by | 11/03/2011 · 2:29 pm

Something Special

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I — like many of my fellow Bangkokians — am feeling a bit down. The kind of down that doesn’t bear talking about.

So why am I writing a blog post? To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to write a blog post. For something that is better done, funnier and far more likable, you should deffo check out writer/actress Mindy Kaling’s blog: http://theconcernsofmindykaling.com/, because we all need a little bit of inspiration now and then, and where better than from the author of “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?” (the answer is yes).

Do you want your inspiration to come from somewhere closer to home? I am nothing if not obliging. Let me do you a favor and direct you to another something special, http://mysousvidelife.wordpress.com/. Is she not adorabun? Someone get this woman a cooking show, stat! Another thing: despite being a “flood refugee”, she is still decorating Halloween cupcakes and figuring out fun things to do with all those shmackets of Ma-Ma noodles lurking in all our kitchen cabinets (no need to front, you know you have them too).

Are you still here? Geez. Well, if you’re not up for something fun and uplifting, I’m your girl. As one would naturally expect, the floods are taking their toll everywhere, including on the sidewalk. Many, many, many of my fave vendors are MIA: the buay loy guy on Mahachai Road; the khao kluk gapi (rice with shrimp paste) vendor in front of Baan Phra Arthit; the Hainanese chicken rice people in front of Great Shanghai; the chicken and bitter melon noodles guy behind Emporium; the Sukhothai noodle guy (why didn’t he call to tell me?) next to Klong Saen Saep; and the guay jab people across from Benjakiti Park. There are more, many more whose absences I have yet to discover and mourn.

 

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These people spent their working lives making us happy; now they are gone, with nothing to mark their absence except maybe a shuttered storefront or, more disconcertingly, nothing at all. They have vanished into thin air.

Then there are the people who are stubbornly sticking it out. They deserve special plaudits, because they are idiots*. Riverside, prey to the fickle lords of high tide? Sign me up! Alongside the beef noodle folks at Nai Soi and the famously taciturn Roti-Mataba is Khao Na Gai Ha Yaek (085-124-5511, open 10-19.00). Just steps down Phra Arthit road from Roti-Mataba, this chicken-and-gravy on rice vendor is quietly packed most lunchtimes, but inspires none of the usual fanfare, which makes it very special indeed. Yes, there is the khao na gai (35 baht), as well as versions with gun chieng (sweet Chinese sausage, 40 baht) or runny fried egg (42 baht), or best of all, both (47 baht). There are also noodles topped with chicken gravy, deep-fried noodles with chicken gravy, and sticky rice with red pork. But the namesake dish is the best.

Wandering down the road at high noon, unable to find ANYTHING I once loved in a landscape that looked familiar but wasn’t, this plate of chicken gravy on rice crowned with torn fresh coriander, fried egg and sweet sticky sausage was a godsend, the best thing I had eaten in weeks. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to be hungry, and ate it all.

*Obviously, I don’t really think they are idiots.

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, chicken, food, food stalls, rice, Thai-Chinese, Thailand

by | 10/27/2011 · 3:45 pm

Staying Dry

Dinner in Pathum Thani

Lately, I’ve been signing off all my texts/emails/WhatsApps (what DO you call these?) with the exhortation to “stay dry”. As if people needed reminding to, you know, “stay dry”. What can I say? It makes me feel better. But what does staying dry really mean?

Yes, floodwaters are rushing toward inner Bangkok. This makes people react in different ways. In my case, well, I guess it’s still a mixed bag of feelings that I have a hard time articulating. There is confusion, yes, and a little fear, and of course fatigue. I am very, very tired. But the thing I feel most right now is … curiosity. I am not so interested in thinking of defeat, or worrying, or angering, or, (I can’t believe I’m saying this) even eating. Okay, maybe eating, if it involves a buffet with an unlimited time span. Maybe that.

Bangkok Hospital has a program sending volunteer doctors and nurses on daily trips up north to see patients and distribute medicine to people who need it. Transport usually involves transferring from van to military vehicle to boat. Sometimes they go to a central location, like a temple, and sometimes they go into people’s houses. Until a week ago, they went to Ayutthaya; now that it is impossible, they go to Patum Thani. Obviously, I have no real, concrete skills of any kind, but I volunteered to go anyway. I was curious. My brother and I became the awkward hangers-on-slash-pretend pharmacists (don’t worry, one and sometimes two nurses double-checked the “orders” we filled).

I can’t lie, at first it was bleak. The smell of the rotting water made me woozy, making me break out into a panic-sweat. Aside from the sound of the motor, we traveled a couple of kilometers in deathly silence — no phones, no televisions, the view of cars parked along the expressway off-ramp constantly in the background. Water had already reached the lowest cars.

Traveling along a major road

(Photo by Sutree Duangnet)

We traveled to a temple that had flooded out completely on the ground floor. The second floor had turned into a de facto evacuation center and about 80 people lived there, sharing resources and space and energy. The doctors saw everyone, dispensed advice, and prescribed medicine — the most popular items turned out to be calamine lotion, eye drops and Diazepam.

What struck me was that people were kind, even crammed together without most of their belongings, confined to a space the size of an elementary school dining hall. They offered us water and food. One corner of the hall served as the kitchen; there was one shower and one toilet. A cat and her kittens lived on the ledge, while dogs — the strong, lucky ones — would jump through the windows from time to time.

Life went on, in its way. Everyone was staying dry the best way they could. Kids shouted from the window to the ones, also living on the second floor, next door. A man came in, offering sweets to the children. As we prepared to leave, they were setting up for dinner: rice, grilled Thai mackerel, shrimp paste chili dip. Three papayas and a bunch of bananas were waiting for dessert. They gave us the food we brought them as we got into the boat, saying they were “afraid it would spoil”. We ate it all on the way home.

The view from the front of the temple

(Photo by Sutree Duangnet)

On the way back, things seemed better. The rotten water was there, yes, but there was also: a group of friends on a wooden raft, enjoying an early dinner; an enterprising store-owner who had walled up half of her doorway with concrete, selling her wares to shoppers on boats; kids paddling along us, trying to flirt with the nurses. Our boat man made dinner plans with friends sitting on a nearby roof, their feet dangling over the water. As we waded through knee-deep water to our transport, he reminded us to “wash our feet”. Perhaps a new way to sign-off in the coming days.

 

 

 

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, Thailand

by | 10/20/2011 · 3:22 pm

When Gluttony becomes a chore

Fish rice porridge at Sieng Gi

(Photo by @SpecialKRB)

When the Popes lived in Avignon, they had a lot of visitors. That goes without saying, of course — what Pope doesn’t have a lot of visitors?  And visitors who are visiting always expect dinner.

Well, the Pope couldn’t just have any old dinner. When he entertained various and assorted important people in his cavernous grand hall-slash-dining room the size of a private airplane hangar, diners could expect to spend the next 4-5 hours with their butts firmly planted in their seats, enjoying, on average, 24 courses a night.

What did they have for dinner? Well, first and foremost, the higher the food was from the ground, the closer it was to God. So there was a lot of this kind of food — fruit, lettuces and veggies that grew up out of the ground instead of those nasty, dirt-burrowing root vegetables. There was, obviously, meat, but it had to be roasted; none of this boiling business was allowed, because boiling was for peasants. The kitchen responsible for these 24-on-average courses is surprisingly small, considering: the size of a generous living room as opposed to, say, a hotel lobby. But there are three ovens set up — obviously, roasting was a big deal.

As I listened to the tour guide as she wended her way through the upper reaches of the Pope’s Avignon palace, I couldn’t help thinking — how? How could he do it? I struggle with two big meals a day — yes, the old stomach is not what it used to be. While I am not immune to obsessing over gray hairs or wrinkles or sagging jowls or the Great Beyond that awaits us all, the thing that I miss most is my incredibly efficient, ever-elastic digestive system. Where did it go? Especially now that floodwaters are breaching the gates, and supermarket lines are as congested as the expressways where everyone has parked their cars, and spicy lemongrass shrimp Mama is worth its weight in gold … I find stuffing my face does not hold the allure it once did. Where did the beautiful past go? (I ask this as I look down at my own supermarket cart, the contents of which are: avocados, squash, and Betty Crocker French onion dip mix. Everyone else may be equipped for the floodpocalypse, but I will have a much easier time making dip, yo!)

Times like these call for drastic measures. Times like these call for khao thom (rice porridge). Boiling some rice with water sounds like a pitiful meal, but to me, right now, it sounds heavenly: the straight, almost sweet taste of watery rice, the purity of white porridge, amenable to anything you wish to pair it with — fish, omelet, stir-fried leafy vegetable, and even you, strange pickled shredded turnip, or you, weirdly pink fermented tofu glob, yes. Even you. What better to fix what (sort of) ails you, this ennui of the stomach that no grilled rib-eye something-or-other or braised pork belly this-and-that can fix?  What better to fortify you through this wait?

Good places for khao thom, if you can get to them:

1. Khao Thom Bowon — Across from the entrance to Wat Bowonniwet on Phra Sumen Road, this rice porridge shop is open from 4pm-late. They claim to be the originator of pad pak boong fai dang, or stir-fried morning glory with chilies.

2. Jay Suay — On Plang Nam Road, next to the famous shellfish omelets of Nai Mong Hoy Tod, this rice porridge shop is also open at night. It is especially known for its pork dishes; a personal favorite: pork meatballs in a clear soup flavored with pickled plums.

3. Khao Thom Polo — On the corner of Soi Polo and Wireless Road, this shop is almost perpetually packed for dinner. The dish that seems to get everyone fired up, despite the extreme spice factor, is their gaeng pa, or jungle curry.

 

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Filed under Asia, Bangkok, food, food stalls, rice porridge, Thailand