Bangkok Glutton

Khao kluk kopi on the pass at Raan Nai Ngow

It’s January, so obviously I have been on a diet. After a few weeks of abstaining from all sugar, starchy foods and alcohol, I have managed to gain 2 kg. This, of course, serves to highlight the fact that my body has become trash. I will stick with this for now though, because I am dieting for my health. Like the Trump administration’s sliding scale of guilt (never talked to Russians = saw some Russians once = OK we talked but it’s not illegal = OK it’s illegal but I didn’t know about it), I now have a sliding scale of what will make me happy vis-a-vis my body (I need to lose weight = I am doing this for my health = I’m fine with being called “handsome” by people who are trying to be nice).

Unlike my body, some things change for the better. Khao Sarn Road, which was once in danger of being cleared of all its vendors despite hosting a high concentration of backpacker tourists, has seen a return of food carts, but the pad Thai and spring rolls of a few years ago have been replaced by Isaan-focused som tum-filled mortars and pestles and meat grilling on skewers. This, to me, means that the tourists coming to even the most touristy areas of Bangkok are growing more sophisticated with their Thai food knowledge. They are now basically eating like everybody else in Thailand.

But you know that old saying, “Plus ca change … and I forget the rest”. There are things that you can count on, even amidst all of the change and chaos that sometimes threatens to overwhelm us all. The longstanding vendor in front of Baan Chaophraya, Raan Nai Ngow (112 Phra Arthit Road, 087-021-0213), is one of those things. Nai Ngow serves up highly sought-after helpings of khao pad nam prik long ruea (rice fried in sweet pork chili paste) and kanom jeen sao nam (fermented rice noodles with a sauce of coconut milk, shrimp powder, pineapple, ginger, garlic and chilies). But their specialty is khao kluk kapi (rice in shrimp paste with Chinese sausage, sweet pork, egg, mango, green beans, dried shrimp and dried chilies), a central Thai dish that acts like a fried rice dish but is actually a salad. Combining the fresh crunchy snap of fresh veg and fruit with the comforting sweet fat of sausage and pork, acidity of fresh lime juice, and the complicating umami of dried shrimp and shrimp paste, this dish has something for everyone: a feast for every sense except for maybe the ears. Just mix like your life depends on it and resign yourself to the fact that some stuff is going to end up on your shirt by the end of the meal.

In a food world dominated by Chinese-derived dishes like soup noodles and stir-fries — Thai street food’s origins come from Chinese immigrants, after all — Nai Ngow specializes in actual Thai food dishes that are becoming more of a rarity on the street due to the profusion of ingredients and complicated assemblage. If you find yourself in the area with a few minutes to kill (and are no longer on a diet, note to future self), it’s worth it to take some time out from all the change coming at you and shelter your face in a plateful of some shrimpy-sweet rice.

The aptly-named guaythiew bae at Khao Perb Yai Krieng

I’ve given a lot of thought to this today, so I’ve decided to share with you my findings. There are, at heart, three basic categories for the faces that guitarists make in music videos. There is the “I’m surprised” expression, made famous in the MTV heyday of the 1980s, in which the guitarist appears to be saying, “I can’t believe I know how to play this instrument!” There is the tongue-hanging-out or licking expression, during which the guitarist seems to say, “You are so lucky to be nowhere near me at this moment.” And then, of course, there is the “O face” expression, first described in the (blink and you missed it) TV series “Ben and Kate”. “Ben and Kate” was the Dakota Johnson vehicle which I felt was under appreciated at the time, but now that she is a movie star and dating Chris Martin, I feel better for her even though presumably she sometimes has to listen to his music. I don’t know anything about Chris Martin’s O face.

This is John Mayer, not Chris Martin

Tl;dr — I am basically saying that you can categorize anything. But sometimes you come across things that defy categories. For example, street food. I’m often asked why I love Thai street food, but the answer is always the same: I discover something new all the time. Whether it’s some fusion-y newfangler like ramen in a tom yum broth, or an old-fashioned tidbit brought back to life by some enterprising foodie, it’s something that stymies the typical categorizations that you see in Thai street food, like stir-fried noodles, soup noodles, plated rice dishes, porridge, or Isaan.

Just yesterday, while walking in the Old Town, I came across a woman in a flat-topped straw hat selling a sweet snack I’d never seen before. Called khao thid din (“down-to-earth rice”), it’s actually a deep-fried batter of banana, coconut milk and rice flour cooked to form an airy puff in the middle like this:

Located between Tani and Phra Sumen roads

The flavor is only slightly sweet, the texture light and spongey. The vendor has been selling this treat in the Old City since she was a young girl, but claims to be the only person in Bangkok offering it. Eyes: opened. Again.

I came across some other dishes new to me while on a never-ending drive north to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, a trip that typically takes 9 hours. About an hour north of the old Thai capital of Sukhothai, a 40-year-old open-air eatery called “Khao Perb Yai Krieng” (Ban Tuek, Si Satchanalai, +6687-036-0060)  serves … you guessed it, khao perb, a steamed rice noodle stuffed with greens and served in a clear pork broth with egg and fresh coriander.

Khao perb is pretty good, don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion the namesake dish should be guaythiew bae, rice noodles paired with a generous rectangle of pork and seasoned with the region’s prized limes, peanuts, sugar, shredded crispy pork and garlic. Add some slivered green beans, and you could very well have guaythiew sukhothai hang,  or Sukhothai noodles without broth.

Another specialty is mee pun (this place has a lot of specialties, all cooked in front of you in a thatched-roof, open-air kitchen using traditional implements and charcoal). These sausage-like cylinders are a steamed mixture of rice noodles and bean sprouts, encased in a homemade rice wrapper and served on a banana leaf.

The only thing keeping the dishes khao ob and khao pun from joining the roster of Yai Krieng’s signature dishes is availability. When the place gets crowded, you can no longer order stuff served on skewers. But if you are lucky, as we were, you are able to sample anything you like, yakitori-style, in a jumble on the same platter. Instead of the more traditional khao ob we opted for khao pun kai, a steamed rice noodle (but more of a rolled crepe) seasoned with egg and herbs. But they also have a version seasoned with a dash of pork soup, and another with chilies because of course.

The only caveat to all of this hard-to-find grub is that, well, you have to get there. But if you find yourself in the area, it is well worth a stop when you’re sick of scarfing down regular Sukhothai noodles or 7-11 mieng kham-flavored potato chips and want to get a (much needed) break from the road.

There is a reason why I have a rule about never, ever (and I mean never) reading stuff that I have been interviewed for, or watching myself on any program, or reading anything that could possibly mention my name. And it is because I do not want to get pissed off. But it’s too late now, because Dwight (@bkkfatty) brought my attention to an article in SCMP about, ostensibly, the Thai dining scene that I am not going to link to, because I am that pissed off. You can just Google it, Google is there for a reason. Also I am hungry because I only had an apple for breakfast.

This is all Dwight’s fault. LOL (sort of but not really I still love you Dwight).

The premise is that Thai food is now being taken over by fine dining restaurants, and street food is a thing of the past. I think that is the premise, but I stopped reading when a real estate person was interviewed. Nothing against the real estate person, I have friends who are real estate people, and my husband is a real estate person. But interviewing a real estate person about Thai street food is like asking this lady about Donald Trump:

What the story appears to be doing is setting up a conflict between street food and Thai fine dining. Like, you could either eat street food or you can eat at Paste and Bo.lan, but you can’t do both. Like street food has usurped the role of fine dining in Thailand, and that conventional wisdom frames street food as the pinnacle of Thai cuisine. This is a false equivalency.

No one is saying street food is the best that Thailand has to offer. Street food could never compete with Sorn or Saawaan, either for the investment involved in its making, or in its presentation or the time and thought spent in its creation. I don’t think there are any people who don’t welcome well-made Thai cuisine, be it organic, “farm-to-fork”, or expensive. As my friend Trude would say, the move from informal to formal is normal. Go crazy with the tasting menus. Feel free to grow your own dill and coriander. Break out the mason jars. No one is against that.

Street food is made by people in a hurry, for people in a hurry (unless, like Jay Fai, that becomes impossible, but that’s another story). It’s a bet on a vendor’s ability to make a couple of dishes well enough that they can feed their family off of it. And yes, when they do make it well enough, it becomes something that is passed down from generation to generation, and that becomes tradition. When it endures for long enough, it becomes imprinted in people’s memories and becomes a part of their childhoods and personal stories. That is what people mean when they think it’s the best. It does not mean it is the best expression of Thai cuisine. That is like saying Prince Street Pizza is the best restaurant in New York.

What this faux conflict between fine dining and street food ignores is that most Thai people can’t afford fine dining. That limiting options, in any way, not only cheats a whole bunch of people out of alternative ways of feeding oneself outside of a mall (run by a big-time real estate developer) or a convenience store (run by a big-time food company), but stifles the kind of creativity and entrepreneurship that has long fed Bangkok’s dining scene. Limiting options cuts down on the (very, very few) places where all segments of a highly stratified society can still mix, where they are all on equal footing (NOT at the mall). Limiting options means less avenues for the poor, who do not have the right last names or go to the right schools, to make a good living. If Jay Fai — the daughter of a mobile kua gai vendor — were to start out now, would she have thrived enough to buy up her own shophouse, hence escaping the current street food sweep? The problem with the street food ban is that it’s classist. It has nothing to do with food.

I have resigned myself to a future of eating noodles at food courts, but when it’s forced too soon at the expense of other people, and those other people are erased from a story that is basically theirs, it pisses me off. Of course, you can disregard what I say as someone who “profits” off of street food (55555555 all the 5s in the world). But there is still a space in Bangkok’s undeniably rich (HAH) and varied tapestry of food offerings to accommodate both ends of the Thai food spectrum, from R-Haan to non-prepackaged corporate sandwich options. To argue otherwise is disingenuous.