Bangkok Glutton

It’s now 2025, thank God. And if you’re a chick, wiith the coming of a new year comes, of course, horoscopes. I am a Libra (Libra sun, Libra moon, Libra rising), so it’s not exactly my year. But my horoscope still says that I will be “giving hard truths, sometimes hard to hear.” So with that in mind, here is the first of what will probably become a treasure trove of flaming dumpster fire hot takes this year.

I know people are trying to be accurate when they call me “Thai-American.” I think some of them don’t even mean to insult me. But I think some people do. It is, after all, a qualifier, a reminder that, yes, she’s Thai, but she’s something else (in my villain era I will refer to myself in the third person). It’s akin to the confusion around Kamala Harris’s heritage: how could she be BOTH black and Indian? Why, she is either a. lying or simply b. not enough of both or c. all of the above.

Whatever the reasoning behind this — accuracy, confusion, whatever — I find that the ultimate suggestion is that I am not “Thai” enough. Which brings me to the question: what is truly Thai? To throw some names around for no reason, I will now turn our attention to exhibit 1 Pailin Chongchitnant of “Hot Thai Kitchen”. Pailin writes really good (seriously, I use them all the time) Thai food recipes. She also lives in Canada, but under no circumstances does anyone ever refer to her as “Thai-Canadian”. She is, simply, Thai. Or how about Chef Pim Techamuanvivit of Nahm, Nari, Kamin and Kin Khao? She, too, does not live in Thailand. But no one questions her Thai-ness, or even how on earth she has enough time to oversee all of these restaurants (this is a real question).

I have lived in Thailand, with a couple of blips in between, since 1995 and in the same house for the past 20 years (something I’m painfully aware of as I prepare to leave). Both of my parents are Thai, from families that have been here for centuries. My husband of 27 years is Thai. I have been writing exclusively about Thai food for 15 years now. But I am still “Thai-American”, my opinions considered “Westernized”, my writing on Thai food second-guessed in favor of the work of other Thai chefs or Western male writers. It’s true that I do not fit the mold. I am not pretty or graceful enough, my Thai is atrocious, and I have strong opinions about American football. But I am still Thai.

Chef Dylan — I hesitate to call him a friend because he is far too cool for me, and maybe someday he will realize it and dump me — has a similar background to mine in many ways. He grew up in Florida, in a bi-cultural family. It took him a while to find his voice. He did extensive research during COVID and studied from the likes of David Thompson and Hanuman Aspler in Chiang Mai (the Thai food equivalent of doing Marine corps boot camp). When I first met him, thanks to a dinner invite from @hungryeye (thanks Joel!), he was mining the Thai women’s magazines of the ’70s and ’80s for inspiration. He has since taken on his own culinary vision, singular and personal, but informed by an exhaustive knowledge of Thai food history. Yet people still question, “Does he make Thai food?” in a way that chefs like Pam Soontornyanakij and Ton Tassanakajohn are not subject to.

What I’m saying is, Thai food is a huge umbrella. It always has been. From when the first Portuguese traders brought chilies, coriander and peanuts to when David Thompson published the seminal “pink book” aka the “Thai Food” cookbook, Thai cuisine has taken on and incorporated input from a wide range of voices (even, occasionally, ones not worth listening to, like street food sushi). I truly believe (and will soon publish a cookbook about how) there is no fusion in Thai food. It’s been “fusion” for as long as it’s been good enough to eat.

So here are a couple of recipes that Dylan taught me while I was doing research for a story, and which are now being wasted here in my sad-ass blog. They are: a great chicken curry, made in the style of the modern-day cookshops run by the descendants of the Hainanese chefs who worked in the royal palace; and a Northern-style yum sam chi (three types of coriander salad). They pair well together but also stand up on their own. Enjoy!

“Agave”-style mild yellow chicken curry

• Add chopped medium yellow onion in wok with splash of ghee (or margarine)
• Heat wok
• Wait for aroma
• Allow edges to char a bit but keep on moderate heat so nothing burns
• Take out onion and discard
• Add 25 g yellow curry paste and 110 ml coconut cream
• Wait for it to bubble and look like a thickened doily (break the cream)
• Add 2 chicken thighs, cut up, already salted and deep-fried
• Add 60 g/person chicken stock
• Simmer
• Season with 2 g/person white sugar
• Add 8 g/person soy sauce
• Add 1 cooked sweet potato, cut into bite-sized pieces
• Add splash of Carnation milk
• For garnish: roughly chop yellow onion, season onion with fish sauce and olive oil, and add to smoking hot wok
• Allow to flame for a second before adding to chicken curry
• Serve

Yum chi (“Sam chi” salad, Northern Thai-style)

-1 bunch coriander, roots attached

-1 bunch culantro

-1 bunch Vietnamese coriander (or dill)

-Handful of torn wild betel leaves, if you have them

-5-6 shrimp deshelled, deveined, and seasoned with fish sauce and olive oil

-5 charred and skinned prik noom (or jalapeno)

-3 fresh green prik jinda (or bird’s eye chilies)

-1 Tablespoon palm sugar

-2 Tablespoons fish sauce

-2 Tablespoons lime juice

-Handful of small shallots, roasted in olive oil in an oven until soft

-1 fresh shallot

-Shrimp floss (optional)

-Handful of pork rinds (for garnish)

• Heat wok to hot as shit
• Add shrimp and allow to flame for 20 seconds (for smoky aroma), then add half a cup of water
• Set aside
• For dressing: chop 1/2 bunch coriander leaves and stems
• Pluck 1/2 bunch Vietnamese coriander (or dill) off of stems
• Slice 1 coriander root finely
• Add to mortar with pinch of ground black pepper and pound with pestle until pesto-like
• Add 3 fresh green jinda chilies and pound to incorporate
• Add 1 Tablespoon palm sugar and pound to incorporate
• Add 1 sliced, skinned prik noom (or jalapeno) and pound to incorporate
• Add pinch of shrimp floss (if you have it) and pound to incorporate
• Fish sauce to taste (about 2 Tablespoons) and taste for seasoning
• Lime juice to taste (about 2 Tablespoons) and taste for seasoning
• Set dressing aside
• For salad: pick the rest of the Vietnamese coriander leaves (or dill)
• Add torn wild betel leaves (and/or coriander leaves)
• Add torn culantro
• Thinly slice one shallot and add
• Add oven-roasted shallots
• Slice remaining prik noom and add
• Add shrimp
• Mix together with dressing
• Garnish with pork rinds as croutons
• Serve

Being a freelancer often means not getting paid on time (still waiting, Dotdash Meredith). But there are good things about it, too. Sometimes, you end up discovering a place much sooner than you would normally. This is what happened to me when an editor assigned me a story on coriander, and I made my way out of my comfort zone (that would be my house) onto the MRT to Santiphap Road to meet Chef Gabriela of Delia.

Delia is one of those rare restaurants in Bangkok where you feel like you’re in someone’s home, sort of like the vibe that Soul Food Mahanakorn used to have (RIP, Soul Food). You want to be well-mannered, because you’re a guest at someone’s house, but you also feel comfortable, because the house belongs to a friend. In fact, Delia is so successful at this that it is genuinely jarring to get a bill at the end of the evening. That said, it’s well worth it — especially for the selection of mezcal and the tetela, a tortilla wrapped around mushrooms and sauced with green mole (which utilizes all parts of the coriander plant!)

But I’m not here to talk about Delia. I’m here to talk about Homdee Mee Giew (“Fragrant Noodles and Dumplings”), an “aharn tham sung” (cooked to order) vendor just around the corner from Delia that’s open for lunch. That’s where Chef Gabi took me after our interview. Although the noodles and dumplings would be the thing to order here — it’s in the name after all — the item that seems most popular is their “moo grob” (crispy pork), which is frankly out of this world. Moo grob is a thing that is hard to be outstanding at, since it’s always delicious, but if one were to be especially persnickety, Homdee’s rendition is superior.

This moo grob features largely in many an ordered bowl of bamee, egg noodles freshly made with pork lard in a shophouse kitchen in the alleyway behind the shop. It’s even better with the addition of the shrimp-filled dumplings, encased in wafer-thin dough. Both the dumplings and noodles are seriously good, reminiscent of the glory days of Bamee Sawang when it was close to Hua Lumphong and the father of the family was a constant presence, making sure that no one was drinking beer with his food. If I was still writing about “Thailand’s Best Street Food” (I’m not), this vendor would definitely be included for the noodles and dumplings alone.

But if you’re not a noodle person, no problem. Homdee also serves excellent fried rice, the Platonic ideal as demonstrated by Chef Aoy in the Thai film “Hunger” (if you haven’t seen it, you should, just to see how hard the ideal plate of fried rice is to find in this city). You can even just have a simple plate of steamed rice crowned with the requisite crispy pork and gravy. In other words, Homdee has got you covered for lunch. I am counting the days until I get back.

Address: 460 Mittraphan Rd, Pom Prap, Pom Prap Sattru Phai, Bangkok 10100

I haven’t done a Thanksgiving post in a while. But I thought that now would be the best possible time to write one. Not because I’m so thankful, but because 2024 has really sucked for me, personally. Really, really sucked. Like, the worst year in recent memory. But I’ve been told by my shrink that times like these are good times to count one’s blessings.

So I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve been keeping a list that I remember to update only periodically, called “Good Things are Always Happening to Me”. Because I am crazy, I wouldn’t normally have titled a list that way, because I think this title jinxes me. But I’m game for doing anything my therapist thinks is a good idea. So I’ve written down things like:

• “I was able to do some hard yoga poses.”
• “I had a good lunch with my dad and he gave me some money.”
• “I saw two beautiful yellow birds today.”
• “I have a place to live.”
• and so on, and so on

I don’t know if this list is changing my life, because so far, nothing’s happening. But it does give me something to do when I’m not playing Candy Crush or watching YouTube videos.

I am sure I’m not the only person who has had a shitty year. To those of you like me, I’m going to take a well-worn page out of my blog archives and, once again, reference “A Song of Ice and Fire”. It’s easy to think that right now only the bad guys are winning and the good guys are being punished. Where we are is exactly where “A Dance with Dragons” left off, more than a decade ago, with Jon Snow bleeding out into the, uh, snow (sorry for the spoiler but come on). We will likely never truly find out what happens through George R. R. Martin, but we do know there is some sort of conclusion, and that it won’t be exactly what we expect. It will be a good conclusion, but one that we won’t recognize as good until we look back on it later and realize. It will be the “green smoothie” of good conclusions, something good for us but a chore to get down.

So with that in mind, I will look back on this shitty year, and remember only the good parts of it. A lot of that means, yes, the food.

January: Deep-fried seabass in “three flavors” sauce at Pa Yunh in Petchburi

February: Kai kata (egg in a pan) at Aim Aot in Udon Thani

March: Gang pak bung with fermented pork at my aunt’s house in Chiang Rai

April: Shrimp kua kling at Haawm On Nut

May: Nasi dakae (Thai-Muslim-style fish and rice) at Nasi Dakae di Fathoni in Pattani

June: Lamb ribs at Ōre

July: Moussaka at Al-Saray Sathorn

August: Lobster rolls and steamed clams in Maine

September: Sayo at Cooking with Mon on Koh Lanta

October: Samuian Thai-Muslim tom yum soup at Somrom Space in Samui

November: Khao poon with pork heart, lungs, liver and intestine at Khao Poon Nam Jaew in Chiang Khan

It was a good year of eating! I hope that you, too, had a good year of food, and that 2025 will be a better year (and not just in terms of food) for all of us.