This weekend I’ve been scrambling to prepare for a dinner on Tuesday night, at which I will cook for up to 80 people. This will be the largest group I’ve ever cooked for by a factor of three, and I’m excited to take on the challenge. Oh, and an added challenge: I’m working on a budget of 80 baht (US$2.63) per head. How did I get roped into this?
Two months ago, my friend Doug, an expat American to whom I was introduced by a friend from the San Francisco Int’l Asian American Film Festival, invited me to an event called the “River Space Dinner Party and Talk”.
The dinners are inspired by Jim Haynes and his famous Paris dinners which have lasted for more than 30 years. Jim’s son, Jesper, helped launch the Bangkok dinners at the River Space a few months ago. Jim described his dinners during a piece on NPR’s All Things Considered:
Every week for the past 30 years, I’ve hosted a Sunday dinner in my home in Paris. People, including total strangers, call or e-mail to book a spot. I hold the salon in my atelier, which used to be a sculpture studio. The first 50 or 60 people who call may come, and twice that many when the weather is nice and we can overflow into the garden.
Every Sunday a different friend prepares a feast. Last week it was a philosophy student from Lisbon, and next week a dear friend from London will cook.
People from all corners of the world come to break bread together, to meet, to talk, connect and often become friends. All ages, nationalities, races, professions gather here, and since there is no organized seating, the opportunity for mingling couldn’t be better. I love the randomness.
I believe in introducing people to people.
Here in Bangkok, the dinners are held twice a month in a second floor flat on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, immediately next to the Millenium Hilton hotel. The space is used for various arts events and is mostly just a large, open space.
The space is spectacularly situated, though, just above a small market and adjacent to the local ferry pier. The reflection of the setting sun bathes the banks of the river in shades of purple and pink as residents who live on the west side of the river commute home.
The dinners are cooked by volunteers in a kitchen that is, to be generous, under-equipped. But there are plenty of hands willing to pitch in, which is the important thing. As I’m preparing to cook on Tuesday, most of my thoughts are about the strategy of how I’m going to do this in the most organized manner. What tools will I need, what equipment, what supplies?
The meal served when I attended in April. Potato salad, green salad, quiches (made at home by the head chef), and a wonderful strawberry triffle. One of the things I’ve realized is that to cook effectively in this space requires a lot of advance cooking at home.
When I say “under-equipped”, you get the idea when you watch Doug contorting himself as he tries to make garlic bread for what was about 50 people using only a tiny toaster oven. Needless to say, I was dragooned into the kitchen, willingly, and helped prepare the garlic bread.
So that’s the challenge I’m facing. Having given a lot of thought to the meal, I’ve adapted, updated, and revised my proposed menu several times. Finally, Friday night I cooked a “proof of concept” meal, to make sure the recipes worked (at a small scale) and would be on-budget.
The menu as it stands today: Mixed grains and vegetable salad with a sherry vinaigrette; stir-fried chicken marinated in green curry; and a yogurt relish with cucumbers and tomatoes. The homemade bread and hummus will not make the cut. Instead, the garlic bread and a green salad will be provided by another person. And for dessert? Saturday night I did another “proof of concept” and served homemade buttermilk shortcake with mangoes and ginger whipped cream.
Late Sunday morning, Tawn and I returned home from two weeks in the United States. While I still have a bit more to share about the trip, and will continue to blog about it in the coming days – including about some other restaurants we ate at! – I wanted to let you know that we were back in Bangkok so that you don’t get confused about what would otherwise seem to be a month-long vacation!
Here’s a short video I shot on the taxi ride in from the airport, where I discovered some helpful and slightly shocking tourist materials.
This dining experience happened nearly a month ago and I’m just now getting around to writing about it. Since returning from Hawai’i, I feel like there’s been a certain amount of delayed reality to my entries, probably due (at least in part) to a very heavy work schedule. That said, I’m trying to get caught up.
A few weeks back another Singaporean friend invited me to join him for lunch at Santawa, a classic Thai restaurant located on a soi, or alley, back behind the Bangkok Bank headquarters on Silom Road. We set a date for a holiday so the streets were very quiet as I walked in the blazing sun to the restaurant.
The restaurant itself is quite well-hidden, despite being right on the street. There is no English-language sign (and I was working from the English spelling of the name, not the Thai spelling) and even with the sign it is still sort of nondescript. In fact, I almost walked past it and Kelvin saw me and ran out to catch me before I wandered away.
Santawa has been a fixture of the Silom / Narawathiwat area for decades. Its primary lunch crowd is local housewives and the proprietress usually ran the show from a designated table near the front of the shop. Lately, it seems, her health is declined and she is no longer coming in regularly. Everything else, though, seems to continue unchanged.
Goong gra beuang – Crispy fried multilayered pancake with fresh shrimp and a sweet chili dipping sauce. Not the highlight of the meal, actually.
Tom kar gai – a coconut-milk based soup that is usually quite mild and bland. In fact, it is often used as an early food for children. As you might imagine, it is quite popular with foreigners. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the broth had a very complex flavor and it was really, really good.
Kelvin initially thought that Tawn would be joining, making four of us including his Thai friend. However, Tawn was unable to make it. When I arrived, Kelvin and and San had already ordered so we had massive quantities of food. Rice, anyone?
Yam makeua yao – Grilled eggplant served in a sour sauce with ground pork on top. This is one of those dishes that is a mainstay here in Thailand but is regrettably uncommon in Thai restaurants overseas. Soulfood Mahanakorn does a neat version of this dish that uses bacon instead of ground pork. Santawa’s original, bacon-less version was still very nice.
Panang curry with pork and heaps of basil leaves. Panang is one of my favorite types of curry and it, along with Massaman curry, is generally a more accessible type of curry for those not accustomed to Thai-style curries.
Stir fried greens with a salted fish sauce. Clean, simple, and satisfying with lots of umami. Salted and fermented fish and shrimp are common ingredients in Thai cooking, not to mention the near-ubiquitous fish sauce, which adds a certain something-somthing to the dishes that, if not added, taste a little flat.
The final dish, one I have never had before, is a duck breast, pounded, breaded and fried, served on deep-fried kale leaves with a mayonnaise like sauce. It doesn’t look as good as it tasted, so you may just have to take my word for it.
All in all, the restaurant was a pleasure, one of those bits of old Bangkok that have somehow been caught in a time warp and (thankfully) fail to keep up with the times.
Tucked behind the Nai Lert Hotel, alongside the San Saeb canal and underneath an ancient ficus tree, lies a shrine dedicated to the goddess Tubtim. Originally a spirit house, the place where the spirit of the land (who was disrupted by your building on it) would reside, the shrine evolved over time into an unintentional fertility shrine as more and more worshipers brought offerings of phalluses. Ranging from the symbolic to the highly realistic, the collection fills the area around the shrine.
While my friend David and Chor Pharn were visiting from Singapore, we stopped by for a look. Here’s a short video to give you a sense of the setting.
A healthy selection of phallus-shaped offerings left around the largest ficus tree at the shrine. The irony is, sex toys are illegal in Thailand so if you were to try to bring a legitimate dildo into the country, you would be stopped. By highly realistic phalluses for the purpose of spirit worship? That’s okay.
Some of these phalluses are quite detailed. And at least one has studs in it, perhaps representing the Folsom Street Fair community?
Normally, spirit houses have some small sculptural figures meant to represent both the spirits as well as those who are there to entertain and serve them. So many figures have been added that they are arranged on two adjacent shelves. You can see the San Saeb canal in the background.
The figures include representation of parents as well as a host of animals.
Also, there are more than 100 traditional Thai dancers to keep the spirits entertained.
And, inexplicably, a pair of male dolls. Barbie’s gay brother Eric and his lover Stephen? The women on the upper shelf are all ladies in waiting.
Who’s living in the spirit house? I spy a kitten!
This one seems to have a fungal infection. Experiencing any itching or burning sensation?
On a tangential note, I thought I’d share this picture of the jasmine garlands that are sold by local flower vendors. These are the types of garlands that Tawn and Chor Pharn were trying to make in this entry.
Here’s the third video in my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series. In this chapter, Tawn and I head out for a typical Thai breakfast in our neighborhood, Thong Lo. While Thong Lo has developed over the years in the “Beverly Hills of Thailand” it is actually still a very local neighborhood with a wide socioeconomic range, various cultures, and everything from Mercedes Benz showrooms to sidewalk vegetable stalls.
Our breakfast consists of two things: jok (congee), a Chinese style rice porridge served with ginger, green onions, a fresh egg, and white pepper; and khao gaeng, a “curry and rice” shop that serves various curries, soups, and stir-fried dishes that you pick and choose from in a “Panda Express” sort of way, but much better. One thing that was interesting is that we ordered the jok at one shop, then carried the bowl down to the khao gaeng shop, returning the bowl after we were done.
One of the nice things about knowing Chow, the author of Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, is that I get exciting offers like, “Oh, there’s this really good beef noodle vendor on Sukhumvit Soi 16 I’ve been dying to go back to. When are you free?” To paraphrase Renée Zellweger’s character in Jerry Maguire, “You had me at beef noodle.”
Sukhumvit Soi 16 is this stubby little street near the intersection of Sukhumvit and Asoke Ratchadapisek Roads. It branches off Asoke about 100 meters down from the main intersection and then forms the back exit for all of the office buildings and condominiums that line Asoke Ratchadapisek Road, overlooking the beautiful Benjakiti Park next to the Queen Sirikit Convention Center.
Lining both sides of the soi at regular intervals are these street vendor stalls, the classic types of Thai street food that hug the street and, where one exists, generally push pedestrians off the footpaths. Across from the street vendor pictured above, on an unpaved shoulder lined with a masonry wall, we found our beef noodles.
The tables were overflowing and since we had arrived about 1:00, the tail end of the lunch rush, the wizened old uncle who runs the stall told us that he was out of everything but the thin rice noodles and the stewed brisket and beef balls. We ordered one bowl apiece and one of the other people working there – a relative, no doubt – found us a spot as a table of office workers finished up the last drops of broth in their bowls.
A few minutes later our order arrived: a simple bowl of thin rice noodles swimming in deliciously rich cardamom-flavored broth, with slices of brisket, beef balls, green onions, and bean sprouts. As we were eating, the uncle came over and apologized that the brisket wasn’t as tender as normal – the meat vendor had arrived late this morning so it hadn’t stewed as long as he would have liked. We assured him it was not a problem – and it wasn’t – especially as we enjoyed the wonderful broth.
After finishing our noodles and paying – including weak tea we paid something like 28 baht (US$ 1) each. Chatting with the uncle after the lunchtime rush, he explained that he’s been in business at that location for 40 years, gaining his reputation during the Vietnam War with American servicemen who were stationed nearby.
He explained how one building just down the soi, which is now the home of a nice brunch restaurant called Kuppa, was the headquarters for the American FBI. They found this out when one day a stray soi dog was clipped by a vehicle and was lying in the street, howling in pain. After a while, an American came out of that building, pulled out a gun, and put the dog out of its misery. And that, uncle explained, is how they found out the FBI worked there. Never mind that the FBI was a domestic agency and probably wasn’t here in Thailand during the Vietnam War, it was an interesting story that provided a spicy not to the end of our lunchtime adventure.
A year ago today, mobs set fire to various parts of Bangkok in the wake of the breakup by the military of a 40-day long anti-government protest. Those events, along with a related confrontation in April 2010, resulted in the death of 92 people (13 of those deaths have been attributed to “action by government forces” and if I recall correctly, four journalists were killed including two foreigners.)
The fires, set in at least a dozen locations around the city, resulted in an estimated 24 billion baht in damage (about US$ 950 million) and destroyed several structures including shopping centers, a department store, and one of the city’s oldest cinemas.
As of today, there are more than 130 people identified as participants in the protests who remain jailed, charged but not tried for their crimes. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was unable to draw conclusions on many of the points it was asked to examine, including what role the military had in the deaths of protesters. The commission complained of the military not being forthcoming in providing requested evidence.
About a week ago, the Prime Minister dissolved Parliament and elections will be held 45 days from today. The only thing that seems certain is that, regardless of the outcome of this election, there will be further unrest from one side or another of the political spectrum. Whether the unrest is expressed in the same way is unclear. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.
In my coverage of the protests last spring, I received comments from various people passing by my blog, accusing me of being blatantly pro-government or blatantly pro-protesters. Of course, I have no horse in the proverbial race. I’m a foreigner living here over the long run, a person who loves Thailand and the Thai people and who wants them to be able to continue to develop as a country and not end up getting caught in the middle income trap.
The Central World shopping center at the Ratchaprasong intersection, where the protests had been centered.
The burnt-out remains of the Siam Theatre, one of the oldest single-screen cinemas in Bangkok. Today, the property sits empty, awaiting a redevelopment plan by its land-owners, Chulalongkorn University.
Along Rama IV Road, barricades of tires were set aflame and buildings were looted and burned.
Also along Rama IV Road near the Lumpini Boxing Stadium.
From the innocuous “men” and “women” signs on restroom doors to the urinating cartoon Calvin on the back of many a vehicle, stickers and decals play a much larger role in the life of Bangkok residents than one may realize.
Two years ago I wrote about a taxi I was in that had the following information conveyed on its passenger door window through a series of stickers: No smoking, weapons, drinking, sex, durian, dogs, or water buffaloes allowed.
But where do these stickers come from? I don’t see sticker stores in the malls nor do I see sticker aisles at the local Big C hypermart. The answer turns out to be unsurprising: like most things of universal importance in this city of nearly ten million people, the stickers can be bought from a street vendor.
Up and down the streets, waiting at filling stations and stopping by the street food stalls where taxi drivers like to congregate, the sticker vendors drive these wagons powered by modified motorcycles, the panels of decals hanging like blinders, blocking their peripheral vision.
Upon closer inspection, some of the stickers tell a lot about the people who would buy them. There’s a popular cartoon of an Issan (northeastern Thai) boy with his pants dropped, peeing. The Playboy bunny is a popular brand here, even if the magazine is not locally available. And the classic Harley Davidson logo is popular even among the drivers of Japanese brands of scooters.
As I promised, my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series is in fact becomming a series and not just a single video. Using my new wireless microphone that plugs into a Kodak Zi8, the audio quality is a bit better than the first time I shot the footage for this episode. I’ll have to keep playing around with the equipment in order to learn to master it, but hopefully each successive volume of the series will get better.
In this volume we explore one of my favorite Thai desserts, something called khanom krug. “Khanom” is the broad term used for snacks and nibbly type of desserts and “krug” refers to the half-sphere shape in which these tasty treats are made. You can loosely describe khanom krug as “rice flour and coconut milk pancakes”, although that description fails to capture what makes them so special and worth seeking out.
The interesting thing about khanom krug is how it is composed of two batters, both made with rice flour and coconut milk. One batter is a little saltier and the other is a little sweeter. The sweet batter is poured into the indentations in the pan, filling them about 2/3 of the way. Then a few seconds later the saltier batter is added. Savory fillings such as corn, taro, or free onions can be added (but just as often, are not) and then the whole thing is covered and allowed to bake and steam for several minutes.
Once the khanom are fairly firm, but still a little molten in the middle, the halves are scooped out and paired together for serving. You have to be careful of a few things when eating them: first, they will be incredibly hot and the interior will decimate your tastebuds like lava flowing through a forest. Second, don’t let the vendor put the container of them in a bag. Steam is the enemy of these khanom and they will lose their crisp exterior very quickly. Third, solve that problem by eating them right away!
I hope you enjoyed the video. A third one is being edited now and the first volume, focusing on rice noodles called guaytiaw, is here.
Well, I’m back and reasonably well recovered. Recovered enough, at least, to start sharing the story of our trip to Kaua’i. First part of the story, our flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong. This may be a bit more detailed than you are interested in, but I’m going to cross-post it as a trip report on Airliners.net. I hope you enjoy.
The alarm rang too early, but since the first leg of our four-flight trip from Bangkok to Lihue, Hawai’i departed at 6:30 am, perhaps that was inevitable. A quick shower, a double check of critical documents and must-bring items, and a few minutes to whip up some sandwiches to eat onboard later, and Tawn and I were headed downstairs for the waiting taxi.
As we walked across the condominium driveway, a small toad hopped into the bushes, startled by our approach. On the 25-minute ride to the airport, the taxi driver pandered to us, selecting English songs from his MP3 player. “YMCA” by the Village People, “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer, and “Ice, Ice, Baby” by Vanilla Ice were among the selections. “Do you really like these songs?” I asked the driver in Thai. “Of course,” he responded with all seriousness. “Don’t you?”
Air Asia’s ticket counter was its usual early morning chaos, although once we pushed through the masses of infrequent travelers, we found the online check-in queues had only a few people waiting in them. After our bags were tagged and our travel documents checked, we headed for immigration.
As of late, lots of letters to the editor of the English-language Bangkok Post newspaper have been inspired by complaints of the long queues at Suvarnabhumi Airport’s immigration counters. However, at 4:50 this morning, lines were about ten people deep and it only took a few minutes to clear immigration.
Just beyond immigration is this epic sculpture taken from Hindu mythology of “The churning of the Ocean of Milk.” More about that story here.
After a latte and some duty free browsing, we headed to our gate. The airport is laid out in the shape of a massive letter “H” and our gate was at the far end of the upper right leg. We had checked in close to the near end of the main terminal in the center of the “H”, so it was a bit of a walk.
A lonely, dimly-lit pier stretched out ahead of us as we traversed one moving sidewalk after another. The airport authority has made some attempts to warm the interior and make it more welcoming, especially in a well-publicized desire to rank as one of the top five airports in the world. This jealousy of peer airports such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Seoul should be a good motivator, but unfortunately the airport authority is run by people who either know little about airports or else pay little attention when visiting the competition. Compare the above photo with one later on from Hong Kong to see a night and day difference.
Boarding began about 6:00, an orderly affair. We had purchased “hot seats” – designated as the first five rows and the two emergency exit rows – for an extra 250 baht (about US$ 8.50) per segment, per person. This gets you priority boarding and, in the exit rows, a smidgen more leg room and a fixed (not reclinable) seat in front of you.
A look at the leg room in the exit row. About 36 inches, which is 3-5 more inches than you get in most American economy class seats. In a three-seat row, we reserved the window and aisle seats, betting correctly that few people would choose to upgrade to a middle “hot seat”, thus effectively getting us three seats for the price of two. If someone did come along with that seat, we could always offer them the window or the aisle instead so we can still sit together.
This flight was operated by Thai Air Asia, one of four subsidiary companies that together make up “Air Asia”. The fleet is completely made up of new Airbus A320 aircraft. The interior was clean and the black leather seats look sharp. Flight attendants are friendly and attentive and seem very capable.
As the sun rose over Suvarnabhumi, a final passenger count was done and the main cabin door was closed for an on-time departure.
After a quick safety demo in Thai and English, we taxied to runway 1-Left and since there was no other traffic at this early hour, we started our takeoff roll just ten minutes after scheduled departure time, climbing through the hazy skies of Central Thailand en route to Hong Kong.
Housing developments on the eastern edge of Bangkok, as seen on departure from the airport. The main part of the city is in the haze on the horizon.
Above, a two-minute video of the takeoff from Bangkok and landing in Hong Kong, if you are interested.
The captain greeted us aboard the flight, informing us we were cruising at flight level 350 – 35,000 feet above sea level – at a speed of 815 km/h (506 mph). The flight was smooth, crossing Laos, Vietnam, and the South China Sea on our way to Hong Kong.
Air Asia is a no-frills airline. Other than buying a seat on the plane, everything else from baggage to seat assignments to food has a price tag. While I get bummed when I see formerly full-service US airlines doing this, I have no qualms about Air Asia doing it because that has been the arrangement from the first day. Plus, they provide genuinely friendly and caring service, something most US carriers seem to be missing.
One arrangement they offer is the ability to pre-book your meals from a selection of more than 20 dishes such as pad thai, nasi lemak, chicken rice, and basil fried rice with chicken. Out of Bangkok the catering is done by local restaurant chain Seefah (“blue sky”). Dishes are around 100 baht, about US$3.30, and are reasonably tasty for the price.
While they announce a “no outside food” policy, I’ve found if you keep your dining on the down-low, it seems to be no problem. Before leaving home, I had used the last carefully-selected food items from the refrigerator to make two turkey and provolone cheese sandwiches, complete with homemade pesto-mayonnaise sauce. All in all, I have to admit they were a little dry, but still a tasty way to start the day.
Needing some more caffeine, I ordered two “Old Town White Coffees”, which are the three-in-one coffee, creamer, sugar mixes from the Malaysian chain Old Town Coffee. Maybe it is just all the sugar, but these are a surprisingly tasty treat.
Food and beverage service concluded, the flight attendants plied the aisle with duty free and souvenirs. I can’t imagine why people flying would want to buy some of these things, but it appears they do.
As much as I have had my qualms about Air Asia in the past, more recently I’ve come to respect them. Their once abysmal on-time performance has significantly improved. Their website, which would crash under the pressure of too much traffic, performs more reliably. And they keep their fares low and frequencies high. Kudos for that.
Interestingly, Air Asia is the official airline of the Oakland Raiders, despite Air Asia flying nowhere in North America. The Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes has explained it as something of a preemptive move, building the brand in anticipation of an eventual service to the Bay Area. Air Asia already flies to Paris and London through their Air Asia X long-haul subsidiary, so it would not be a surprise to see them begin flights to Oakland eventually.
Descent into Hong Kong seemed to begin quite quickly, less than two hours after takeoff. I’m reminded that there was a time in my life when a 2-3 hour flight seemed long. Now that I cross the Pacific several times a year, two hours passes in the blink of an eye. We touched down on runway 7-Left about twenty minutes ahead of schedule under skies as hazy as they were in Bangkok.
The north satellite concourse (with gates numbered as 501-510!), which seems to serve carriers heading to and from Mainland China. I like the design of the roof, which reminds me of a bird in flight.
We parked at gate N28, just a short walk from the main terminal. Next to us was this Qantas Boeing 747-400, which has a color scheme similar to Air Asia’s, I think.
Here is the transit check-in and duty free area just before immigration. Earlier, I wrote about how Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok fails to reach the same level as other regional airports such as Hong Kong. Compare the above picture with the fourth one from the top of this entry. While the chairs in Bangkok might be more comfortable, the whole setting here in Hong Kong looks more attractive and warmer. Maybe it is the use of – gasp! – carpeting. In either case, Hong Kong remains one of my favorite airports and sets the bar which Bangkok will have to reach.
We exited customs and immigration with minimal delay and entered the spacious and well-organized arrivals area, another distinction between Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Since we had exactly twelve hours between our arrival and the departure of our next flight, we decided to check our bags into the lockers and head into the city for lunch. An attractive atrium leads from Terminal 1 underneath the Airport Express train station and to Terminal 2, where the lockers are located. We were able to store our two large check-in bags plus a trolley bag for 80 HKD (about US$ 11) for up to 12 hours, quite a reasonable price.
Within an hour of touching down on the runway, we were boarding the Airport Express train for the 24-minute ride into the city. I’ll write about our day in Hong Kong in the next entry. Stay tuned!
christao408 