men relight their flames of masculinity in another way, separate from music. Of course I’m talking about food. And what is the most manly-man, alpha type of Thai food out there? It’s larb, the Northern and Northeastern Thai answer to the “great American” steakhouse, traditionally made by men for men who want to be manly (the bloodier, the better).

Don’t confuse it with the larb you get at your typical Isan restaurant: this larb is way stickier and more pungent, made of beef or buffalo or (if you’re brave) pork, frequently served raw and seasoned with lots of blood and a mix of spices that either includes cinnamon and nutmeg (Northern) or lime leaves and roasted rice kernels (Northeastern), alongside leaves and herbs that are grown right where the animals feed.

There are, I’m sure, versions of this type of restaurant in Bangkok, though I have yet to go into one. Where I do like to go is in Isan, where larb joints are a dime a dozen, and in Chiang Mai, where there is a super famous larb place right near my parents’ home. Called Larb Ton Koi, it specializes in buffalo meat, collected fresh from the slaughterhouse and either served raw or lightly blanched and hand-minced into a larb or sliced raw or lightly blanched into a saa. So famous that it regularly commands 3-hour lines, the shop is sold out by 2:30, so we usually order to go. But if we were to stay, we would be able to watch the artistry of Chef Surat, who minces, slices, pounds and flavors every dish a la minute, with a single knife and his proprietary blend of spices while his wife makes the accompaniments, including gang om. Of course, the bulk of the clientele is male, although Chef Rat hasn’t really thought about why that is. “Men like larb,” he reasons. “Women like gang om.”

Like Larb Ton Koi, Udon Thani’s Larb Tha Suk is built along similar lines, with raw and cooked larb and saa and a single chef slaving away over a block of wood with a butcher’s knife. The usual accompaniments are also there: a big plate of fresh greens, raw garlic cloves, sticky rice, and two dipping sauces of jaew and another flavored with nam dee, or bitter bile.

These restaurants seem busiest at lunchtime, where groups of people — yes, usually men — meet to talk about their mornings over bottles of Saeng Som, even if it’s a weekday. It’s a callback to the past, when village celebrations involved the slaughter of a cow or buffalo, after which the butcher (always male) would make up plates of larb, saa and whatever else they could rustle up at that moment, honoring the animal by using up every bit of it (even the partially digested food!)

So when you rock up to your local larb joint with bottle of Mekong in hand, know that you are simply honoring Thai traditions, pairing your larb with the spirits needed to wash out your mouth and whet your appetite. And if you are a woman, know that you’re in a primarily male space, so you’ll have to eat twice as much.

Like many people my age who are desperately looking for ways to procrastinate from pressing life issues, I have been following the “Where’s Kate Middleton?” discourse. I don’t pretend to have a wide-ranging or intellectual interest in this topic; I don’t care about how this adds to the latest “missing woman” trope popularized all the way back in the days of Wilkie Collins’s time, or even what this says from a PR management-in-the-time-of-social-media perspective. I just want something diverting to take up all my time from thinking about work.

All the same, while there are numerous hypotheses, some of them are pretty unsavory. I don’t want to write about those because it would make me look ghoulish, and those are not my colors (I am a “cool summer” person, in case you are probably not wondering). I would just like to say that we should step back, and allow her the time which is surely needed so that she can make her way back to 21st-century England after having touched a strange stone and transported herself to 18th-century Scotland, where she is currently enmeshed in a Highland War against the English. If that means that she is out of view for months and months, then it is what it is (also, I would not blame her if she decided to stay with Jamie Fraser, but I digress).

Alas, people are impatient, especially in the day and age of the 24-hour news cycle, so various parties have attempted to fill this void, with varying levels of success. Probably the most famous of these attempts is the “Mother’s Day” photo apparently made up of several different images. This hullabaloo only illustrates a time-worn and, unfortunately, true saying: There is no substitute for [insert the point you are making here, in this case the actual Kate Middleton].

As you may know, I am currently writing a cookbook, and in cookbooks — especially Thai ones — substitutions are often suggested for hard-to-source ingredients. Thai cooking has a lot of them, like galangal, makrut lime leaves, and lemongrass, none of which really can be substituted, if good Thai food is what you’re after. If you are allergic to these ingredients, we are sorry: your dish may be good, but not really really good. It’s just the way things are.

While doing research on Northern Thai food with my Aunt Priew, she made me a dish I hadn’t had before, out of the pomelos that grow year-round in her front yard. It’s called tum som o, a mix of flaked pomelo, bird’s eye chilies, palm sugar, sliced Thai eggplant, slivered lemongrass, shredded sawtooth coriander, dried shrimp powder, and fish sauce. However, the most important ingredient is nam poo, which is the black juice of pulverized field crabs. The color, if you’re not used to it, is alarming, but the taste — deeply umami, salty, with a shadow of bitterness — is what Northern Thai food is all about. If you don’t have it, sorry; don’t make this dish.

If you do somehow have the ingredients for this dish, here’s the recipe:

• 1 pomelo, peeled, segmented, and separated into flakes
• 1 head of garlic, crushed
• 2-3 bird’s eye chilies
• 1/2 tablespoon nam poo
• 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 2 Thai eggplants, sliced
• 2-3 lemongrass bulbs, sliced
• 3-4 sawtooth coriander stalks, sliced
• 1 tablespoon dried shrimp powder

In a mortar and pestle, pound the garlic with the chilies until well mashed. Add palm sugar and pound to incorporate. Add lemongrass and do the same. Add your sauces: nam poo and fish sauce and mix well. Taste for seasoning. In a bowl (or still in the mortar), carefully add pomelo and mix with a spoon to incorporate the dressing throughout. Add sawtooth coriander and dried shrimp powder and mix with a spoon. Decant into your serving dish or bowl and serve immediately.

I have written about pet peeves before. Unfortunately, I have already named this post and can’t be bothered to move the cursor back up to the title bar. Also, no one will notice. Besides, my pet peeves have changed since then.

Yes, I have new pet peeves. Like people who use the word “woke”. Or those who get their news from Tik Tok. People who stop at the end of an escalator (you’d be surprised). And when someone texts you and they start with just your name. Like, just give me the whole message, jesus christ. Am I supposed to be in suspense? Are they waiting for an invitation to text more? Soooooooo annoying.

As some of you may know, I am also a fan of Korean YouTube videos, particularly the ones that have jazzy, relaxing music, beautiful lighting, and lots of flowers in an airy, Scandinavian-like space. Usually they seem to make really delicious food, except for sandwiches, which they do not seem to understand. I mean, the sandwiches are ludicrously, preposterously high, and filled with things like peeled grapes. How on earth does one unhinge one’s jaw far enough to shove one of these clementine-and-whipped-cream sandwiches in, unless one is an anaconda?

But that’s not my pet peeve about these videos. My pet peeve is that the chicken, when they roast it, is lying on its breast, like someone has made fun of it and it died right there in the oven from shame. Then everyone proceeds to pick at the chicken, STILL BREAST DOWN, like there isn’t a huge spine, etc that is in their way. Is this normal in Korea?! Please serve your chicken breast up, like God obviously intended!

Thankfully, I live in Thailand, where we don’t have to worry about serving our chickens breast up or down, because we grill them. And if you are really, really serious about your chicken, you make it like they do in Isan, stuck in aromatic wood of some kind and cooked slowly-but-surely over a fire coaxed by charcoal.

There are three major chicken grilling towns (“towns” is being generous), where people converge for delicious chicken (and all the other stuff that goes with it, like sticky rice, jaew, and som tum). One of these is Khao Suan Kwang (Deer Park Mountain), located almost exactly halfway between Udon Thani and Khon Kaen. Here, the chickens are very clearly free-range and local (gai baan), even — it must be said, in the eyes of someone who grew up on American chicken — scrawny. But people love this chicken for its pure chicken flavor, perfect grilling, and beautiful smoky aroma, partly imparted by the bamboo with which these chickens are cooked.

It’s a whole street, lined entirely with chicken vendors, and even friends will refuse to name a particular vendor to patronize, simply saying “go anywhere, it will be good”. You and I know that this probably isn’t true, but this might also be due to the probability that they have completely forgotten which vendor they stopped at, like I did. I can only say that we chose the vendor patronized by local government officials in uniform, because of course we did.

Another, admittedly far less well known, street that I recently visited is called Nong Song Hong (Two-Roomed Pond), between Udon Thani and Nong Khai and praised for its meatier, fattier chickens. I am here to say that this is very true. Cooked similarly to its brethren at Khao Suan Kwang, the chickens boast crackling skin but juicy flesh, and is truly the stuff of my dreams. Even better, they make great som tum.

And even even better, I can name the place where we went, because it was very recent and my memory is not that bad yet. It was Mae Nong, easily the biggest place on the street (with an air-conditioned room), and yes, once again patronized by some government officials in uniform.

There is a third place that is famous for its grilled chicken, and that is Wichianburi, in Petchabun province on the border between Isan and the North. Alas, I have yet to go, but obviously it’s going to happen. I have heard that this grilled chicken mecca places a lot of importance on its sauces, which is extremely intriguing to me. Next stop: home to the King Naresuan the Great shrine.