Bangkok Glutton

I finally got around to watching “Hunger” on Netflix, and I have to say, I’m not sure any chef would saddle their restaurant — much less a private chef service — with that name. Too on the nose, or maybe just plain too pretentious, I think; I mean, can you imagine excitedly asking your friends, “Have you been to Hunger yet” without wanting to punch yourself in the face? But what do I know, I don’t have either a restaurant or a private chef service.

One of the major points of this movie, if you haven’t seen it yet, is that food is purely a status symbol, aspirational, with people only eating things like caviar, foie gras, lobster, wagyu et al because they signify the diner’s wealth to the world. Although I am sure this might be true for some people, and why many chefs garnish their dishes with these ingredients like an edible (INSERT BRAND NAME HERE) logo, I think this far too simply summarizes what fine dining has become. It’s true that, with the world as it is now, the old model of the 3-Michelin-star restaurant that has stood for centuries is fading; no one can afford three servers per diner anymore or the enormous kitchen brigades of Paul Bocuse’s time. Instead, you get “chef’s tables” where oftentimes the chef is cooking in front of you, and who ever said that was guaranteed to be terribly exciting? So you end up with nonsense like a chef cutting up a cow carcass from a hook suspended in the middle of the dining room, or a dude self-immolating on his restaurant floor during the dessert course alongside his team and his diners (these things did not happen irl). This is why some chefs have been put up on a pedestal like a Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, marketed as celebrities that are wholesome (Jamie Oliver, aka “English Spice”) or “artistes” (Hunger’s Chef Paul, aka “Artistic Thai Spice”). This is what you get when restaurants become purely interested in making money, but in a way where they can still look down on Olive Garden and Taco Bell even though that is what they are, at heart.

Another reason why “Hunger” approaches fine dining too simplistically: Can you imagine the overarching sadness of the person who only eats something so that other people can see it and then define them for it? I like the occasional caviar and foie gras terrine (never foie gras pan-seared), but really: how joyless would that kind of dining be if personal enjoyment was not a factor?

That said, while aspirational eating is a thing, the eating of our pasts is much more obvious and far-reaching. This is because it’s frequently the happiest and most comforting eating to be had, what we ate in our childhoods. And although a lot of that food, in my case, seems incongruous (I grew up in a mainly Italian town in Western Pennsylvania, so my comfort food is wedding soup and cavatelli with meatballs, not kai jiew with rice), it makes it no less nostalgic.

I did not grow up in a Thai-Chinese household, but I did marry into one. We ordered e-mee (pan-fried crispy egg noodles with shredded chicken and ham and Chinese vinegar on the side) every Saturday from a place called Bamee Gua on Langsuan, which no longer exists. I had not had this dish since Covid, but I was lucky enough to get in touch with Thai journalist Pailin, who has Teochew roots and who recommended having e-mee at Yim Yim, a very longstanding restaurant on the corner of an offshoot of Yaowarat Road.

The restaurant is on the second floor only and well into its second or third generation — I honestly had lost count. I was busy with the food, as Pailin had also ordered an or suan, or traditional-style oyster omelet, fried rice with Chinese olive, a handful of nice kanom jeeb, or steamed pork-filled dumplings under a shower of deep-fried garlic, and sausages stuffed with chestnuts, which our dining companion Adam said he hadn’t seen on menus outside of China.

But the highlight was definitely the Chinese mullet, steamed under a blanket of garlic and pickled turnip, which Pailin usually ordered cold but which today arrived hot. Fatty, juicy, salty and meaty, if this fish was a food that could connote high status to the diner, I would have no problem showing off every day (if you are curious, it costs 600-700 baht a fish, depending on the size. Not really Jay Fai crab omelet-level prices).

But we weren’t done. Pailin took us on a walk through the market after lunch, showing us where to get her favorite snack, e-guay, a hand pie stuffed with savory things like cabbage, taro or beans. I ate it as we walked, getting cabbage all over myself and oil all over my face and hands. Strangely, no one seemed to mind.

We ended our walk, which was really hot and sweaty, at Pailin’s favorite bamee wan (sweet egg noodles with ice) stall on Trok Issaranuphap. Almost magically, we felt better again, even if it only leant us enough energy to hail a cab back home.

There is a lot of talk in “Hunger” about how noodles are “humble” and how cooking street food is simple. When the heroine decides (SPOILER ALERT) to go back to cooking this kind of food, there is a sense that we are supposed to be surprised. But why would that be? If food has no emotion, there is no point to it. Isn’t that why (SPOILER ALERT) her grandmother’s recipe “ngo ngae” noodles are presented at the climax of the movie? Chef Paul then (SPOILER ALERT) shows his cynicism and moral bankruptcy in response, but does that mean he is supposed to be (SPOILER ALERT) the personification of caviar and foie gras? Come on. These can be good ingredients, when not plopped onto a ramen or hamburger haphazardly in the name of high prices “art”. Capitalism is the villain, not champagne! (Wagyu however … maybe).

Because people know that I mainly write about Thai food and can get riled up easily, they like to show me this-or-that made-up list that presumes to rank all of the foods (or eateries) of the world. Let’s just call this what it is and say that this is straight up, professional trolling, in guises ranging from intentionally provocative to “fake it till you make it”-style authoritative. For this reason, I don’t like to name these kinds of organizations, but I’ve written about the provocative one before.

That said, I can’t help but admire these people. Who knew that a bunch of Croatians could just get together in their office someday and throw around a bunch of ideas long enough to create a completely arbitrary list that gets clicks from outraged people and others who actually take their opinions seriously alike? I applaud this hustle. I, myself, cannot get arrested for my terrible opinions, but these guys actually get reposted, with people cheering on/bewailing this or that string of words they’ve made, and/or bemoaning the publication of some other half-baked barely-researched thing told to them by their local takeout person down the street. Congrats, guys! Or, I mean, “Čestitamo”.

Another person I applaud for their hustle, and I mean this without any tinge of the sarcasm or sour grapes that I’ve displayed above, is Jay Nok. You might know her from Mark’s video from the “Fruit Queen of Thailand“, which has brought people from all over the world to this little open-air fruit shack on the outskirts of Bangkok. Or you just might know her because you just really love fruit. Her place is called “Jay Nok Gratawn Song Krueng”, which centers on the Thai dish of santol fruit in a sweet-and-savory dressing, especially popular in the rainy season. But her place really sells every fruit, from plums and strawberries to seasonal specialties like custard apples or durian, along with a profusion of juices, curries, chili dips, snacks, and even fermented rice noodles. As Jay Nok told me when I went there as a fixer with the Street Eats team: “I just really like pretty things”. And it’s true — all the colorful fruits and juices and pre-prepared foods are beautiful.

But the one thing that is really clever is this:

This is an ice cream “sundae” made of Jay Nok’s home made “ruam mitr” (Thai sweets in coconut milk) ice cream, topped with fried mung beans and maybe an ice cream cone or two, but instead of being placed in a traditional hot dog bun like you would get elsewhere in Thailand, you get two enormous durian pods. What I’m talking about is this, modeled by our producer Ali:

This is fever dream stuff, sprouting from the recesses of the brain when you’re deep in REM sleep and your eyeballs are moving back and forth like a Chinese ping pong game. The ice cream and crunchy mung beans are great in and of themselves; add the ice cream cones and you’re well and truly in business; but then the durian pods — enormous, the size of a jumbo hot dog bun — just take this beyond into Crazytown, population everyone in line for this dish. And believe me, there is a line, a long one.

So if you have the time (and maybe your own transport, because getting a taxi out there is really hard, no joke), head on over the Jay Nok and visit her beautiful fruit for yourself. Gaze at the mangosteens, gape at the young dates suspended from the ceiling, consider the curries. Get a scoop of ice cream or two, maybe in a cone. Crazytown is optional.

Mother’s Day in Thailand falls every year on August 12, the birthday of Queen Sirikit the Queen Mother. At Emporium, there has been a Mother’s Day promotion involving a campaign somewhat creatively called “Master of Mom”, in which mothers get the chance to put on a cap and gown in the color of their choice and take a professional photo with reluctant children and accommodating spouses, replete with bouquet and good lighting. Alas, I did not get the chance to take a “Master of Mom” photo myself, and the thought of my getting a Masters in Mommery would probably make my children, who do not think I am a good mom, laugh. In any case, I enjoyed watching participating moms enjoying themselves from the perch of a table at the overpriced Marimekko Cafe across the room.

There is no “Master of Street Food”, although I’m sure some Singaporean foodie has already hatched a plan to create some sort of government certification with that in mind. I like to think that Thailand is more chaotic and rebellious (in its own way, and the people who live here know what that’s like, especially in traffic). But if there were to be such a program, then Nai Somsak would surely be included.

For people who have yet to enjoy the culinary delights across the river in “Fang Thon”, Thonburi is awash in great street food, with everything from wonderful egg yolk-streaked ice cream to Isaan dishes to vegetarian food. But even with all of the options on offer, Somsak Pu Ob stands out. Yes, there are the Michelin accolades for the past five years running, yada yada yada. The surprising thing here is that Nai Somsak has only been at this for a few years, taking over for his father who was revered in the neighborhood for his delicious claypot seafood. The other surprising thing is that there are no actual claypots involved; steel pots are used instead, as Somsak deems the claypots to take too much time.

And Somsak needs to be quick, because after 5pm, he is busy, placing fresh prawns or eggy crab bits atop a mix of pork lard, peppercorns, coriander seeds, garlic and scallions, with the final layer of glass noodles meant to “steam” the seafood in its own juices. Once the pots are on the burners, it’s all a matter of timing, with Somsak judiciously peeking under the noodles occasionally with his trusty flat metal fork, a conductor to a symphony of fire, steam and metal.

The “pu ob woonsen” might not even have happened if not for a drunken customer who requested that Somsak’s father stir-fry some fresh crab he had picked up at Mahachai Market, then promptly failed to show up. The enterprising vendor, who did not want to waste the crab, instead threw it into his claypot with the vermicelli noodles and a local legend was born. Today, Somsak thinks of the drunken no-show as a “thewada”, or angel. We should all be grateful to this person, who drank so that we could eat.