Bangkok Glutton

Saphan Phut Market, off of Rama IV Road

When the latest stab at this street food ban thing started, my husband said everything would return back to normal by year-end. The assumption was that the political will to kick out vendors over and over again would eventually run dry, allowing them (although maybe not the old ones) to come back to the spaces they were once forced to vacate.

This has sort of happened at Asoke Intersection, prime street food real estate that once commanded up to 30,000 baht “rent” a month from the police. I don’t know what (or who) the vendors are paying now, but they are (almost) all back: the chicken bitter melon noodles, the pad Thai, the egg rolls, the strange mayonnaise-forward salads with hard boiled eggs, and most importantly, the fried chicken. The only one I am missing is the Isaan vendor in front of Maduzi, who made wonderful larb when she wasn’t fighting with her husband. I fear — like the curry rice vendor and made-to-order vendors on my own small soi — I will never see her again.

But, as of right now, the move towards progress continues apace. Forward, ever forward, spaces that have been cleared last year — Siam Square, and the Saphan Phut area next to the Flower Market — remain so, saving space for the eagerly anticipated projects set to join the city skyline. And the vendors themselves, trusting in the powers that be, have been moved to spaces set aside for them by various government agencies, with varying results.

Diners at the new Siam Square Market

Trude, who is actually researching Siam Square, showed me this market the other day, a sweaty 10-minute walk from the BACC (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre) past Jim Thompson’s House. Set under a highway bypass, there was once high hopes for this place, literally illustrated by the lines and numbers marking where each vendor was supposed to set up. Today, five food vendors (two beverage, one congee/chicken rice, one soup noodles with pork, one made-to-order) remain in an area originally meant for around 50; a generously-sized dining area has been placed in the corner.

Despite the promise of a full year rent-free, most of the vendors have moved to other markets like Klong Toey, said one of the beverage vendors, Sumet. “Since we are old, we thought we would just stay for the year and then decide what to do,” he said. Customers trickle in from time to time, and there is none of the urgency that you’d imagine you might feel from vendors who sell far less than they had expected. It’s easy-going, quiet, actually peaceful; worth bringing a book and lingering over a Thai coffee when it isn’t raining. That’s not to say that this market isn’t doomed, because it is.

The prognosis is murkier for the Saphan Phut Market, moved from its riverside location to a former parking lot next to the Boat Pier (Tha Ruea) off of Rama IV Road. That’s because it just might work. Marvel- and Star Wars-themed t-shirts, hair accessories, women’s underwear — you see these things everywhere, sure. Pad Thai, soup noodles, sweet waffles, and, oddly, plenty of yum mamuang (mango spicy salad). Even more optimistically, seafood cooked to order, ready to be folded into omelets or, yes, mixed with lime juice and chilies into yet another salad:

There are even the standard culinary aberrations one would expect to stumble upon at any Thai night bazaar, like innocent fried chicken, cruelly doused in “tom yum” , pizza or BBQ spices:

Or my personal nemesis, Thai street sushi, featuring heroic amounts of shrimp roe, imitation crabmeat and mayonnaise:

Someone ate this

That’s not all: a string of bars, music blaring loudly enough to rival that of any establishment on Khao Sarn Road, shows that market organizers have every intention of making a real go of it here, cleaving to the “Talad Rot Fai” model as best as they can. But attendance is spotty because of the rain. And the vendors are starting to fall away, after only six months of the market’s opening. If the market can hold on until the cold season of Nov-Feb, the vendors might tell a different story. But right now it feels like the backyard barbecue of your least favorite co-worker, the kind of party Ted Cruz might throw, only with booze and no soup.

Chicken soup for the tastebuds

One thing that the Great Street Food Cleanup of Thonglor/Ekamai has done (and solely for the people who eat it for fun), is basically curating that area’s vendors for us. No longer do we need to consult guides to figure out which ones inspire a following (and that’s a good thing, because a lot of those guides would be outdated by now lololallthelulz). Instead, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has kindly done the job for us. The vendors who enjoy a steady stream of customers find places nearby in front of businesses that will have them; the ones who can’t broker these types of deals move on.

Yet, even with the knowledge that these vendors are there for us, the chance of getting a plate of food from them has somehow diminished. Let me tell you how that could be: after four (FOUR) tries, I have yet to procure a khao mok gai, or Thai-Muslim-style chicken biryani, from the Thonglor vendor since the Wonderful Sidewalk Cleanup for Citizens of Thonglor/Ekamai back in April.

tl;dr. Rainy season + laziness = zero chicken biryani, like this:

The meal I should be having

Let me tell you the odds: my friend Karen can duck into a shared-ride service in New York City only to encounter a rando she once corresponded with on OKCupid six years ago, but I cannot get a plate of this stuff from this Thonglor vendor. The butt-hurt rando can complain — six years later — about how Karen blew off their date to take photographs of the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, but I cannot get a plate of this stuff from the Thonglor vendor. A movie could come out starring Emma Stone as Karen and Ryan Gosling as this rando guy where they re-encounter each other on a shared ride, only to be joined by a beleaguered government press secretary (Jonah Hill) who is on the run from a dangerous Russian mobster (Russell Crowe) charged by a mysterious entity (Nick Nolte) to recover incriminating documents that the press secretary may have stolen (call me Hollywood/ Uber/ Lyft). But, I cannot get a plate of this stuff from the Thonglor vendor.

The last time I went there was only two days ago. Not a drop of rain yet, not a weekend or a special holiday, all the stars seemed to be aligned for me. I arrived at 10am, only to be greeted by the very bottom of a large stainless steel pot, a few grains of yellow rice clinging forlornly to the side. “Sorry,” said the vendor. She advises me to come at 8 in the morning, a time when I am still mulling my life choices while drinking my second cup of coffee in my pajamas. Trying to salvage something out of my morning, I buy a spicy chicken soup to take home, top-heavy with coriander, deep-fried shallots and plenty of freshly minced chili. I then ask to take a photo of her. “Sure,” she says, resolutely avoiding the camera.

It would appear that the scarcity of street food in the area has only strengthened business for the ones who remain, which makes sense — it should hardly be a challenge to sell good, cheap food in this kind of environment. With that in mind, head to Amat Rot Dee, aka what used to be my favorite chicken biryani vendor, for your own plate of chicken rice heaven, open on Thonglor Road in front of the barber shop past Grand Tower Hotel on Monday-Friday from 8am-9am. Hurry.

Egg noodles with both BBQ and crispy pork 

We don’t hear enough good stories nowadays. It’s all about stuff like “FBI” and “Russia” and moldy old mangoes in the discount bin that have come to life and become president. It’s about bans masquerading as cleanups, and dye jobs gone bad, and “oh yeah, can you make a 10-minute presentation tomorrow, my bad lolz” and panic attacks about public speaking (alcohol or Xanax? Which would be more effective in this situation?) And of course, there is story after story after story of a vendor who had to move, who went to a new place and no longer makes the money he or she used to, or the good food that they used to. There are so many of those stories. Too many.

So it’s nice to hear a good story, about a vendor who won a loyal and devoted  following on Sukhumvit Soi 38, making buttery egg noodles (bamee) gleaming with pork fat and dreams. Thin-skinned minced pork wontons and barely blanched Chinese kale. Tangy barbecued red pork with a cracked boiled red crab claw. A clear, peppery pork broth and a scattering of deep-fried pork crackling, the best punctuation a bowl of noodles could ever hope for. This is what was lost when developers bought the area the former Sukhumvit 38 market stood on and the vendor was forced to move.

I should say vendors. They are a family of six, though the youngest, Khun Suthep with the ponytail, is the one I remember: taciturn and efficient, like a bamee robot but without the warmth. But the third son, Khun Sumet, tells me that they had all planned on retiring, until the flurry of phone calls from forlorn gourmets became so numerous that Khun Sumet finally relented: Find an appropriate vending space near his house, all the way on Chalerm Phrakiat, and they would start cooking again.

I guess I don’t need to tell you the rest of that story. Because here we are, a good 18 km from their original location, looking up at a sign that reads “The first bamee vendor from Sukhumvit Soi 38” (Sukhumvit Soi 103 in front of Suan Luang Rama 9, Chalerm Phrakiat Soi 30, 095-593-6146).

I would not be here, a good 30 minutes away on an evening of sparse Sunday traffic, if it was not for my dad, or his resourceful secretary Mine. They tracked down Khun Sumet and family at a time when I was still trying to eat the bamee that is currently on Soi 38, mistakenly believing that this was what my parents loved and attributing its blandness to my parents’ worn-out, enfeebled tastebuds. But a bowl here puts all of that to shame: as silky as remembered, with broth on the side and enough pork crackling bits to please even me. The only change is that there is no more crabmeat; at this new location, the customers cannot afford crabmeat, and don’t trust that it is fresh. Instead, the crabmeat has been replaced by generous garland of crispy deep-fried pork. The noodles, however, remain handmade.

It’s amazing that cooking of this quality is available at 40-50 baht a bowl (depending on size). Although there is little incentive or reason for street food like this to exist, pure pride makes it a possibility. This is what people mean when they say they love street food. It’s all about the discovery.