Bangkok Glutton

Manava Suite Resort may have dangerous electrical wiring and some truly alarming breakfast sausages, but one of the good things about it — besides its near-constant UB40 soundtrack — is its location. On the western side of Tahiti, considered preferable to the storm-battered east, Manava (or “welcome” in Tahitian) is a short 3-5-minute walk away from a smattering if open-air streetside eateries that open up after the sun goes down (6:30pm, give or take a few minutes).

The menu is what you might expect when the food comes out of a truck or a roadside grill: sometimes pizza, sometimes Chinese, even Thai. But the preponderance of the menus feature lovely grilled things, almost always plopped unceremoniously atop a crisp bed of perfect, McDonald’s-like fries. There’s chicken of course, because where would we be without chicken, and juicy, meaty fresh-off-the-grill steak. Sometimes pork ribs, and chewy, toothsome chunks of veal heart on a skewer, nudging a vast wedge of macaroni-and-cheese, because God is good in Tahiti. I love this food in its simplicity and its emphasis on pure comfort and hospitality.

Believe it or not, this was not my first time in Tahiti. I’ve been before. Reading back on what I thought of it then, I can barely recognize myself. It’s especially bewildering since this was the first trip I took with the first four books of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire”, discovering for the first time Cersei and Ned and Jon and Dany against a backdrop of impossibly blue sea and a shooting star-filled sky. The only reason I can come up with for all the past doom and gloom was that I might have been annoyed with a traveling companion or two. This time, armed with a far inferior set of books, I found I didn’t really need them. The food and company were great, although I can’t really speak for my nephew Remy:

 

There’s a whole bunch of roadside places once you turn right out of the resort, but the best one may be one of the closest: Temaiti West Side (+87-720-620), instantly recognizable for the hulking grill set up next to a brightly lit cart and the collection of almost-always-full tables behind it in an ill-lit parking lot. My son was truly afraid to sit down for dinner, but got over it after our meal arrived, which was chicken and fries and more fries, with I think a salad that I’ve forgotten all about because the chicken.

And this time, I found I didn’t have a problem with the simplicity of poisson cru. OK, these islands were colonized by the French, but they didn’t take on their anal-retentive cooking techniques and persnickety dining habits. It’s damn hot! Ain’t nobody got time for that! (Except for Thai people, because we are nuts and obsessed with what other people think about us).

Or maybe the South Pacific is an ideal destination for a different me, one who is too hot and ain’t got no time for extraneous stuff. If there is a New Year’s resolution to be found somewhere in there, teased out of the roadside Papeete underbrush after a filling meal of steak and fries and someone else’s pizza, that may be it.

I’ll be honest. 2017 didn’t start off that great. I didn’t think it would be that memorable of a year in food for me, especially since I was only interested in making a handful of comfort food recipes. Some of my favorites:

Number one comfort food dinner:

– 5 glasses of red wine

Comfort afternoon snack:

– 2 glasses of red wine

Don Draper nightcap:

– 2 glasses of red wine

– 1 shot single-malt whisky, neat

But, like every 2016 presidential election prognosticator, I was wrong. 2017 was a great year in food. But don’t take it from me, the person who accidentally burned a plastic spatula while trying to cook lamb meatballs because she was busy reading a story about Al Franken and still ate the meatballs even though they were uncooked in the middle and may have had melted plastic on them.  Take it from the Michelin people, who came to Thailand (Wonder why? Doesn’t matter) to anoint 17 lucky happy eating places with their coveted stars, and the just-as-important bib gourmand to a bunch of other people at 33 happy eating spots.  Dreams do come true, you guys.

Of course, Thais being Thais, there is already plenty of grumbling about who got what and why. For once in my life, I am not going to add to that chorus. Congrats you guys! Good for you! Please continue allowing me to eat in your restaurants! Thank you.

And of course I’m waving the flag for all the bib gourmand recipients, including Soul Food Mahanakorn (those guys once said hi to me) and the taciturn guay jab guy in the porn theater in Chinatown (he never says hi to me and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been there). Because I’ve eaten at most of these places, I feel a sense of ownership, just like if I was a member of the Michelin team myself. Of course, I was not. Just FYI, I’m free next year, you guys. I could make some room in my schedule for you.

I gotta say, even though no one asked me, the Michelin folks have included a pretty judicious selection of street food spots. Do you think this will change the current government attitude to street food vendors? And, just an observation but I cannot help but ask: who chooses the photos that go with these restaurants? Is there a stock photo factory of rando table settings in France somewhere? Because that is definitely not Soul Food, Sanguansri or for God’s sake Jay Oh with the white tablecloths lol. Someone who looks at this might get ideas.

But I have had meals this year that have not been at eateries lauded in the Michelin guide. Here, my own guide to the past year’s good eats:

I am, for once, looking forward to what the next year will bring. I hope that doesn’t mean it will be a crap year!

Happy New Year, all! Thank you for sticking around.

 

 

My friend Winner describes himself as “super Chinese”, even though he grew up in California and cheers on terrible American football teams. It’s not the kind of Chinese that my husband is, where they all hang out in Chinatown and burn stuff in the front yard once a year. According to Winner, “super Chinese” means having parents who were forced to go to Chinese school and meeting up at community centers and temples to describe your particular brand of Chinese-ness — in his case, Hainan, which Thais refer to as “Hailum”.

The majority of Thais with Chinese heritage are Teochew, or Chiu Chow. That means a healthy smattering of Teochew restaurants throughout Bangkok, keeping the bak ku teh and oyster omelet faith. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a healthy slice of eateries out there that aren’t Hainanese. After all, one of the most well-known street food dishes in the country is probably Hainanese chicken rice (khao mun gai), the one-two punch of fork-tender chicken and fatty globules of slick white rice (and clear soup and, let’s face it, the chili-speckled sauce). That’s just one of the dishes that this southernmost Chinese province has to offer. There’s also kanom jeen hailum, or Hainanese rice vermicelli.

One of my favorite things about Thai street food — if not my absolute favorite thing — is the range of dishes available, snatched and twisted into Thai-style shapes from cultures all over the globe. Unlike its chicken rice counterpart, Hainanese rice noodles are one of those dishes that are increasingly hard to find, in spite of itself: a seemingly bewitching mix of thick udon-like strands cosseted in a thickened broth punctuated with shrimp paste, peanuts, sesame seeds, pickled greens and of course coriander and green onion, left to stew into an amiable sludge. And there are the slices of pork too.

There are several places to have this dish, including the pretty obviously-named Kanom Jeen Hai Lum (Charoen Nakorn Road between Sois 17 and 19), which also serves chicken rice, because of course. But another place that places almost all its eggs in the kanom jeen basket is Jay Wa-Jay Yong (463/54-55 Luk Luang Soi 8, open 5-11pm), where the distinctive green bowl of Shell Chuan Chim (Thailand’s answer to the Michelin guide) adorns the shophouse.

For my money though (even though Winner paid), the best thing at this shophouse is the yum Hailum, or Hainanese spicy salad, cleverly made up of all the things that would garnish a bowl of noodles, but dressed up in the Thai chili-lime-fish sauce dressing that renders everything it touches delicious. A mix of pork slices, moo yaw (steamed pork pate), Chinese mushrooms, lettuce, pickled greens and sesame seeds, this salad has it all: texture, taste, and punch, a dish that can only be found at this dinner spot (so Winner says). They gave me a separate plate so that I could share, but of course there was no need.