Bangkok Glutton

Specialty of the house: egg noodles with broth on the side at  Buoy

I am supposed to be a writer, but it’s been a long time since I’ve really written. I no longer tell people that I do anything for a living, and I no longer think of writing as part of my identity. If I were to tell the truth about what it is that I do, a calling which gives my life real meaning, I would say that I watch television.

I watch a lot of TV. It’s like my job that I haven’t been paid for yet, but that I still do because someday I expect a check to show up in the mail. I am as rigorous about it as doctors who check in on their patients, or accountants who do stuff with numbers. Here’s my day: I wake up and watch CNN until I absolutely cannot bear it (about 45-50 minutes), then I switch to Ellen DeGeneres. I try to catch “Veep” and/or “Silicon Valley” if I can. Maybe some “Hoarders” or “Love at First Sight”. Then I take a lunch break, and then I watch the “Sopranos”. The rest of the day is devoted to Netflix. If it’s Monday or Tuesday, I can watch American football all day long and not have to change channels. It’s a pretty full schedule.

Sometimes, I go to the gym. It’s the only thing that consistently gets me out of the house. I have not one, but two personal trainers, both of whom are named Champ. One is “Big Champ” even though he is little, while the bigger one is “Even Bigger Champ” (just kidding. He’s “Little Champ.”) Both like to give me advice on where to eat, probably because it is the only thing I like to talk about while working out.

Some of their advice is terrible. I can say this because they like to make fun of me, and I only realize they are making fun of me after I have been humiliated. Like when they tell me that the “chicken at Lumpini Park is delicious.” Now let me give you some advice: don’t go to Lumpini Park and ask people about where to get good chicken. You aren’t going to end up with chicken (see: som tum at Hualumpong Station). Just take my word for it.

But because they are Thai, some real advice slips out occasionally. For a while now, everyone has been telling me about a killer bamee egg noodle place called “Hia Buoy” (or “Uncle Pickled Plum”, named after the owner, 10/2 Soi Polo, 081-629-5231). He offers a few soup noodle dishes like yen ta fo (pink seafood noodles), but the real standout is, of course, the egg noodles with pork and tom yum seasonings, silky and full of flavor. The servings are decently big (though not so big that I can’t eat two), and when I order hang (dry), as I am wont to do, I get a little bowl of aromatic pork broth on the side, because it’s the right thing to do. There was a time when Thais expected you to eat dry rice and noodles with a side of soup, you know, because it would help the rice kernels and noodle strands go down. Now when I go to a noodle stand and order hang, vendors usually don’t give me anything on the side, and I end up feeling like when I see a playlist of “Greatest Punk Songs of All Time” that includes Green Day and Blink 182 and then I make a face like:

I will never stop using this photo

Like, why not just go whole hog and include Avril Lavigne while you’re at it? Oh, Offspring, never mind. LOL Elvis Costello.

All the same, I will probably end up downloading it, because I have no standards or pride. Also, I need something to listen to while I’m on the road in Japan. I will be there for 3 weeks, sans television! Wish me luck.

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.