Second Attempt at Mozzarella Cheesemaking

Posted on 15 May 2010 by christao408

A week ago I tried making homemade mozzarella cheese, using milk bought at the local grocery store. The results didn’t come together – literally. Analyzing it, I figured it was either due to an insufficient amount of rennet, the enzyme that helps the proteins in the milk coagulate, or else it was due to the milk being pasteurized at too high a heat. Undaunted, I wanted to try again and learn how to do this.

While I originally put more weight in theory that the pasteurization was the cause, now that I look back on what I’ve learned, I suspect the insufficient rennet was probably more likely the problem. But hindsight, as they say, is 20-20.

In the wake of my first attempt, a German-Thai friend suggested I try buying milk from Murrah Dairy, the only water buffalo dairy in Thailand. Great idea, especially considering that the original Italian mozzarella is mozzarella di bufala – buffalo milk mozzarella. So I ended up driving to their retail store and bought five litres of raw buffalo milk. The best way to address the pasteurization issue is to use unpasteurized milk, right?

Sadly, I don’t have many pictures of the second attempt. You’re welcome to watch the video and/or read the description below.

After sanitizing everything in the kitchen, I started heating the milk. One challenge I encountered was that my recipe is in imperial measurements but the dairy sold the milk in metric measurements. Being an American (even a fairy metric-savvy one) I made a few errors in calculation and initially thought I was working with two gallons of milk, when in fact I had only about one gallon. Because of this, I prepared citric acid and rennet solutions that were twice as strong as necessary.

Thankfully, I realized this before adding the solutions into the milk, and added only about half of each solution. The proteins came together much more nicely than in the first attempt, although they still didn’t have the nearly-solid, soft tofu-like consistency shown in the recipe’s pictures. I strained the curds from the whey and ended up with a pretty nice mass to work with.

My next problem came from a lack of understanding of what was meant to happen in the next step. As a learner, it is helpful for me to know not only what a particular step is but the rationale behind the step. The recipe told me to either microwave the curds and then knead them, or else to put the curds in hot water (about 170 F) and use a spoon to fold them together, then pull them out and knead them.

The problem was two-fold. First, I don’t have a microwave. There goes the easy option. Second, I was hesitant to put the curds in the water because I thought they would just dissolve. Knowing what I know now, I realize that the whole point of microwaving or putting them in the water is that the cheese begins to melt a bit, helping it form more elasticky strands that you can knead. No heat and no melting means no kneading.

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Before I figured this out, I tried placing the curds, still in the cheesecloth, above some boiling water – kind of a bain-marie. This resulted in the bottom of the curds melting into the cheesecloth, while the tops of the curds didn’t change. Finally, I figured it out and put the curds into the water and used a spoon to shape them.

Of course, I didn’t have rubber gloves, so kneading the hot cheese was a little painful! Long story short, having a microwave would have been a huge help.

In the end, I wound up with a ball of mozzarella that was a bit tough and overworked, not nearly as elastic as it should be, and it had picked up a little bit of a greyish cast, possibly from the bread board I was using to knead it on. Also, cleanup was a pain as the curds cling to everything, especially the metal utensils!

The important question is, how did it taste?

Well, after a few hours soaking in a brine/whey solution, the cheese turned out okay. I used it on a pizza in a taste test, half of the pizza covered with my cheese and half with the Murrah Dairy’s cheese. My cheese was much more rubbery and not as bright white, but it actually tasted fine, like real mozzarella cheese.

Conclusion: This is a product that is probably worth buying in the store, even if it is a bit pricey. Making it is very time and effort consuming. That said, I’m kind of curious to try another time using store-bought milk, just to confirm my new understanding that the pasteurization wasn’t the issue. I still like the idea of making my own cheese, and if I had an opportunity to apprentice with a cheese-maker, I would jump at it. But the constraints of my Bangkok condo kitchen are such that I don’t think I’ll become a regular cheese-maker.

Okay, what’s the next thing to try?

Food in BKK – Foon Talob

Posted on 13 May 2010 by christao408

Results of the second cheesemaking attempt is coming soon… thank you for your patience. In the meantime:

After returning from our trip to the US in late March, Tawn and I had a conversation about the food in Bangkok that we really miss when we are away. In my mind, this list is much shorter than the list of food from San Francisco I miss now that I live here. One of the Bangkok foods that did come to mind was the gai tod (fried chicken) and som tam (green papaya salad) served at Foon Talob (ฝุ่นตลบ) at the Chatuchak (sometimes “Jatujak”) Weekend Market.

As a special treat, Tawn agreed to serve as host for our video visit. You can watch him introducing the cuisine of Foon Talob here:

Otherwise you can read about it and see the pictures below:

Foon talob translates as “dust all over” and the idea is of a Northeastern Thai (Issan) style roadside restaurant, a place where there would be dust all over the place. The restaurant is open air but covered, adjacent to a paved walkway and rows of stalls. In the hot season it is quite warm. But even then it is quite popular, filling up by early afternoon with everyone sitting shoulder to shoulder and back to back in the tightly spaced rows of tables and stools.

Next to the open air kitchen is a little offering for the gods, a bit of food, sticky rice, and water with the ashes of incense scattered on the plate, a request for good fortune and business success that day.

I’m inclined to think that fried chicken is one of the most universal foods. So many cultures have fried chicken … even before KFC arrived! Here, freshly butchered chicken is breaded in a heavily seasoned coating and then dropped into a wok of boiling oil. The end result is crispy on the outside but tender and juicy on the inside. It is served with two sauces: The one in the back is really spicy and the one in the front is mostly sweet with only a little spice. Always, always, always, the fried chicken is eaten with a bowl of sticky (glutinous) rice.

Fried chicken just isn’t Issan fried chicken without a side dish of som tam or green papaya salad. Hundreds of green papayas are shredded each day to serve the customers.

To the green papaya is added lime, tomatoes, dried shrimp, peanuts, sugar, fish sauce, and chilies. The mixture is pounded with a mortar and pestle, making a sound that in Thai is described as “pok pok…” providing a handy synonym for som tam.

The end result is a tangy, sour, slightly salty, and often very spicy salad that is really refreshing in the hot weather.

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Another popular side dish is laab (sometimes Anglicized as “larb”). Usually made with ground pork (although you can make it with other meats) the salad has ground toasted rice grains, shallots, green onions, lime juice, fish sauce, and chili flakes fried together then served on a bed of basil and mint. Varying degrees of spice but always a very flavorful dish.

For a special treat, we ordered a grilled Northern Style pork sausage. The meat is heavily spiced and flavorful.

After lunch we headed across the walkway to a vendor serving homemade coconut ice cream. Their twist is that they serve the ice cream in half a young coconut shell with the meat from the coconut shaved out to accompany your ice cream.

You can choose from a variety of toppings: boiled water chestnuts, hearts of palm, peanuts, condensed milk, etc.

Coconut ice cream with young coconut meat, hearts of palm, and peanuts. Refreshing!

Riding the Rails to Mae Klong

Posted on 10 May 2010 by christao408

If you’ve watched the Thailand episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, then you are familiar with the Mae Klong Railway. This tiny single track line runs from the west side of Bangkok, completely detached from the rest of the State Railway network, to Mae Klong in Samut Songkhram province. Along the way the line ends on one side of the river in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province and you have to take a ferry across the river to resume your journey.

A highlight of the journey is the last few hundred meters of the line, which run right through the center of the Mae Klong wet market. Vendors scurry to pull back their trays, tables, and canopies so the train can pass through. No sooner has the train passed then the vendors slide everything back out, just like a giant zipper closing along the tracks.

The reason I took this journey, besides the fact that I’ve heard about it for several years and been curious to take it, was to evaluate its suitability for some guests who will be arriving in the coming months.

The terminus of the railway is just a short drive from the Amphawa nighttime floating market, about which I’ve written several times (here and here). The idea is that I could combine this train ride with a visit to the floating market, and then catch a bus or van back to Bangkok.

Right: Fellow traveler on the Mae Klong line.

For this adventure, I invited Bill, an American who moved here recently. He’s spent extended periods here before and I know he has a taste of adventure. In fact, he was here during the September 2006 coup and went out to shoot some great nighttime photos of the tanks. He seemed well suited for what could potentially end up as a “and how do we get home?” sort of adventure.

If you’d like to just watch the movie version of this entry, the ten-minute video is here:

Otherwise, keep reading!

The first challenge is that the train to Mae Klong departs at a tiny neighborhood station in Thonburi, on the west bank of Bangkok’s Chao Praya River instead of at the main Hualamphong Station. Thankfully, six months ago the BTS Skytrain opened an extension across the river and the current terminus station is at Wongwian Yai, just a fifteen-minute walk (or five-minute taxi ride) from the Wongwian Yai Railway Station.

You would be forgiven if you miss the station, which is located down the soi (alley) on the left with the small white sign. In the distance is a large traffic circle, in the center of which is a statue of King Taksin (not the same spelling or pronunciation as the former Prime Minister Thaksin), the only king who ruled Siam from the capital here in Thonburi. The capital was in Thonburi only 15 years before Taksin’s successor, King Rama I, moved the capital to the east bank where present-day Krungthep (Bangkok) is.

The train sitting in Wongwian Yai Station with beautiful tropical foliage at the end of the line.

Like all the terminal stations on the Mae Klong line, Wongwian Yai station is located in the midst of the market area. Rows of vendors sell all sorts of fresh goods and other vendors sell food and drink to the locals and the commuters. Despite this being a small, single-track line, it carries a lot of traffic including commuters into the city as well as both shoppers and sellers on their way to and from the market.

An hour and about eight stops later, we arrived in Mahachai, the local name for the administrative seat of Samut Sakhon province. Here, too, we found a market surrounding the station. But in this case it was starting to spill over, with vendors who had to move each hour as the trains arrive and depart.

Samut Sakhon is mostly a fishing town situated on the Tha Chin Klong River, which opens into the Gulf of Thailand. There is a large fishing fleet which brings in large catches of many different types of seafood, most prominently the local delicacy plaatoo – mackerel.

A short walk from the Mahachai train station is the main ferry pier and next to that is a prominent six- or seven-story seafood restaurant. My friend Stuart, who has done this trip twice before, suggested a stop here for lunch and since we had about three hours between trains (the trains on the second line run just four times a day versus hourly on the first line), Bill and I decided to try it.

The top several stories are air conditioned but there was a wonderful breeze so we opted to sit in one of the open-air seating areas. What beautiful weather for enjoying a fresh seafood meal. Here’s what we had – way too much food for just two people!

Typical condiments: lime, green onions, cucumber (to cool the spice), fish sauce with chili (small dish) and seafood dipping sauce which is made from tons of chilies, fish sauce, lime juice, and palm sugar, all blended together.

Deep fried omelet with crab meat. Sweet chili dipping sauce.

Stir-fried mixed vegetables.

Gaeng Som – orange soup, moderately spicy and made with tamarind paste.

Closeup of the soup, with shrimp and pieces of omelet made with a strong-flavored green that grows along the river banks. Has the same effect as asparagus.

Fried rice with salted fish and crab.

The big finale were two large grilled river prawns with some of that super-hot dipping sauce from the first picture. So fresh!

How fresh, you ask? Right out of the tank and onto the fire. Now that’s fresh!

Want to take a guess at the price of the meal? All that food (plus beer for me) was 1100 baht – about US$34. And I think about half that price went just for the prawns. Wow, what a great meal.

After the meal we headed out to find the ferry to the Ban Laem train station on the far side of the river. It turns out that the main ferry departing from the pier adjacent to the restaurant will drop you on the correct side of the river, but several blocks from the train station. The ticket attendant indicated that there was another ferry we could take, motioning behind the restaurant.

Bill and I headed around the building, past a warehouse where fish were being processed, and found this really rickety looking pier with a small ferry docked at it. We boarded and asked the few people sitting on the ferry if the ferry was going to Ban Laem Railway Station. They nodded. I tried to pay my fare and they laughed and said that they were passengers, too. A few minutes later it became clear who the captain was as he stuck his head into the engine compartment at the rear of the boat to fire up the engine. His dog, seemingly high on caffeine, was running around the boat like crazy, wrestling with the mooring line.

It took about ten minutes to slowly chug our way up the river. The west side of the river at this point is actually a bulbous isthmus, so while it took a lot of time, we weren’t really covering much ground. Looking at the map later, I think we would have been fine to take the main ferry and then just walk a few blocks to the train station, but no matter. The view was pleasant. The tide was out and any number of fishing vessels sat on the mud, their vibrant colors fading in the sun.

As we pulled up to the pier in Ban Laem, it wasn’t clear how we were going to disembark as the pier was fully out of the water. The captain nudged the bow of his boat up to the pier and we clambered off over the bow, landing on more rickety wooden decking. In this picture you can actually see one of the trains at the station, right below the temple’s roof. Talk about integrated transit – the train line ends right next to the boat pier.

The hour journey from Ban Laem up to Mae Klong was a lot less comfortable than the first segment from Bangkok. The tracks seemed less even and we were rocking and rolling. The train filled as we approached Mae Klong, so there wasn’t any room to spread out. We were getting tired and weary from the heat and the endless salt evaporation ponds made for monotonous viewing.

As we pulled into Mae Klong, we passed through what seemed to be a forest of canvas as the market vendors’ awnings were pulled back, making walls that nearly blinded us as we rolled through. From were we were sitting, we couldn’t see the vendors themselves.

Upon our arrival we had one hour before the train – the last train of they day – headed back. We did a quick walk around downtown Mae Klong, a town I’m actually pretty familiar with as it is the administrative seat of Samut Songkhram, the province in which I spent more than a year volunteering as an English teacher at a small elementary school.

We were back about twenty minutes before departure and had to fight to get some seats. Everyone wanted to be on the last train of the day, it seemed. On the way into Mae Klong, I noticed that some other tourists (Thai tourists, though) were at the back of the train taking pictures out the open rear door. A few minutes before we headed out, I decided to go to the back of the train (which had been the front of the train when we arrived) and see if I could open the door to take pictures of the market as we passed through it.

I couldn’t open the door – it seemed fixed shut – but some of the local ladies sitting at that end of the train engaged me in conversation and told me to go ahead and sit in the engineer’s compartment. Not sure if I should or not, I decided that “they told me I could” was an adequate excuse and went ahead and sat down. Carefully holding the camera out the window while looking in the rearview mirror for any obstacles that would slice off my hand, I filmed our trip out of the station and through the market.

It was amazing, watching the vendors push their trays and wares and awnings back in place not two seconds after the train had passed. As I wrote earlier, it was just like a zipper closing up over the railway tracks. Next time I take that train I’m going to figure out how to open the door so I can get a good view of it.

The ride home was anticlimactic. We had seen the landscape before and including the three-hour layover the entire journey had taken more than eight hours. My conclusion is that doing just the first half of the trip is probably plenty – take the train out to Mahachai for lunch and then take it back. Samut Songkhram province and the Amphawa floating market is best reached by car or van.

By the time we made it back to the Wongwian Yai Skytrain station, the sun had set and a beautiful early evening sky glowed above the city. Another fun and exciting adventure in Thailand.

First Attempt at Making Mozzarella Cheese

Posted on 9 May 2010 by christao408

As you may know, a lot of my choices of what to cook are dictated by my desire to try new things, to understand the characteristics of individual ingredients and the techniques used to coax the most flavor out of them. Recently, I’ve been keen to try my hand at cheesemaking.

My aunt’s sister Jan makes homemade mozzarella cheese and, assuring me that it is easy, sent me back to Thailand armed with baggies of citric acid and cheese salt (I swear, customs officer, that white powder is not what it looks like!) and some tablets of rennet.

Yesterday, I invited Ken over to help me. An American retiree, Ken has this dream of starting a goat farm up in Lampang province near Chiang Mai. He’s convinced there is an untapped market for chèvre.

Jan recommended a recipe for 30-minute mozzarella from cheesemaking.com. It is pretty straight-forward, except for the fact that I don’t have a microwave at home. They had an alternate recipe for those of us without microwaves, so I was pretty eager to give it a try. The big question mark that was facing me: could I make the cheese from the milk we have here in Thailand?

The recipe’s author insists you can use store bought pasteurized milk, so long it is not UHT (“ultra high temperature”) pasteurized, as this destroys the milk’s ability to curdle properly. But inspecting the labels of milk here in Thailand, there is no information about what type of pasteurization process is used, only that the milk is in fact pasteurized. Figuring I could afford a few dollars and an hour of time to experiment, I started with four litres (two gallons) of Foremost brand milk.

The process is pretty easy: you heat the gallon of milk combined with 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid diluted in a small amount of water. Once it gets to 90 F you add a quarter tablet of rennet which has also been diluted in some water. Thirty seconds of stirring to distribute the rennet evenly, then you cover and let the milk sit undisturbed for five minutes.

By this time, what you are supposed to have is the curd (milk solids) separating from the whey (liquid) in a pretty solid, tofu-like substance. Unfortunately, even after trying some of the suggested remedies, my curds never came together any more than runny cottage cheese.

I went ahead and scooped them out to drain, but most of them just ran through the colander. There wasn’t anything solid enough to handle.

Conclusion? Either I didn’t use enough rennet (although I did follow the recipe) or, more likely, the milk is UHT pasteurized.

Options: Try again with another brand of milk, give up, or be thankful that a smart Thai-German friend left a comment on my facebook page asking if I’d considered buying buffalo milk from Murrah Dairy, a local outfit that specialized in a breed of milking buffaloes from India.

What luck! They have a small cafe/retail outlet out near the airport, even though their farm is about a two hour drive east of the city. Tawn and I drove out there Sunday afternoon and located the shop in the midst of an old housing estate.

Murrah Cafe and Bistro: The first buffalo farm in Thailand. In Thai, it reads “The cheese restaurant that is the first and only in the country. You must stop by then you’ll know why.” Yeah, it doesn’t sound as compelling when you read it in English.

Talking with the owner’s daughter, it looks like although they don’t regularly open the farms for visitors, we could call and arrange a tour. She agreed that my problem with making the cheese was probably related to the pasteurization. As it turns out, they sell raw buffalo milk so I placed an order for 5 litres to pick up this Tuesday afternoon.

The cafe is cute but tiny. Lots of cheese and milk for sale and all of their espresso drinks are made with buffalo milk. Here’s the best thing about buffalo milk: 18% fat versus 4% for regular Jersey cow milk. Yum!

Since we were there and it was lunchtime, we ordered some food. The menu is mostly Italian and makes liberal use of buffalo milk products. (Worth noting, by the way, that their price for a container of mozzarella is 140 baht – US$4.40 – versus a minimum of 180 baht for the other locally made cow’s milk mozzarella and 250+ baht for imported. That in itself makes it almost worth the drive.)

What better way to really experience their excellent fresh mozzarella than on a caprese salad? Except for the fact that Thailand’s tomatoes are chronically anemic, it was wonderful.

Baked ziti in tomato sauce with… you guessed it – Mozzarella cheese!

And, finally, an excellent thin-crust Pizza Margherita. This was a small pizza and had a nicely charred, crisp-edged crust. Just like the real deal in Italy.

So here’s where I stand with the cheesemaking experiment: first attempt was a failure but I’m going to drive back out to Ramkamhaeng on Tuesday afternoon, but the raw buffalo milk, and then make a second attempt at the cheese. Stay tuned…

Saturday Cheesemaking

Posted on 7 May 2010 by christao408

It is Saturday morning and I just finished baking two French batards. They were supposed to be baguettes but my dough was too tight and I couldn’t stretch it out enough to make baguettes.

I think I’ll finally try making fresh mozzarella cheese today. I’ve long wanted to try this and my aunt’s sister Jan gave me some citric acid and rennet during my last visit to the US. My friend Ken, a retired American with the dream of having a small goat farm and making goat’s milk cheese up in the provinces of Thailand, will come over and give me some assistance. We’ll see if this doesn’t just ruin his dream entirely!

Stay tuned for the results…

Around Home

Posted on 6 May 2010 by christao408

Last weekend I was up early, something I like doing, and enjoyed the quiet warmth of our living room as the sunlight made interesting patterns on the table and shades. The house feels like my own special place in the mornings while Tawn is still asleep. It is still. The air is warm and humid but not yet so bad that I need to turn on the air conditioner. In a few months it will be cool enough again to open the doors and windows.

Our house reflects Tawn’s taste and vision much more than it does mine. Even so, he feels like he made numerous compromises, ending up with a space that doesn’t look like what he had in mind. It is a nice home, I think, but a little too fussy for my tastes. No wonder I’m in no rush to remodel the adjacent room that we bought – I want to avoid another clash in tastes!

For dinner one night I made a Grilled Chicken Pita Salad (although I broiled instead of grilled) from a recipe in Sunset Magazine. It was a wonderful combination. I also broiled some eggplant with a miso glaze, borrowed from one of Andy’s entries. Not keeping a close eye on the oven, I managed to overcook the eggplant a bit. They were still tasty, though.

I still subscribe to Sunset Magazine – “The magazine of Western living” – because it reminds me of Northern California, where I grew up. The lifestyle, the cuisine, the focus on the outdoors – these are things that are kind of missing in my life here. Maybe I should just accept that I’m somewhere else and adjust to the way life is here, but at the same time the lifestyle, etc. are very important parts of what I enjoy and value in my life.

Hong Kong Recommendations

Posted on 6 May 2010 by christao408

Surprisingly often, people ask me for recommendations. “Oh, a friend of mine is going to (insert name of city here). Do you have any recommendations?” Since I think the best way to explore a city is through the recommendations and experiences of people who know the city well, I spent some time this morning combining all of my entries from Hong Kong (along with a list of other favorite places that I didn’t have time to visit) into a Google Map. Many thanks to the many friends whose recommendations and suggestions ended up on this list.

Food in BKK – 4 Garçons

Posted on 3 May 2010 by christao408

Krungthep is awash in restaurants started by youngish members of high society who have a fair amount of cash, lots of ego, and little to no experience running restaurants. Heck, many of them wouldn’t even qualify as foodies. So a few weekends ago I was a bit apprehensive when trying out a new French restaurant in the Thong Lor neighborhood called 4 Garçons.

Located on Soi Thong Lor 13 in the warren of small alleys that lead to Samitivej Hospital, 4 Garçons occupies a generous space on the ground floor of the recently-opened Oakwood service apartments. The four young men referred to in the restaurant’s name are four yuppie friends (guppies, too?) who decided their interests in food and wine should be expressed through the opening of a restaurant.

It turns out that one of the partners, the one who seems to be managing the front of the house, is the friend of a friend of our dining companions for the night, Ben and Jason. And the partner who is overseeing the kitchen is a doctor that Ben knows from Brumrumgrad Hospital. As Jason observed, it is odd to see your doctor in a chef’s outfit working in the kitchen.

In talking with the manager, he explained that the doctor loves to cook as a hobby and throw dinner parties frequently, which was their point of inspiration to go into business together. Somewhere (maybe in Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential?) I recall reading that being good at hosting dinner parties is not the same as being a chef.

Nonetheless, 4 Garçons manages to effectively avoid the curse of most of these hi-so hobby restaurants: lackluster food. The food at 4 Garçons was well-prepared and tasty, if somewhat lacking in distinctiveness.

Let’s take a look:

The interior of the space isn’t its strong suit. Another of the friends – maybe he’s an architect? – did the interior design.

The space feels too open to be a nice brasserie and too cold to be a comfortable bistro. Some furniture (shelves? counters? plant stands?) could have broken up the space more effectively, avoiding the long row of tables seen in the first picture and the large open areas that feel conspicuous. Maybe this has to do with the “see and be seen” desire of Bangkok hi-so diners, for whom a more closed, intimate space would have minimized face time. Thinking of other local restaurants like Extra Virgin, though, I think the interior could be improved by breaking it up a bit. Tawn wasn’t keen on the murals, either.

It seems that an order of fries is brought out as an amuse bouche. Steak cut fries seem oddly un-French to me but they were really nice, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, not greasy at all. Maybe it is a break from the shoestrings frites one expects at a French restaurant, but it is a welcome break.

Jason, Tawn, and I ordered some appetizers to kill the hour or so before Ben was able to join us from work. We ordered this house-made pate, which was really tasty. I keep asking myself why I don’t make pate at home. The answer is probably because I don’t have a food processor. But it isn’t that difficult to make and it reminds me of my days as a young child eating Triscuit crackers and Oscar-Meyer liverwurst for lunch with my paternal grandparents.

A goat cheese tart with mixed greens was another nice appetizer. Lots of onions and very tasty.

I assume the bread was not baked at the restaurant although it was pretty good quality and it was generously provided.

And if you have bread, you need melted butter and garlic to sop up, so we had escargots. These were really tasty and are a good illustration of the principle that anything tastes wonderful if you put enough clarified butter and garlic on it!

Service is friendly and attentive, if a bit uninformed. Basic questions like “What’s the soup of the day?” required a pop into the kitchen by the order-taker to answer. It seems like the first lesson from Waitering 101 that you would know that type of information before approaching a table.

After Ben arrived we placed our orders. The menu covers all the usual suspects of French cooking without any specific regional focus or stylistic emphasis.

One interesting thing was the availability of duck confit two ways: one prepared in duck fat for 6 hours, the other for 12 (if I have my numbers right). The second one, which Tawn ordered, was saltier than normal and had a “gamey” flavor. It was quite good with a moist interior and crunchy exterior and was worth coming back for.

Ben had the beef stew, which was flavorful and very tender.

I had the lamb shoulder, which was also tender and flavorful although it had sort of a “one note” nature to it and could have used something – a few olives, maybe? – to distinguish it.

The lamb came with a side of potatoes au gratin, which were tasty but a tad undercooked.

Jason settled for the not-very-French choice of pasta with a meat sauce, which he seemed to enjoy.

Getting pretty full, we managed to find room for a little bit of dessert, just so there would be pictures to post on my blog. (The things we do for you… ha!)

Tarte au citron – lemon tart. The lemon curd was lumpy and uber-sweet without any hint of tartness that makes for a great tarte au citron. A little over-sauced, too. We couldn’t bring ourselves to finish this, one of the rare occasions when I leave a dessert unfinished.

A fresh fig tart was was a pleasant find on the menu, something you don’t see often. The figs were lovely but the base of the tart didn’t add anything to them. The amount of saucing was appropriate, though.

The best dessert was the tarte Tatin. The apple was really lovely and had this luscious caramel flavor. I’d go back just to order this dessert, despite it being lost in a sea of vanilla cream. I wonder if a few grains of coarse sea salt sprinkled on top would have added anything to it?

Upon reflection, I realize what marks a major difference between “fine dining” restaurants here versus in the US (and, I suspect, many western countries). The restaurants here seem to have little definable chef’s vision and the dishes come across pretty much as textbook examples of whatever cuisine they purport to represent. It is as if the owner lays out a bunch of recipes and hires some cooks to prepare them – which is what happens at any restaurant – but in this case it seems that the owner either doesn’t put a unique signature on the dishes or else doesn’t ensure that the cooks understand more than just the technical steps for preparing the dishes. In other words, there’s no passion behind the cooking.

For what it is worth, 4 Garçons serves up food that is well-prepared and tasty, even if the entrees do manage to arrive one at a time in Thai style instead of all at once as you would expect in a French restaurant. If any of these dishes had been served to me at a dinner party (or had I served them at my own home) they would be very impressive. Put into the context of a restaurant they are still good but fall a little shy of where they need to be in order to make a stand-out impression on diners.

For the price – about 500-700 baht (US$15-22) per entree – the food is a fair value for Bangkok fine dining. When I factor in the ambience, which isn’t the restaurant’s strength, and the quality of the food, I would say that 4 Garçons is a “worth visiting” but not a “must visit” restaurant. I’d like to make a return and see how things shake out as they get into their second month of operations, if for no other reason than to eat the tarte Tatin again!

Random Notes

Posted on 2 May 2010 by christao408

A rainy Monday morning, a holiday here in Thailand although I am going to log onto the VPN and get some work done after completing this post. Thought I would take a few minutes just to share a few notes with you. Pictures, food porn, travelogues, political intrigue, etc. will resume with the next entry.

Yesterday I did some exploring as I took the “railway to nowhere” down to Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkhram provinces. These are two local lines that are remnants of the World War II era and still provide an important transportation service for locals living in the outskirts of Bangkok. The purpose of the trip was as a proving run for some visitors I’m having in June. I shot loads of video and took a number of pictures so I’ll organize and share those in the next future.
This weekend I read an interesting essay titled Harmony and Hate: The Strange Thai Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a blog written by a Thai named Kaewmala. She writes the essay, in English, to a Thai audience, exploring how it is that a society so doused in the ideals of peace, harmony, and joining our hearts in one is able to splinter into such hateful political discourse in the current “red versus yellow” mess. I found it to be very insightful because at the heart of the problem, she argues, is an education system that discourages independent, critical thought. A note before you click through: Kaewmala’s blog is called “Thai Sex Talk” (or is it Thais Ex Talk?) – don’t worry, it isn’t about erotic services or anything, just relationships – but if you’re clicking through at work it may get caught up by your company’s monitoring software.
Sometime in the next week I need to book our tickets to the US for July. My grandparents both turn 90 this year and to celebrate we’re having a family reunion on my mother’s side of the family in July. I wasn’t originally planning on coming back to the US quite so soon – our last trip was in March – but this isn’t an event that can be missed if I can at all avoid it. Sadly, due to some extenuating circumstances I’ve chosen not to write about yet, I don’t think we’ll be able to afford to add on additional stops as we had hoped to do. I was really hoping to swing by Toronto on the return from Kansas City. Maybe next year…
Finally, I’ve received lots of good news in the past few weeks. Our friends Lalima and Aaron gave birth to their second child. Dr. Zakiah and her husband Mohamed, who welcomed me into their home during a visit to Quincy last summer, have a third grandson now as their son and daughter-in-law started a family. Our friend Andy, who served as our witness when we applied for our marriage license last summer, called from Omaha to announce his engagement to Sugi. Our friend Paul, a frequent visitor to Thailand over the years, wrote from San Francisco to announce his engagement to Hey Jung. And in perhaps most surprising news our friends Dr. Chris and Antony, a Singaporean-Australian couple who live in Hong Kong, shared with us that they will be having two children through surrogate mothers in the US of all places. I’m so glad they will have the opportunity to fulfill their dream of starting their own family.

With what seems to be nearly ceaseless bad news in the media, it is nice to pause and reflect sometimes on all the little joys – no, great joys – that surround us and those we care about.

Ginger Macadamia Cranberry White Chocolate ANZAC Biscuits

Posted on 1 May 2010 by christao408

April 25th was ANZAC Day, the annual commemoration of the important role played by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp in World War II, especially in the bloody campaign in Gallipoli, Turkey. To be perfectly honest, none of this would have been at the forefront of my consciousness, had Jacquie not sent Michael a box of ANZAC biscuits, an eggless cookie popularized by the wives and girlfriends of ANZAC soldiers. These oat cookies had a long shelf life and could withstand the rigors of being shipped halway around the world to their loved ones on the front lines.

Jacquie’s version differed from the ubiquitous one on the internet by the addition of ginger powder and toasted macadamia nuts. They looked scrumptious and since Tawn and I were going to have guests over for dinner last weekend, I decided to bake a batch. Along the way, I spontaneously decided to add some left-over white chocolate that was in the fridge as well as a handful of dried cranberries.

This is the recipe Jacquie provided with only minor modifications by me. An original recipe without nuts and ginger is located here.

Ginger Macadamia ANZAC Biscuits
1/2 c unstalted raw macadamia nuts
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t powdered ginger
1 1/2 c rolled oats
3/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 c dried shredded coconut
2 T boiling water
1 1/4 T golden syrup (or corn syrup)
1 t baking soda
4 oz butter

First step is to preheat the oven to 180 C / 375 F and, once warm, toast the nuts for a few minutes, stirring them to ensure even toasting. Remove when golden brown and aromatic and let cool in the pan. Then chop the nuts with a knife making the pieces not too large (they’ll fall too easily out of the cookie dough) but not so small that you lose the nice crunch of the nut.

Next step is to mix all the dry ingredients – except for the baking soda! – together. You may get the impression that there isn’t enough flour, but have faith that it will come together in the end.

Melt the butter on the stovetop. In a separate bowl, add the boiling water, golden syrup (which is a sugar cane based syrup – you can substitute corn syrup), and baking soda. Whisk briefly to set the soda bubbling then stir in the butter. Set aside for five minutes to allow it to cool slightly.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture, stirring throughly to combine. At this point, I decided to add a few more items: a handful of dried cranberries and about a 1/3 cup of coarsely chopped white chocolate. These were wonderful additions although by no means necessary.

You can then wrap the dough tightly and place in the refrigterator for fifteen minutes to firm it up slightly, making it easier to handle. If your kitchen is nice and cool and you aren’t having that problem, no need to refrigerate!

Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper then portion the dough onto the sheets. A heaping teaspoon full of dough should be enough, although you may want to experiment with sizes should you prefer a larger cookie. Bear in mind that these cookies will spread so don’t crowd them together. If you put the trays back into the refrigerator until baking, it will slow the spread.

Bake one sheet at a time in the oven for about 12 minutes or until golden brown, turning halfway through the baking to ensure even cooking. Cooking for a little longer will make for a crispier cookie. After taking the tray out of the oven, let the cookies rest on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. Let cool and enjoy!

As for the rest of our dinner, I prepared some nice crostini as an appetizer:

Balsamic-vinegar roasted sweet peppers on basil pesto.

Black olive and caper tapenade.

A fresh salad with feta, candied pecans, and cherry tomatoes.

A ham, black olive, and fresh mozzarella pizza.

And the real winner of the day, a white pizza with a simple white cream sauce, thinly sliced rosemary potatoes, a scattering of mozzarella cheese, and red onions. Divine!

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Monthly Archives: May 2010