Bangkok Glutton

Grilled chicken at Gong Thui Gai Yang Bang Than

My friend Noy brought my attention to an interview with Andy Ricker in Eater Los Angeles published earlier this month. It was thoughtful and interesting, and because it was mostly in Q&A format, wonderfully straightforward, allowing a glimpse not just into the U.S. Thai food scene, but into the restaurant business in general. It’s hard, y’all. Unless you are wildly lucky, it seems a lot like being on a restrictive diet for the rest of your life, only your body keeps trying to find ways to trick you into stuffing your mouth hole with more delicious fat. People who open successful restaurants over and over again aren’t flukes. As much as I like to eat and then complain about it afterwards, nothing I could ever do would match up to maintaining even one food outlet.

And even if your family has managed to successfully steer your street food eatery for nearly six decades, you may still find yourself facing an uncertain future. Gong Thui Gai Yang (Chula Soi 11, 086-166-2084) has served millions of Thais its delectably juicy grilled chicken for three generations, even sending over 3,000 boxes to the royal palace almost every month. The marinade is the usual Thai-style: crushed coriander root, garlic, two types of peppercorn, fish sauce and palm sugar, but the secret lies in the amounts — Gong Thui isn’t stingy, and they go through 60 kg of garlic a week (i.e. my weight, post-election). The chicken meat — split thighs, breasts, gizzards, livers, and best of all, butterflied chicken halves — is tied into bamboo “skewers”, placed over a low open flame and then fanned continuously for about 15 minutes until the meat is juicy and tender and the skin takes on the smoky scent of peppery barbecue. The finished product is intensely flavored and reminiscent of a chicken custard, absent the kind of tough fibers that find their way between your teeth and torment you while in polite company.

That’s not to mention the ubiquitous grilled papaya salad (som tum), pounded to order. Oh, and they also have grilled pork shoulder, cooked to a mahogany sheen in a soy sauce-based marinade. I haven’t gotten to that yet, but I’m sure it’s good, if the lines on weekend mornings are any indication.

Gong Thui’s fresh som tum

Unfortunately, like its neighbor Nakorn Pochana (and, incredibly, Joke Samyan, which, alongside Polo Fried Chicken and Chicken Rice Pratunam, is probably the most famous street food vendor in Bangkok), Gong Thui may find itself kicked out of its digs in three years’ time, as landlord Chulalongkorn University develops the area further. Progress is a fact of life, yet I have to say it saddens me, since much of this neighborhood’s street food scene has already been decimated over the past two years alone. Rush, rush to Samyan while you can.

And while you’re at it, stop by Raan Aharn Nuea Pa Porn (Chula Soi 50), where — wonder of wonders — she serves khao soy (curried Northern Thai noodles) with beef or chicken and kanom jeen nam ngiew (fermented rice noodles with Northern-style pork stew), along with a rotating roster of daily specials including sai oua (Northern Thai sausage, available Mondays), gang hang lay (Burmese pork belly curry) and the ever-elusive thum kanoon (pounded young jackfruit salad, both served on Tuesdays).

Pa Porn’s khao soy and kanom jeen with garnishes

Full o’ pork noodles at Guaythiew Moo Jay Pui

Excuse me if I don’t make a lot of sense today. America broke up with me this week, and I’m only now beginning to make sense of it.

They talk about the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), but I am unsure of where I stand. Mostly I just feel numb. I feel like I should have known better. There had been so many signs. There were all the times you questioned my English, or tried to explain to me my own culture. Or the time you came over to my house for dinner and asked if we were eating dog. The couple of times you mistook me for Lisa Ling, or automatically assumed I could fix your computer. And so many times you told me I was overreacting to jokes you had made or things you had done, that I was too emotional, being too touchy. I needed more things to do, you said. Was it that time of the month? After all, America doesn’t see color, and everyone knows America believes in women’s equality, everyone says so.

I should have seen it coming. You told me yourself, that no one understood what you were doing with me in the first place, that you could do better. You made sure I knew that. You said I was cute, and “pretty in my own way”, but there was no way I could ever be a 10. Oh sorry, you said it would be “very hard” for me to be a 10.  There I go again, misrepresenting you, but what do you expect? My English will never be as good as yours, and going out with me in public always embarrassed you a little bit. “Why her?” your friends would ask, and you would shrug and tell them that it was a good year for small town girls. You thought I was lucky, for a while. But it’s time to go back to the Courtneys of the world. Doubtless you think I’m overreacting now, at this very moment. SAD! You should have known better, too.

When you are dumped, you want to eat the whole world. I am saying this, just a few hours after having inhaled 3 pieces of broccoli-and-sausage pizza and some pillow-soft pappardelle in duck ragu. Also, I an gluten- and dairy-intolerant, so my stomach will feel like exploding any minute now. But I feel like it will be worth it. I have been eating and drinking so much lately, never feeling full, always so ravenous. Maybe a case of indigestion is a good thing, when you are hell-bent on eating your feelings.

But if your stomach is always empty and your face always in need of stuffing into a silent mask of despair, a great big bowl of noodles is probably a better bet, in the long run. So if you find yourself at Guaythiew Moo Jay Pui, also known as “Moo Deng”, on Prachatipatai Road in Banglamphu, and you feel like there is a bottomless hole in your gut that you cannot fill, well, this bowl could go a ways towards helping a little bit. Sweet pork broth, two different types of meatballs (one smooth and bouncy, the other sweet), a heaping helping of rice noodles and a generous shower of deep-fried shallots and fresh coriander? You can’t always get what you want … but a bowl of pork noodles does go a long way.

(Photo by @seenyc)

I used to be afraid of watching horror movies. I remember watching “Aliens” (not even the scary Ridley Scott original, but the James Cameron action flick) and having to sleep on the floor of my parents’ room for three nights straight (this was in 1986, and I was 14 years old). At slumber parties, I would cower in the kitchen at crucial parts of “The Exorcist” or “Halloween”. Now, I don’t know whether it’s my advanced age, or my own cray brain, but I love horror movies. I prefer the slasher and home invasion genres to supernatural or demonic possession, simply because they are usually scarier and nothing is worse than a scary movie that isn’t scary. As I write this, I am watching “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (the remake, because I can’t get the Tobe Hooper original). It helps me concentrate. That said, I won’t go anywhere near the zombie genre or French horror, because that is *still* straight-up terrifying, even in my deadened state.

There are foodie versions of horror movies too. They are the restaurants you go to, lured by a glowing review that grabs at you like the promise of an idyllic summer camp experience (“Friday the 13th”) or a whirlwind marriage to Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriend (“Crimson Peak”), thereby forcing you into the dodgy situation in which you currently find yourself. There, like Morgan Freeman opening up that box in “Se7en”, you are confronted by the very worst of what you could expect to find in a restaurant — food that is contrary to everything that drew you there in the first place (the horror!!)

Under these circumstances, it would make sense to head for what is known and proven, culinary security. And in Thai cooking, there are few choices that are safer than the Southern Thai dish of kanom jeen (Mon-style fermented rice noodle) in Phuket. A bowl of this is the Thai equivalent of the slam dunk: rice noodles slathered with nam ya (fish curry, thickened with coconut milk, heady with grachai or wild ginger) and accompanied by a battery of fresh, blanched and pickled vegetables.

Kanom jeen nam ya at Kanom Jeen Ji Liew in Phuket

(Photo by @seenyc)

Kanom jeen is ubiquitous on the island, and the dish’s identity — like khao soi in Chiang Man — is inextricably linked with its home. Because of that, it seems churlish to single out one of the many fermented rice noodle places that dot the island, but I’m going to do it anyway. Kanom Jeen Ji Liew Phuket (Thep Kasattri, Thalang District, Phuket 83110, 081-256-9615) has the culinary chops to back up that impressive-looking sign:

(Photo by @jiminspace)

But perhaps the best reason to visit this place is not even in the name … or even in any photos, for that matter, because it was devoured immediately before anyone could take any photos of it. I’m writing of the fried chicken, crispy nuggets of drool-inducing savor hiding tender morsels of flesh that actually  melt in your mouth, for real. So OK, I love fried chicken anywhere (I just had some fabulous stuff in Malaysia, for instance), but this really was good, I’m not joking, I’m not playing you like Pazuzu in “The Exorcist”.

Pickled garlic, one of the many accompaniments to southern kanom jeen

(Photo by @jiminspace)

Bottom line: you can’t lose with kanom jeen when you are down south, especially in Phuket. Don’t take this advice lightly. The sure thing may be just what you need to get you through any crisis, especially at a time when every day brings threats of more horror stories just around the corner.