Bangkok Glutton

Me waiting for the end of my meal

Having recently returned from Japan, I find myself with nothing to do, having succumbed to government directives to self-quarantine for 14 days. Even though I am bored and watching episodes of “Friends” over and over again (still on Thai Netflix!), I still cannot bring myself to update my blog. The effect of SSRIs on the creative drive is real, folks.

Being at home has given me plenty of time to ponder the important questions in life. Why do young women in the prime of their lives want to wear “Mom jeans”? How did beards become so ubiquitous? What is Shawn Mendes?

But if you think this time gives me the chance to, say, finally read “War and Peace”, catch up on an Akira Kurosawa film, or learn about economics, well, you will be disappointed. These things would ultimately be enriching to my life, no doubt. But why? Why would I do this? Do I really want to spend my time this way?

So I watch, for maybe the 15th time, Ross finding out that his sister is dating his best friend (SPOILER ALERT). It is enjoyable to me. It is a big fluffy blanket to drape over myself when I want some comfort in the world. It is listening to Haim in my kitchen when I’m preparing a meal. It is a big bowl of spaghetti Bolognese, don’t ever ever hold the cheese. Is life long enough that we can spend our time doing the stuff that gives us cool points in the eyes of others instead of what we really want? Will I ever stop writing rhetorical questions? Of course the answer is no.

I am thinking about this because I had a conversation with a friend who visited Chicago recently. She went to a famous restaurant there and had the menu with wine pairings. This was, of course, a once in a lifetime opportunity. But it was a slog, and towards the middle, she wanted to quit. At the end of the meal, she realized that she hadn’t enjoyed it at all. That realization ended up making her feel bad.

At the end of the day, isn’t enjoyment ultimately — Instagram and Facebook be damned — the point of going out for dinner? You know the answer to that.

For all restaurants with fine dining pretensions (Bangkok included), a set menu is par for the course. This is the vision of the chef, after all, and as long as you are not deathly allergic to something on the plate, the vision of the chef is what you will get. The wine and liquors that accompany the courses only enhance the experience.

But that experience can often be long. And when you are prepping for a restaurant like a runner before a marathon — maybe training your stomach and tolerance with more quantities than usual, fasting for hours ahead of time so you can get your money’s worth, wearing your stretchiest pair of pants so you’re not tempted to unbutton yourself at the table  — the onus falls on you to make the most of the experience that you yourself have paid for. You become the person who is responsible for carrying out the chef’s ultimate vision: the completion of the meal by the guest in a way that frames you as grateful and amazed. Failing that, you have become the disappointment, not the chef.

Me after a many-course meal

I’m not saying that every fine dining experience for me has been a slog. Believe me, I have had plenty of life-changing meals in fine dining restaurants with set menus. But I have occasionally fallen victim to these types of meals as well. After an 18-course meal in New York, my sister claimed the restaurant was actively trying to kill us. In Paris, another 18-courser, my husband chastised me for sighing when presented with an extra tart, “compliments of the chef”. These are wonderful restaurants, with enormously talented chefs and staff, world renowned for their food and hospitality. But they were also taxing experiences to go through. They were the equivalent of an Ingmar Bergman marathon, when all you really want to do is kick back and watch “Clueless” for the 20th time; listening to Sonic Youth and Television when Lizzo is right there in your playlist; reading Proust instead of JK Rowling. “Go on,” the world says. “It’s good for you.” It’s the spinach of the soul: edifying, no doubt, but such a chore.

This is my last rhetorical question of the day: is fine dining supposed to be this way? I thought the purpose of going out was to enjoy yourself. And I’m sure plenty of people do enjoy themselves; I’m not saying everyone is the same. But for me, and for my friend at least, there are times when the culinary fiesta becomes a food marathon, a Bintan death march for the senses. In the chef’s desire to showcase the kitchen’s prowess, the only thought for the diners is how to dazzle them, not how to make them comfortable.

There is a movie that I tried to watch that I still think of a lot: Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games”. It is about intruders who come to a house and terrorize all the inhabitants. It is a cruel movie, meant to make fun of people like me who actually enjoy horror movies. In the middle, I realized that the audience is just like the terrorized family, held captive to the filmmaker, like the family is to the intruders. Unlike the poor family, the audience actually has a choice. The audience can leave. Which is what I did.

Here is where I say that not all fine dining restaurants (#notallmen) offer these types of draconian choices to their diners. Places like Paste offer a la carte options; not everyone has to do the set menu. And some set menus, like 80/20’s new summer menu, are crafted with the weather in mind, made lighter to suit the oppressive climate. It’s these kinds of options that are the way forward for fine dining patrons who, frankly, can’t hack the entirety of the chef’s unique vision. And aren’t those kinds of choices what hospitality is all about?

I can relate to George R. R. Martin right now. Not because of the insane wealth or the fact that people actually read his books, but because sometimes, like right now, I don’t feel like writing either. If I were to wait until “inspiration struck”, as I usually do (lol), then I would not be writing for a very long time.

That is, I don’t feel like writing what I’m supposed to be writing about. I could easily write 2,000 words on how the real precursor to Fall Out Boy is not punk or even goth but Sisters of Mercy, the Poppy Years, an unnatural development which ended up blurring the boundaries between all three genres to such an extent that even the makers of South Park felt it was their duty to explain.

But this is not what we are here for. We are here to discuss food. Specifically, street food in Bangkok. To be honest, I don’t feel like discussing street food in Bangkok. It’s depressing and boring. Capitalism rules, screw everyone else. The end.

So here are some photos of restaurants abroad who serve street food. Specifically, Kin Len (“eat-play”) in Seattle, a new-ish restaurant specializing in obscure (for the US) street food dishes like goong ob woonsen (steamed shrimp and glass vermicelli), khao ka moo (pig trotters on rice) and satew lin wua (beef tongue stew on rice).

Pig trotter on rice

Thai-style fresh oysters

Kin Len welcomes you

Have I exhausted my cache of photos yet? No.

Fried chicken with grilled young chili dip

In case you were confused about where you were

But wait, there’s more. I was in Chiang Mai with my parents recently, shopping for food in Warorot Market (deep-fried pork schnitzel and nam prik num at Damrong, naem (fermented pork sausage) at Anchan) and getting into arguments with tourists at Doi Suthep. Exhausted from our day, we retreated to the comforting embrace of Tubtim Grob Jae Uan (193 15 Sridonai Road, 085 041 9419, open daily 10am-9.30pm), a shophouse institution where it’s not just the tubtim grob (sticky rice flour and water chestnut mini-dumplings in coconut milk and ice) that’s popular, but just about everything else.

The namesake dish

There are other dishes you should definitely try, say my parents, including the pad Thai, a dish I would never order, and you shouldn’t either, unless the middle-aged lady with the banana clip is overseeing the kitchen, my mom says.

She always orders this with a side of Thai-style som tum (papaya salad) — but only if the guy with the dyed orange hair is making it. (If either of these people changes their hairstyle, you are screwed.)

One visit to this place and the world seems all right again. It will not bring back your yen for writing, but it will remind you why people are still willing to venture out into the open air to eat food, and sometimes that is all you need.

Nova salmon and whitefish platter with everything and pumpernickel bagels at Barney Greengrass

I have been traveling a bit these past few weeks, and so have not been able to update this blog, sorry mom who is my only reader. Jk. My mom never reads this blog.

I have learned a few things over the course of my travels, such as to always look where I am stepping on a San Francisco sidewalk, and that Washington’s oysters are the sweetest and most succulent. But the biggest takeaway from this entire trip was that there is nowhere — and I mean NOWHERE — that can compete with New York City when it comes to bagels, and all the stuff that comes with them.

I mean, people try. I remember ordering “bagel and lox” at a deli in Auckland and being rewarded with a shriveled, thin bagel-shaped piece of toast with a tiny hole in the middle. Cream cheese can be found anywhere, and lox can be fudged a bit. But the bagel always tells. It needs to be chewy and dense and filling, via a consistency that can only be achieved through boiling before baking. And that’s even before we get to the stuff that goes on top. I am salivating as I write this.

The stuff that goes on top are the “spreads”, the smoked or cured fish, and the salads. The spreads are cream cheese mixed with various ingredients, like scallions or lox. The smoked fish usually means lox, but it can also be sturgeon if you’re old-school, or the sweeter, less complicated Nova Scotia salmon if you’re new. And then the “salads”, which are not the salads you get at the Sizzler salad bar, but ideal for piling on top of chewy bread: egg salad, pickled herring, chopped liver, or my favorite, whitefish. Everyone has their usual order, and like a fingerprint, it is unique to them. My usual order is whitefish salad on a toasted everything bagel. Karen’s is pumpernickel, untoasted, with tofu veggie spread. My husband, on the other hand, proves he is Thai by ordering a toasted poppyseed bagel with sun-dried tomato spread. My daughter proves she is a Glutton by ordering a toasted everything bagel with both scallion cream cheese and whitefish salad. And my son proves he is 9 by ordering a toasted plain bagel with butter and jam. What can you do.

The shops that sell these things are called “appetizing” stores, where “appetizing” is a noun that refers to the cold starters that kick off Ashkenazi Jewish meals. When they settled in New York in the 1800s and early 1900s, they brought their culinary traditions with them. Kosher law dictates no mixing of meat and dairy (like cheeseburgers), so delicatessens focused on the meats like pastrami, while appetizing shops got the eggs, dairy and fish. Today, most people think of Russ & Daughter’s when they think of New York appetizing shops, but I have never gotten into the original branch, and I have another place where I’d rather be anyway. That place is Barney Greengrass.

Do you remember the theme song to the TV series “Cheers”, where everyone knows your name? Were you even born yet? I think of Cheers when I go to Barney Greengrass, even though absolutely no one knows my name. But the welcomes are always warm anyway, in a city with a notorious reputation for the opposite. To be honest, the only time I have had a negative, New York-style interaction was when the manager of an Italian restaurant told me the Pilates classes were paying off, but in a way that was not nice. What’s wrong with Pilates? (Note: I do not do Pilates).

It’s a strange relationship, the one between the waiter and the customer. The waiter holds all the power during the meal: will the food come or won’t it? Will it be what I want? Will it have been altered or unpleasantly tweaked in some way? So when your food arrives promptly, and it is delicious, and it appears to have been unmolested, a weird feeling of gratitude descends. That feeling could spread into warmth, its flames fanned from being nurtured and secure. It could even develop into … love.

Mom, I fell in love during this trip. I fantasized that the burly man bringing me platters of cured fish festooned with half-sours and unimaginably juicy slices of tomato and onion — always promptly, never forgetting — would also fall in love, and that we would run off together after my husband left me for his secretary even though he doesn’t have a secretary. His rugged beardiness would prove useful in cold weather, walking down the street, his size shielding me from the icy New York wind, his burly arms able to carry as many bags of bagels and tubs of cream cheese as his employer would allow back home, where I would be waiting, since for all its attractions, Barney Greengrass has yet to have a television.

Mom, it would be a romance for the ages. Until then, I will have to bide my time, and refrain from the temptation to order a bagel anywhere else. It wouldn’t be the same.

The popular scrambled eggs with lox and onions, when I remembered to take a photo