Bangkok Glutton

It was like a body, dressed haphazardly in formalwear, glasses askew and smeared lipstick on a too-young face, discovered behind a couch in the library. It was a purple-faced vicar collapsing to the ground in convulsions in the middle of a cocktail party. It was a reviled industrialist with a mean streak, found murdered in a locked bedroom.

It was my appetite.

Now, my appetite had its share of enemies. It had cut many a mighty swathe through even the most intimidating of restaurant tables, guest house countertops groaning under the weight of myriad dishes, cows mooing in the fields, etc. But the facts are irrefutable, and they are this:

1. The appetite went missing during the week of July that I was in London
2. The suspects could only have been those encountered in the course of that week
3. The prime suspects are one of the following places, unless they all ganged up, “Murder On the Orient Express”-style, and finished it off together

Suspect 1: St. John

There is no denying the impact that nose-to-tail pioneer St. John has had on the global restaurant scene. Indeed, there was a period of time when no restaurant could open without claiming to be a “nose-to-tail” specialist, all the while serving only oxtail stew and a token pig’s ear or tail terrine of some sort (but I digress). St. John was the first to make that philosophy paradoxically glamorous, and I have been a fan of chef Fergus Henderson for years (I even have the cookbook). I had wanted to go for as long as I can remember.

Knowing this, I tried as best as I can to wake up my appetite for this momentous event by having only a coffee for breakfast. So I thought it was well-equipped to take on the kohlrabi salad, mustardy pig’s tongue with green beans and pickled shallots, half of my daughter’s sweetbreads and a taste of my husband’s roasted marrow — normally a walk in St. James Park for this creature, aka my appetite. And even though everything was perfect, seasoned just the way I like it, and served with the good humor and aplomb that only the best places can muster, I still felt like a lead weight had invaded my insides after about an hour, and was forced to miss the mummies at the British Museum in favor of sleeping it all off back at my hotel room. Later, I caught a performance of “The Lehman Trilogy” at the Piccadilly Theater (full disclosure: I am a 0.0000000001 percent investor), which means I had only one meal that day. What happened???????????

2. The Wolsley

Since skipping breakfast didn’t work, why not just get a good meal out of the way? Truth be told, The Wolsley was not my choice, but my husband’s, who wanted to have what he said were the best scones in the world. Alas, we are Asian, so we did not know that scones are not served for breakfast. Luckily, The Wolsley has a great breakfast: there are deviled kidneys, and kedgeree, and kippers, none of which I ordered. This is because there was a bacon sandwich on the menu. I also got a Chelsea bun because I didn’t know what it was. It turns out that it is like a cinnamon bun without the cinnamon.

According to The Wolsley’s website, it is the most profitable restaurant in London, and I am pretty sure I know why. Upon entrance to the dining room, you are stopped by a maitre’d, who at a moment’s notice assesses your person to determine where you should sit in the dining room. It turns out that The Wolsley’s maitre’d is not an avid reader of Bangkok Glutton. We were dispatched to an upstairs Siberia, where I actually enjoyed a great view of the entire dining room and how this informal hierarchy gets arranged (the most coveted tables appear to be directly in the middle, which doesn’t make sense to me since there’s no good vantage point for spying on other people). Service was similarly condescending, adept at giving you the feeling you are being well tolerated. The result? I want to go to The Wolsley every day for breakfast (but only if I get the same table every time.)

3. Tayyabs

I don’t think any food lover goes to London without some intention of hitting up some South Asian goodness. London is a hotbed of great Indian and Pakistani restaurants, and all I had to do was pick one. My friend Gareth said that he was confounded as to why I would trek all the way out to Whitechapel when Dishoom was right there, but then again he’s not as crazy about Indian food as I. Because the fact of the matter is, Tayyabs is one of the most famous Indian restaurants in London for a reason.

Tayyabs specializes in Punjabi food, but is crowded with people of all stripes at just about any time of the day. I want to say that taking the trouble of booking a table in advance was useful, but I’m not really sure if they cared. They will simply stick you anywhere you will fit, Thai street food-style.

There are a few dishes that everybody orders: the tarka dal, chicken tikka masala (the General Tso’s chicken of the British Indian food world), the tandoori chicken. Everything is a bit more fiery, less creamy and rich than the Indian food you get in Bangkok. But the standouts are the lamb chops, which are really out of this world, intense enough to make me momentarily forget about my missing appetite troubles.

4. New Fortune Cookie

Folks, if you ever find yourself in London and for some reason or other are in search of a Thai person, have no fear: you will find that Thai person at New Fortune Cookie in Queensway. Make sure you come during the first lunch shift, because after 1pm the dining rooms will be taken up by actual Chinese people.

The food here is excellent. I can’t say if it’s the best roast duck in London, but it’s got to be one of the best. And I’m not saying that because, even though we stayed only a few steps away from Chinatown, we never braved the queue at Four Seasons. Why would we do that, when we can just traipse into New Fortune Cookie at noon (after one quick Tube ride, or almost-as-quick bus ride) and get a table immediately?

Don’t worry, we overordered, and people had to take leftovers home after lunch. And don’t worry, I wanted to die after eating. But I promise you that not a shred of that duck was left (and, protip, you can also order it with all the bones already taken out).

 

 

My friend Mauricio, who is one of the very few Thai food chefs in Brazil, told me about this duck place while discussing his favorite solo lunch places in Bangkok. Thinking I had stumbled on a sparkling new discovery, I asked my friends if they would be up for a bit of exploration.

“Oh that place?” said James (who lives across the river and also gave me the title for this post). “I always take my guests there before we get on the boat.”

It’s Duck Noodle House, but locals know it by its real name, Ped Thun Jao Ta (Stewed Duck at the Pier, 945 Soi Wanit 2, 02-233-2541) or, more simply, “the duck noodles at Talat Noi”. The most popular order is, for sure, the bamee (egg noodles), served simply crowned with slices of tender duck in a Daffy-rich broth, but plenty of diners also opt for the plate of sliced stewed duck paired with a simple bowl of white rice. Goose is also available, but it’s clearly a second-class citizen in this joint. Indeed, so popular is the duck that the pile of roasted birds that greeted me upon entry to this shophouse was nearly depleted when we had finished our meal, about 30 minutes later.

What excited me, though, was the guaythiew kua ped (fried rice noodles with egg and duck), which I had never eaten before. This is Mauricio’s favorite lunch in Bangkok, and what I had set my heart on.

I have to say, guaythiew kua in its normal form is not my favorite street food dish, although I do enjoy a nice big faceful of grease every now and then. Although duck is also quite a fatty, rich meat, it felt totally at home with this silky, uber-comforting plate of soft slicked rice noodles, unhindered by a negligible amount of egg and paired with a little bowl of Sriracha sauce (Sriracha Panij, to be precise). Or, I could just have been hungry. It was a revelation to me, at least.

 

 

I noticed that I haven’t been complaining about the heat lately, so I thought it was time to get back to my regularly scheduled programming. It’s really hot, guys. Even when it’s supposed to be rainy season, it’s still hot. The rain doesn’t really help very much. This heat sucks. The end.

But even with this heat, I still managed to corral a few of my friends into taking me to the Portuguese neighborhood of Kudichin, centered on the Thonburi side of the Chao Phraya River around the Santa Cruz church. This patch of land was awarded to the Portuguese by King Taksin for their help in fighting the Burmese in Ayutthaya, and they have retained a cultural hold on the neighborhood ever since. I’m sure you already know about the impact the Portuguese have had on Thai culture, but to fill up this post with more words, I will say that the seafaring adventure-lovers that were the Portuguese spread their culture all over the world. This includes Asia, where they introduced us to heretofore unheard-of ingredients like chilies and created desserts like the egg-and-sugar extravaganza tong yod (a stand in for ovos moles) and kanom mor gang (a coconut custard, inspired by tigelada). Some other stuff the Portuguese brought to us: foy tong or “gold threads”, a stand-in for fios de ovos; look choop, mini fruits inspired by massapa’es but filled with mung bean instead of marzipan; corn; potatoes; guava (!); pineapple (!); papaya (!); cashew nuts (!); pumpkin (!). And of course tomatoes, which they brought to everyone, including the Italians. This is new stuff we all learned at the Baan Kudichin Museum.

Kudichin has something for everyone here, really: history buffs, architecture and design geeks, or people who really like walking around in hot places. For me, of course, it was the promise of food that I would not be able to find anywhere else, the Portuguese-Sino-Thai dish of kanom jeen gai kua, or fermented rice noodles in a mild chicken curry.

What makes this chicken curry and noodle dish different from, say, a standard Thai kanom jeen gang gai are the spices used to season the coconutty curry, which are mixed quite happily in a food processor instead of pounded in a mortar and pestle to release the oils (a shameful practice to Thais, who like to pretend that the food processor or blender don’t exist). The chicken is minced like in a bolognese and flavored with fish sauce, coconut milk, and a hint of chili. The garnish is always slivered green onion. The result is milder and lighter than something you would find elsewhere in Thailand, the flavors fewer and more focused. It is, not surprisingly, utterly delicious. I ended doing this thing where I tried to stuff it down my throat like I was a foie gras goose, but I was doing it to myself. This is not healthy behavior.

The first place where we had this is said to be the jao gow, or original vendor of the dish. Directly across from the Santa Cruz church next to the river, Yai Thi (02-472-5231) offers their most famous dish — prominently advertised in front of the restaurant — alongside more Portuguese-inflected fare like grilled pork chops with fries and a succession of thick toast with various toppings, including spinach with cheese and butter with caramel. There are chicken nuggets and waffled mashed potatoes, onion rings and garlic bread. It is essentially your picky 4-year-old’s dream restaurant.

Our favorite creation, though, was the banana “crepe”, which is actually a deep-fried samosa stuffed with mashed ripe banana. We thought it would be everywhere on our walk from the church to the Kudichin Museum, but it ended up being a unique thing to this restaurant.

You will have to remove your shoes to enter the “dining room”, which in this case, appears to be the family living room. The kitchen is located right next to the river, so that the chef can enjoy a pleasant view while preparing your order. In our (in)expert opinion, it appears that various households in the neighborhood are supplementing their income this way, by welcoming strangers into their homes for meals. This is what we surmised, anyway, after heading next door to the next place serving kanom jeen, called Pa Jae (080-305-2448). Unlike Yai Thi, the menu is more Chinese-focused, offering stir-fried pork in oyster sauce on rice, fried shrimp on rice, and macaroni in tomato sauce besides the requisite rice noodles with chicken curry.

Unlike Yai Thi, you are expected to add your own nam prik of coconut milk and blended chilies, which looks like this:

A plus for Pa Jae is the karaoke, which is performed at your table, while eating your noodles. We blitzed our way through John Denver’s “Country Roads” (a Thai karaoke bar staple), what I believe was “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (I can’t be expected to remember things anymore) and “Top of the World” by the Carpenters before we took pity on the proprietors and showed ourselves out. The karaoke was free, something that maybe the owners should rectify in the future if they value their own mental health.

The third place we were aiming for was the most famous restaurant in the neighborhood, Baan Sakul Thong (213 Soi Kudichin 3, 062-605-5665), where we are told the dishes come from the recipes of great-grandmother Chawee Sakulthong. A set here is slightly more expensive than the other restaurants we visited, at 250 baht per person for a plate of the chicken noodles with two appetizers, a dessert and a soft drink.  Appetizers include Royal Thai-type stuff like chor muang (steamed dumplings stuffed with minced pork and dyed purple with butterfly pea extract) and jeeb tua nok (bird-shaped steamed dumplings stuffed with chicken). When we got there, we were confused by which door was the entrance and ended up busting in on a private family meal. Apparently, reservations must be made 2-3 days in advance. It took all of my willpower to not snap a photo of the family’s food from over their shoulders. I am not yet a savage.

So Baan Sakul Thong was a wash, but it wouldn’t do to not have something to look forward to on our next visit to Kudichin. Wasn’t it Kierkegaard who said that true despair was having all of your wishes fulfilled? Maybe not. I was never that good of a student.