Bangkok Glutton

Here are some controversial hot takes for you. One, Shawn Mendes is just not that good-looking. (Is he considered good-looking because he washes his hair, unlike Justin Bieber? This appears to be the sole criterion.) Two, the New England Patriots are cheaters. (It’s well-documented.) Three, open-air shophouses where all the cooking is done in front are still considered street food, both in terms of food and culinary tradition, according to me, a street food eater. And four, Malaysia has better street food than Singapore.

This could also be considered well-documented. A recent New York Times story on Malaysia and Singapore had enough burns to make me, an innocent bystander who considers both to be inferior to Thailand, want to write about it. Singapore is planning on petitioning UNESCO to recognize its street food as one of the cultural treasures of the world. But Malaysians are feeling salty about it. Take the opinion of Chee Kean, presumably of Malaysia, who tweets “I think they mean they want to protect their air-conditioned food court.” [fire emoji yikes]

In return, Singaporeans point to international arbiters of taste like Michelin to rub Malaysians’ nose in their relative lack of marketing savvy. “Perhaps this discussion can be carried out properly after a hawker stall in Malaysia achieves a Michelin star” says Coconuts Singapore, which, ok Coconuts lol.

 

 

I stopped reading after that because then it dawned on me Thailand was trying to be like Singapore and it was just too rich when Singapore said a successful petition would help “safeguard” their street food culture since everything is already in a mall and words mean nothing anymore. But I did not start out wanting to write about the death rattles of Thai street food. What I want to write about is Ipoh, where street food is still thriving.

Ipoh is about a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Kuala Lumpur and home to a sizable Chinese community, hence its reputation for great food. The hills, water and soil of the area are said to produce the biggest, crunchiest and juiciest bean sprouts in the world. But it’s not all dim sum and beansprouts — busloads of foodies from KL and Penang hit the town every weekend to sample all the local dishes that they prefer to the renditions back home.

For example, you can get “black pepper crab” in KL and even, yes, in Singapore. But is it like this: unbearably fresh, shells caked in a breathtaking sludge of pounded black pepper and dried prawn, lit with a tinge of curry leaf, hiding sweet soft flesh within? I hate to say it, but the version at the Crab House (32, Laluan Perajurit 1, Taman Ipoh Timur, 012-565-7723)  is my favorite crab anywhere, even better than the freshly steamed swimmer crabs I can get beachside in Hua Hin, toes in the sand and a cold beer at my elbow. Sorry, Thailand.

The Crab House also does a “fish skin salad” — egg yolk-coated deep-fried skins piled high in a deep-fried nest of taro beside a pile of lightly dressed veggies — that is inexplicably popular amongst Malaysians. If you are feeling adventurous or just want to try something that has yet to translate to anywhere else, the Crab House is a good place to start.

That’s not all I have to rave about. There was the aggressively smoky duck, honey-glazed to a delicate crisp and smelling of lychee wood, at Yuk Sou Hin at the Weil Hotel (the owner’s name spelled backwards).

There was also the fresh seafood at the well-named Lucky (266, Jalan Pasir Puteh, Taman Hoover, 05-255-7330). Fish head curry (with cockles, treated the way Thais treat fresh bird’s eye chilies), homemade fish balls, and the inevitable char kway teow (broad rice noodles wok-fried in soy sauce and garlic) finished off the meal.

The next day was devoted almost exclusively to street food: open-air shophouses jam-packed with tables and plastic stools, around which were grouped various vendors offering a whole range of dishes: curry mee (spicier in Ipoh than its cousins in KL or Penang), chee cheong fun (flat rice noodle squares in chili paste), hakka mee (curly noodles with minced braised pork), deliciously fluffy kaya-stuffed pau (steamed dumplings) and of course, laksa. Unlike Penang, Ipoh does not have its own laksa, but the Penang version (touched with tamarind and garnished with a raft of fresh herbs and veggies) is extremely popular.

Feeling as stuffed as a foie gras goose, I still managed to wolf down a few helpings of kaya toast (bread smeared with coconut jam and butter) because that stuff is manna from the gods.

We finished off our trip at a banana leaf spot, which ended up being a lotus leaf place called Tamara’s (36, Persiaran Greenhill, 012-642-8821), offering both Sri Lankan and South Indian specialties.

Our hosts refused to partake in the especially Ipoh-ian dishes known as salted chicken (which I get, it’s like being forced to eat pad Thai in Bangkok), but we did get to sample it, along with the ubiquitous hor hee (fish soup noodles with fish won tons, meatballs and of course an avalanche of bean sprouts) at the home of local food celebrity SeeFoon Chan, who regularly writes her own food column on Ipoh cuisine for the Ipoh Echo.

The 73-year-old SeeFoon is a former model and beauty queen whose work as a journalist and in the hotel industry has taken her all over the world. Yet she has chosen to settle down in Ipoh, despite not even being an Ipoh native. She is, in fact, Singaporean. What she looks for most, she says, is authenticity, a quality that the food in Ipoh seems to have in spades. Fingers crossed it doesn’t change anytime soon.

I arrived super early in the morning, as the Park Hyatt was still setting up. Executive Chef Franck Detrait, already a little disheveled from his early morning tasks, smiles a little when I ask him what’s for dinner. “It’s a surprise,” he says and I laugh, but it won’t be a surprise to me, because I wasn’t invited …

… and that is exactly the absolute last time I mention this, I promise.

It’s the day of the Michelin Guide 2019 launch, the second of its kind in Thailand, expanded from the original Bangkok to include Phuket and Phang-Nga.  Dinner tonight is for 280 people and a five-course affair, which will end with a coffee mousse, a tidbit I managed to pry from the more gregarious pastry chef. Looking at me, breaking news. You got it here first.

The focus of the celebration is the “little red book”, which has weathered its share of controversies since its inception in 1900 as a little motorist’s guide to decent restaurants and inns along the roads in France.  That hasn’t ended in Asia, where the idea of even having a Michelin guide has been questioned. Who are these people who will judge our food, went the familiar refrain, exacerbated by Michelin’s secrecy and committee of anonymous inspectors, features meant to keep the judging process sacrosanct but also frustratingly opaque. For example, one does not know where George R.R. Martin is in the “Winds of Winter’ writing process, aside from the hints gleaned from a few released chapters.  One can only guess, and in those guesses, allow one’s imagination to run rampant. Will we never see it at all? Will it be finished by a beleaguered editorial assistant working off of Post-it notes slapped to the side of a Vista PC? Will it be released in 50 years for our grandchildren to enjoy and then remake? No one knows these answers. Just like no one knows exactly who is making the decisions for who gets what in Thailand’s dining scene, but conspiracy theories and criticisms abound. And the results can change lives.

For Thailand, the most striking example of the power of the Michelin Guide is probably still Jay Fai, whose business changed overnight. After a year of adjusting to the increased queues and working hours — and scrutiny — Jay Fai now says she has her schedule down well enough that she can work non-stop from 2pm to 1am, 5 days a week (or more if the pu yai request it). In fact, she plans on expanding her menu to include the dishes she neglected for the past year in favor of omelette after omelette, such as her blanched white fish with veggies or her sukiyaki with homemade sauce. She has even adjusted well enough that she can take on side projects such as the pending cooperation with Thai Airways, where she has already tried out adapted iterations of her stir-fried crab in curry and drunken noodles in their gigantic kitchen.

It’s not just Jay Fai. Fried chicken noodle (guaythiew kua gai) vendor Nai Peng was practically saved by receiving a Michelin Plate award last year after gentrification decimated most of his Suan Luang neighborhood, and was awarded another Plate nod last night.

New entrants to the guide are also hoping to haul in that Michelin largesse. They include first-time Michelin stars for Methavalai Sorndaeng (my grandpa’s fave, don’t forget the gratong tong or deep-fried pastry bags), R-Haan, Saawaan, Canvas, Ruean Panya, Sorn and Suan Thip (Chef Bee of Paste’s fave); a doubling of the Bib Gourmand ranks to include newbies like Thai sweets extraordinaire Kor Panich, Lai Rot (but only on Rama 6), and the dudes at 100 Mahaseth; and Plate newcomers like Sushi Masato, Jidori Cuisine Ken and my fave Thai-Chinese raconteur, Chef Jok of Jok’s Kitchen.

There’s also Phuket, where you see welcome names like La Gaetana, Thu Gub Khao and of course the ever-delicious Raya. Entrants from Phang-Nga look thin on the ground but that actually might be a good thing for now. And the street food sections in the guide look robust, although obviously I have some complaints (still no Chia duck noodles or Sainampung chicken noodles? Come on guys).

There are more women this year, which would make sense given that there are a total of 217 restaurants this year, up more than 81 over last year and with 10 new stars. This probably also makes sense given that Thai food makes up fully half of the cuisines in the 2019 guide. Still, need we single the female chefs apart for their own photo shoot to cries of “girl power” from the audience, a la the Asia’s 50 Best “Best Female Chef” award? Is this a European guy thing? It’s not like they are horses walking on their hind legs. Women have been cooking for at least as long as men. Hopefully soon, maybe even sooner than “Winds of Winter” come out, the recognition of talented female chefs will not be treated as such an anomaly.

 

 

 

 

It’s taken me a while to recognize that the nearly month-long period I’ve spent on my couch watching Netflix is not, actually, mental health “me time”, but really depression. The reasons why could be any number of things (my husband blames CNN), but that’s really secondary. It’s the realization that counts.

It took me long enough.  I mean, the signs were all staring at me in the face. Binging the first season of “Gilmore Girls” and forming strong opinions on the sub-par quality of Lorelai Gilmore’s friendships with other women? Watching and re-watching “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” for fashion tips from Aunt Zelda and Madame Satan? Watching any episodes of “The Good Witch” ever, at all? (1. These are all Netflix-related; 2. yes, I have watched every episode of “The Good Witch” ever made; 3. and no, I have not found a suitable replacement, Netflix suggestions be damned). It’s become obvious I have been depressed, and for a while now. The silver lining is that the sooner it’s recognized, the sooner I can find a solution. Of course, my solution mostly involves food.

I unpeeled myself from my couch long enough to trek to Chan Road yesterday, a heroic Odysseus-like journey that for me involves a couple of motorcycles and multiple Skytrain stops. The reason why stemmed from an iPhone message I saved from February 2017 courtesy of my friend Nat, who said that fairly authentic (what a loaded word) Teochew food could be found at Hia Wan Khao Tom Pla (2 Thanon Chan, 02-211-0829). I am no expert on the cuisine of the Teochew region (where most Chinese-Thais hail from), but I can say with certainty that this spot checks all the boxes that one would expect from a great fish porridge place: the ice-laden front counter bearing all the fresh varieties of fish on offer (in this case, grouper, regular pomfret and deep-sea pomfret), the gentleman owner overseeing all from a perch behind the cook station, fresh bateng (soy-glazed pork) to accompany every bowl of porridge, and brown bean sauce (here, two varieties: regular and slightly spicy) on every table.

There’s more. The place is almost strikingly clean, even by Thai shophouse standards: gleaming tabletops, obsessively tidy dining accoutrements. Besides the namesake fish porridge — heavy on the deep-fried garlic flavor, rife with thin-cut slices of fresh pomfret, perfect with the slightly spicier brown bean sauce — “recommended dishes” include a plethora of spicy salads (yum) of various varieties of seafood as well as different seafood steamed with glass vermicelli (ob woonsen). There are special soups of gently poached pomfret in a pickled plum broth, fragrant with lots of ginger and Chinese celery. They even allow you to make-your-own-porridge, mixing and matching all of the ingredients displayed in front. And it’s a Michelin Bib Gourmand eatery, a fact I discovered from the cover of their menu. It’s hard not to find something to like, as long as it’s seafood.

As for the depression, I am taking it day by day. I have stopped listening to Post Malone, or reading about Lena Dunham. I am making time for friends. I am trying to limit my CNN time. I still find Chris Cuomo sort of attractive, but I am working on it. There is no cure-all for something like this. There is just the motivation to find a reason to peel oneself off of the couch, every day, whether it is fish porridge, or going to the gym, or buying a bag of Doritos.