Dining in Bangkok: Tonkatsu Raku Tei

Posted on 11 September 2008 by christao408

Last weekend Tawn and I took a little time to get out of the house, run some errands, and see some friends. This, despite the heavy load of work.

BK Magazine, a free English-language newspaper, published a list of what they consider to be the best five or six tonkatsu restaurants in town. Japanese make up the largest expatriate population in Thailand and we live in the heart of the Japanese section of town.

Not too surprisingly, there is some really good and affordable Japanese food to be had. In fact, every time I head back to the US, one of the things I specifically don’t want to eat (besides Thai food, natch) is Japanese food.

We decided to try one of the recommended restaurants: Tonkatsu Raku Tei, located in the basement level at the Citi Resort service apartments on Sukhumvit Soi 39.

When you walk in, it becomes very clear that Tonkatsu Raku Tei (Hey! They have the same initials as former Prime Minister Thaksin’s political party… conspiracy?) is the real deal because all the other diners are Japanese. That’s a good sign, right?

What I really wanted to try was the tried and true standard of all tonkatsu: rosukatsu, made from fillet of pork loin, with a thin layer of fat along the side, breaded in panko breadcrumbs, and lightly fried.

Served with two homemade tonkatsu sauces, an original flavor and a really good spicy one that tastes a bit like barbecue sauce but without the tomato, the tonkatsu was tender and not too oily. The pork itself was a bit bland, although moist, and served as a neutral carrier for the sauces’ flavors.

One lesson we learned – sadly, after the fact – was that the sesame seeds in the bowl on the left and meant to be ground up, using the wooden pestle on the far right of the picture that we mistook as a chopstick rest. Oh, silly us!

After lunch, we stopped by Scott and Jum’s house to see their new baby. They live in an interesting townhome development that is very Grecco-Roman in its design. Too bad I didn’t get a wider picture so you could fully appreciate the number of columns that adorned each building.

The baby, whose name I’m not sure how to spell correctly so I won’t try here, is very cute. He’s a mixture of Thai and American heritage so has blended features.

He’s so low-key. He didn’t really mind who was holding him, but apparently really hates being cooped up indoors and his fussing quiets when he is brought outside.

We drove Jum and baby over to a gathering of former United Airlines colleagues. Tawn flew with UA for a few years around the turn of the century. (That sounds old, doesn’t it?) Sadly, we just received news that as part of their further cutbacks, United will be closing their Bangkok flight attendant base for the second time since the 2001 attacks.

The colleague’s house at which the gathering was held is up near the old airport. It took a bit of driving to get to and we were confused and overshot it by a few kilometers. Along the way, we passed the remnants of the elevated rail line that was originally going to run from the center of the city up to the old airport and then on out to the Rangsit area.

The project, which was operated by a Hong Kong-based conglomerate called Hopewell Holdings, ran into problems in the late 90s and the contract was canceled by the Thai government. Due to the inability of the project to ever really gain traction, it became largely derided as the Hopeless Project. All that remains of the project are a significant number of columns running along the Don Meuang Tollway.

A sign of optimism, there were several housing estates built along the Hopewell right of way (which has a still-operating train line underneath it), including this slightly over-the-top property called Monte Carlo:

So the trip to see Tawn’s colleagues was a good use of time if for no other reason than it allowed me to get an up-close look at the Stonehenge of Thailand. Every so often, there is talk of reviving the project or using the surviving infrastructure to build the extension of the airport link (which is still another year or more away from opening) to connect both the old and new airport.

One final thing to leave you with, a very nice pizza I ate at Bacco restaurant, just at the other end of the soi from us.

I think the restaurant makes its own ricotta cheese. It was so good!

Sunday Brunch

Posted on 31 August 2008 by christao408

Earlier in this week I was in touch with Doug and we agreed that we should get together as it has been months since we last hung out. So I invited him over for brunch and extended the invitation to Ken and Roka, as this is the usual guest list for brunches with Doug.

Prep work began Saturday afternoon. There was a lot of prep work and one gets hungry, so I made an asparagus, bell pepper and onion quiche for Saturday dinner. Thanks to Brent for the idea of making the quiche in a springform pan. What a good idea and nice presentation!

Begin by blind baking the crust for about ten minutes. Then pull out the peas, bake for another 2-3 minutes to dry the interior a little bit, then add the filling and return to the oven. The finished product was beautiful and tasty.

Below, me in the kitchen. Nice view.

Straying from the more traditional brunch menus, I looked to the Mediterranean for inspiration. Our menu:

Toasted pita bread with garam masala hummus and roasted eggplant and red pepper dip
Roasted wild mushroom soup thickened with buttermilk
Mediterranean lentil salad served over a bed of red oak leaf lettuce
Sliced chicken breast poached in white wine and shallots, served with a fresh tarragon-dijon mustard sauce
Quinoa salad with ginger-lime vinaigrette
Banana bread with lemon honey whipped cream cheese

For the eggplant and red pepper dip I started by roasting eggplant until soft. I cut off the skins and cubed the meat, combining with onions, shallots and bell peppers. Some balsamic vinegar added a rich sweetness and a jammy texture and I finished with parsley and toasted pine nuts.

Starting with a variety of local mushrooms (which, ironically, are less expensive than the standard white button mushrooms), I roasted them in olive oil and garlic then blended them with chicken stock. In a second pot I sauteed aromatics (shallots, onion, celery and carrot) with fresh thyme and marsala wine, then blended with chicken stock, straining out the solids. Finally, I combined the two pots, reducing the liquid by about 25% before finishing with a little buttermilk for a rich tanginess.

For effect and convenience, I served the soup in cappuccino cups so they could be sipped by our guests. If I had a soda bottle, I would have tried something like a white truffle foam to top the soup.

Quinoa, a grain indigenous to South America, is a tasty way to get a complete non-meat protein into your diet. Cooked similarly to cous cous, I combined it with chopped yellow bell peppers and green onion, then dressed it with a vinaigrette made with lime juice, olive oil, and freshly grated ginger. It made a nice accompaniment to the chicken breasts.

The chicken breasts were marinated and then poached in a combination of white wine, olive oil and lots of shallots. After poaching they were allowed to cool for a half hour in the poaching liquid, which encourages more moisture to be retained in the meat. The chicken was sliced on the bias and then served with an easy sauce made from lots of fresh tarragon and parsley blended with dijon mustard and mayonnaise.

The salad, which could have stood on its own without the greens (although it was perfectly nice with them), was made of lentils combined with small-dice carrots, celery and fennel, along with black olives and cherry tomatoes, seasoned with a lemon vinaigrette and then sprinkled with cheese. Normally, feta would be used but in this case the local ricotta has a feta-like texture.

For dessert I made oatmeal banana bread. I also made small loaves for each guest to take home. When I went to the local street market to buy the bananas with Tawn, the vendor laughed when I said I wanted the most overripe bananas in order to make a cake. “Oh!” she said to Tawn, “Are you going to bake it?”

“No,” Tawn replied, “he bakes it himself.”

“How did he learn that? He must have a Thai wife,” replied the vendor.

The secret to this bread is that is has oatmeal in it along with plenty of freshly-chopped walnuts. It is very tasty and went well with the whipped cream cheese, to which I added fresh lemon zest and Chiang Mai sunflower honey.

Tawn handled the table setting, for once not getting too worked up over how the entire house looks. It looked fine and everyone was comfortable. Making their debut were the little placecard holders Tawn picked up in Paris: tiny chairs.

A quick picture before eating. From left to right: me, Roka, Doug, Ken and Tawn.

Another Sunday at Chris and Tawn’s…

Artificially Induced Jet Lag

Posted on 24 August 2008 by christao408

If you had asked me on Wednesday or Thursday, I would have told you that I was finally over my jet lag. My sleeping hours were back to normal, I didn’t need an unusually long afternoon siesta, and my appetite had returned.

But then somewhere in the past thirty-six hours or so, I’ve managed to re-introduce jet lag into my life.

It started Friday night, when I had hour-long conference calls with the United States scheduled for 10:00 pm, 1:00 am and 3:00 am. I should say, I had the calls scheduled for me, as I wouldn’t have voluntarily scheduled such late calls on a Friday night.

The first one I stayed up for, trying to spend a low-key hour or two before the call so I was still alert. Then I went to sleep at 11:00 for about ninety minutes, waking up in time for the 1:00 call. Second call went well but by this point I was dragging. Finally, about 2:20 I chatted with my manager on MSN messenger and, upon hearing that I was planning on staying up for another call, insisted that it would be recorded and I could review it later.

So I finally went to sleep at about 2:40 Saturday morning.

Of course, I woke up by 8:00 because I’m just not made for sleeping in. Something about the muted glow of sunlight from the curtains just turns on my internal clock. Saturday was chock full of errands including a trip to the stone store to buy new marble tiles for the bathroom shower, which has to be redone. (More on that in the future.)

The jet lag would have worked itself out had it been a single night, but Tehlin – a university classmate – her husband Chris and their two children were scheduled to arrive from Hong Kong at midnight Saturday. Of course I wanted to be there to pick them up. Arriving in a strange city late at night is tough, especially when you have two young children with you.

Because of the category nine typhoon in Hong Kong, their flight was delayed. The first delay was to a 2:00 am arrival and the second was to 4:00. Tehlin messaged me each time to keep me informed. Between the messages, I slept in fits and spurts from 11:00 until 3:00.

Tawn was a good sport and accompanied me to the airport. The good news about 4:00 am arrivals is that there isn’t any line at immigration! Tehlin and Chris were out very shortly after landing, their two very sleepy children in tow. By the time we arrived at their hotel along the river, it was 5:00.

Since we were up and since we were in the heart of the old city, Tawn suggested we go to the flower market. This is the wholesale district for flowers, which are abundant and relatively inexpensive. The market stretches for about five blocks, trickles off down side streets and is interspersed with some fresh vegetable markets. (Never sure where they put the edible blossoms: flower market or vegetable market.)

We browsed several blocks before finding three large bunches of flowers including some orchids, some carnations, and something I’ve never seen before. Tawn doesn’t even know their name in Thai. We just call them “pretty”. The total cost was less than US$15 for all the flowers.

Some pictures. Below, Tawn waits for his first bunch of flowers to be wrapped. This is in the section of the market with stores that sell arrangements to hotels, embassies and the like.

Below, an elderly lady makes garlands, used at temples and spirit houses throughout the city to pay respects to whichever local deity, teacher, or other respected figure you choose to honor. One whole section of the market has stall after stall of these yellow flowers, which I think are marigolds. (Maybe? Tawn says they are an Indian flower but doesn’t know their English name. Dok dao duang in Thai, literally “shining star”.)

One of the ladies selling orchids just piles her flowers on tables, halfway burying a telephone line junction box. If your phone doesn’t work in this district, it may be due to moisture from the flowers. Bunches of these purple orchids are about US$1 each.

It was getting close to six and we decided to get something in our stomachs before returning home. You’d be amazed the number of small restaurants and street vendors who are selling food at this hour, but when you look at the number of people who work throughout the night here in the City of Angels, maybe you wouldn’t be so surprised after all.

Adjacent to Sam Yan Market, near Chulalongkorn University on Phayathai Road just around the corner from Rama IV Road, is a forty year-old institution that serves just one thing: jok.

Also known as congee, jok (pronounced “joke”) is rice that is boiled in stock until it is thick and creamy. Some farang compare it distastefully with oatmeal, but I like oatmeal so it is no surprise that I find jok to be something of a comfort food.

Jok Sam Yan, as the restaurant is known, is popular with taxi drivers, university students, police officers, and all the other types who keep odd hours.

The open air restaurant was full and we ordered two bowls of jok muu sai kai – jok with pork and egg. The secret to their jok is the pork, which is marinated in sweet soy sauce and mixed with ground toasted rice. It is so good that you can buy it in bulk by the kilogram to take home and use in your own soups, stir fries, and dishes of spaghetti and meatballs.

Garnished with some fresh spring onion, shreds of ginger and – if you want – fried Chinese croutons, the jok is filling, warm, soothing and very tasty. A great way to end the night or start the morning, depending on how you are living your life.

In my case, I was a bit unsure which I was doing.

In other news…

So I managed to get an entry featured on Xanga’s front page. After watching Kari, Zakiah, Steve and Sandelion’s front page fame, I was enjoying life in obscurity. It is really weird to be receiving “friend” requests from totally unknown people. I’ll visit their sites first just to see what they write about and a bit about who they are.

It is also funny because I notice that of the several thousand people who have read that one entry, very few took the time to look at any of the adjacent entries. When you read a featured entry, do you ever ready anything else the author writes? Maybe I’m just strange that way, but if the entry is any good at all, I read other entries on the author’s blog because I’m curious if that entry is representative of the type of things he or she normally writes.

Anyhow, welcome to those of you who are new readers and thanks to the longer term readers for recommending the entry in the first place.

There is a Chiang Mai based coffee chain called Wawee Coffee. It is a small chain, locally owned and it serves really tasty coffee, much better and a bit more reasonably priced than the big green mermaid. Their shops are also really beautiful.

They just opened their first Khrungthep branch near the Ari BTS station, literally a sixty-second walk from the station exit, in a beautifully restored 1950s-era house.

This is going to be my new place to bring my laptop and work. Isn’t it cute?

Progress was made on using up the rest of the chicken stock. With two extra zucchini hanging around from the risotto, I decided to make zucchini and potato soup for lunch.

First I cooked the sliced zucchini in a pan with onions, shallots and garlic. Spices included tumeric, curry powder, cardamom and cumin, lending a bit of an Indian flavor.

Then I boiled the diced potatoes in the chicken stock until tender. I added the zucchini and heated them through, then brought out the Kitchen Aid immersion blender and made quick work of the soup. Two minutes later, I had a smooth soup. I added about a half-cup of buttermilk to give it a tangy edge and a little bit of creamy richness and then corrected for the flavor.

Let me just tell you, I love my immersion blender. What a quick and easy way to make a healthful meal.

Okay, just received the word from Tehlin that they are up. It is about 11:30 am Sunday morning, so they were able to get five hours or so of sleep. I’ll go get them in a bit and we’ll see some palaces and temples.

Immersing and Blending

Posted on 18 August 2008 by christao408

Now that I’m all caught up on my blog entries, you’ll be disappointed because there isn’t any fabulous jet setting about which I can write. Just normal, everyday entries. Prepare yourself for the mundane!

After discovering that the NY-style pizza place was closed, I decided to walk across the street and try Mes Amis Cafe, the “down market” location of the nearby upscale Mes Amis French restaurant. To call the cafe “down market” is a bit of a stretch: white tablecloths, attentive waiters, high prices – it is still relatively upscale.

The food was good, though. Pretty authentic (for Khrungthep) French cafe food. I had roast chicken with a side of vegetables and mashed potatoes. Looks beautiful, no?

One of the waiters seemed quite intrigued by my ability to speak Thai and he kept engaging me in conversation. Or, more accurately, he would keep thinking of additional questions to ask me, which resulted in an uncomfortable (for me) desire to be able to read my book and eat my lunch in peace. Finally, dessert arrived so I had an excuse to stop answering questions.

On my trip back to the United States, I bought a Kitchen Aid immersion blender. This is an addition to my stash of kitchen appliances that I have been considering for two years, so it wasn’t an impulse buy by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve found that using a traditional blender is not very effective for things like pesto and hummus, and is downright messy and even dangerous for blending soups.

Additionally, I’ve previously owned a food processor and found that I rarely used it because of the amount of clean-up necessary. Unless I’m chopping and slicing for a dinner for dozens of people, it is faster to do the prep work with a knife.

But I have been reading how an immersion blender makes quick work of soups, pestos, hummus, and sauces – as well as how it can be used in the pot or container the ingredients are already in. Talking with several people who use them, I realized that the immersion blender would be a very handy addition to my kitchen. As for which model, I settled on Kitchen Aid because of the very high review it was given by Cook’s Illustrated magazine, who rated it their best value.

Thankfully, Macy’s had them on sale for $20 off the regular price, so only $49.99. Oddly, they only had red and black in stock although Kitchen Aid does make a white body as well. Sadly, no yellow to match my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

Inspired by T. Susan Chang’s NPR story about chilled summer soups, I made some chicken stock and then prepared this roasted tomato and pepper soup. It was very easy to make, although I had to substitute the broiler for a grill as we don’t have a grill. This led to a less smoky flavor, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Before and after pictures, below:

Tawn isn’t a big soup person to begin with and there was a bit of cognitive dissonance as the expectation (soup=warm) and the temperature (cold) did not match. Still, he liked the flavor. I thought I could dial back the peppers a bit and find some more flavorful tomatoes. Tomatoes in Thailand aren’t as tasty as summertime tomatoes in the United States. Maybe I can enrich the soup with a little tomato paste.

Worth reading: Sonny shares a funny, true story about his trip to a Starbucks to get one of their mango-banana blended drinks, where he had to contribute the banana because the store was out of them. Link here.

Eighteen Hours in Taipei

Posted on 15 August 2008 by christao408

As my trip in Los Angeles wound to a close, I found myself increasingly under the weather. By mid-afternoon Saturday I felt some aches in my shoulder and neck and popped an ibuprofen tablet to keep down a mild fever.

Whether because of a bug I had acquired or simply running around too much and not sleeping enough along the way, I was hitting that dreaded obstacle to fun travel: being sick.

After returning from dinner in Culver City, I took a light weight sleeping pill and settled in for a good night’s rest.

Zombie much?

Sunday morning, some nine hours later, I could barely pull myself out of bed and shower. I felt like a zombie, like there was a layer of cement covering my body. Bill had agreed to join me for brunch with Gary and William in Venice Beach and I didn’t want to miss another opportunity to visit with them, so I forced myself to get up. But I was so tired that not only did I doze in the car as Bill drove to the west side, I could barely function over brunch, speaking very little, not eating much, and not taking any pictures – shocking!

Embarrassed by the awful impression I made (especially as I was just meeting Gary’s brother for the first time – “Hi, this is my friend Chris, he’s a zombie.”), but too tired at the moment to care much, I spent another couple of hours sleeping in the afternoon before catching my flight back to the Bay Area. And then I slept on the flight to the Bay Area.

Returning to Life

By the time I arrived in Oakland I was starting to feel human again – a little bit – and had dinner with Paul and Anita. We ate at Chow, a long time establishment at the corner of Church and Market Streets, that has been “around the corner” from most of the places I’ve lived in San Francisco, although not quite all of them.

I made the amazing discovery that eating some dinner, overcoming the lack of appetite I felt, actually improved things for me and I started to function more normally. After a very pleasant meal and good visiting, I returned to Anita’s to finish packing and take another two-hour nap before calling a taxi at 11 pm.

My flight from San Francisco to Taipei, which left at 1:40 am, actually was quite smooth. Originally seated in an aisle seat in the center seating section, I switched to a window seat so that a husband and wife could sit together. Normally, I don’t like to be stuck in window seats on long flights in economy class, because I can’t easily get out to stretch my legs or use the facilities. This time, however, it was fine because the lady on the aisle was about one-third my size. Teeny-tiny. Very easy to climb over even when she was asleep and everyone reclined their seat.

To top it off, I slept for about six hours of the twelve-hour flight. God bless Tylenol PM, protector saint of the jet setter.

Once again, EVA is to be commended for very good service in their “Elite” – premium economy – class. The food was tasty, portions generous, response to call buttons prompt, etc. Perhaps I should sell sponsorships? “EVA Airways is the official transpacific airline of this blog.” What could I get for that?

Loooooong Transit in Taipei

The flight arrived nearly an hour early into Taipei – about 4:45 am! This gave me about eighteen hours, a long layover I had intentionally scheduled so I would have an opportunity to explore the city. Thankfully, my friend Jay was in town and had time to meet for lunch.

Knowing that it was much too early to try to head into the city – the busses weren’t even running plus there wasn’t anything to do at that hour – I proceeded through security to the departure level and checked into the transit hotel. I love transit hotels. The ability to freshen up and even take a nap makes a long trip so much more pleasant.

I booked a room for five hours and was able to get almost four hours of sleep, although a on-and-off fever had me throwing the covers off then pulling them back on throughout the morning.

At 10:00, after showering, shaving and getting a cup of coffee from Starbucks, I retraced my route back through security (“Oh, I need to go to the transit desk, please.”) and then proceeded to immigration where I threw everyone off. It seems that there is a bank of early morning arrivals into the airport and then nothing for several hours, so immigration was literally closed. Nobody at any desk.

An officer came over to her station and waved me through, and a few other officers came over, curious where this random foreigner arrived from. Looking at my arrival information, the officer took several minutes to mentally process why, if I had been on a flight that arrived five hours ago, I was just passing through immigration now.

After explaining that I had been at the hotel, sleeping, she stamped my passport and then accidentally stamped my onwards boarding pass with the arrivals stamp. Whoops! That is meant to be stamped with the departure stamp when I leave Taiwan. So she grabbed her “void” stamp and tried to undo the damage, which would cause confusion later that day when I headed through the outbound immigration line.

Customs was equally empty, with a lady officer having to set down her breakfast and jog over to my line, only to wave me through without a second glance.

After storing my roll-aboard bag at the bag check (left hand side of the terminal as you exit), I bought my bus ticket into the city and headed on my way. Below, the view from the bus as I catch my first glimpse of Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building.

[As a side note about how one’s English degenerates after living overseas, it took me about a minute to decide how to spell “glimpse”, above. I couldn’t remember the “e” a the end and was sounding it out and spelling it different ways before I finally looked at a dictionary. Sad, sad, sad…]

Lunchtime

By the time I made it into central Taipei, a good 45-minute ride from the airport, it was nearly lunchtime. Jay met me in the lobby of the Shangri-La hotel, where I had frittered away a few minutes reading the Sunday NY Times, which I had carried for the past thirty hours and not made much progress on.

Jay’s a friend from San Francisco who moved to Taipei to start Portico Media, what originally was an animation company but now does production, distribution and a wide range of other media-related tasks.

It has been seven or eight years since we first met through the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. If I recall, Jay worked as an intern with the festival’s former director and there was some screening at the Castro Theatre in which we were both involved.

Anyhow, it is good to know nice people all around the world. Especially nice people with good taste in food! Jay took me to Yongkang Street, in the western end of the city, where we ate at the well-regarded Yong-Kang Beef Noodle Shop, left.

The neighborhood is a web of small streets mostly filled with small buildings, a very walkable neighborhood that reminded me a bit of New York’s Chinatown, but cleaner. Along the way we passed so many good-looking restaurants and I instantly regretted having but one day to give to this city.

Beef Noodles & c.

Yong-Kang Beef Noddle Shop is a compact, clean but not fancy two-story restaurant. We found room on the second floor and set about perusing the menu, which is limited to about fifteen key dishes, many of which we had the opportunity to try:

Working from the top row, across and down: Seaweed with garlic, steamed hog spareribs, cucumber with acorn jelly, the famous spicy beef noodle soup with soy sauce broth, spicy Schezhuan style pork dumplings, stacks of the hot spareribs steaming away in the downstairs kitchen.

The food was really good and I regretted that, as there were only two of us, we left some food on our plates. The beef noodle soup is made of very tender stewed meat with lots of gelatinous fat and connective tissue. Sometimes this is a little hard for me to get used to, as this is what I learned to leave on the plate when I was growing up, but you realize just how delicious it is, you realize you have to enjoy it!

Of course there was time for some dessert at Ice Monster (below), a local chain that serves various fruits, beans and jellies over shaved ice.

We shared a triple serving of fruit: mango, strawberry and kiwi topped with a scoop of mango ice cream. Oh, that was good!

Below, we get a photographer (you see him shooting two pictures above) to take a picture of us.

About Taipei

Since Jay had to go back to work, he put me in a taxi headed to the National Palace Museum on the north side of town. Along the way, I was a little surprised to see less traffic and far fewer scooters than I had expected. My vision of Taipei has been formed by the movies of just a few directors. Most notably, Tsai Ming-Liang and Edward Yang. From these films, I built the image in my mind of a Taipei that was perpetually polluted, crowded, and a teeming hornet’s nest of scooters.

While there were a lot of scooters, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. In fact, given that the city has much more land to work with, it was less crowded and less vertical than, say, Hong Kong. To top it off, there was a monsoon working its way up from Hong Kong so the winds were very strong, making for beautifully clear skies and a very pleasant afternoon, despite the 34-degree temperature.

Below, one of many dogs I saw riding on scooters. How does he not fall off?

The front of the National Palace Museum and below that, the view looking at the entry garden. The museum has one of the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world, which were moved from Beijing by the nationalists during the Chinese civil war. While controversy surrounds many aspects of the museum’s existence, much as the China-Taiwan question is a live wire that sparks many conflicts, the museum has an excellent collection that is very well presented. On a future visit I will have to give it more time, as I didn’t want to spend my entire afternoon indoors on this trip.

From the museum, I caught the bus down the hill to the nearest MRT station. The transit system in Taipei is extensive and fairly easy to navigate. There are signs and announcements in English, including “next destination” signs inside the buses. You have to watch, though, as the English flashes by pretty quickly!

The MRT system is likewise easy to use and I found may way back into the heart of the city with no difficulties. Below, my train arrives. In the main stations, there are safety gates along the edge of the track. At smaller stations, it is open.

There were two things I still wanted to do: visit the observation deck at Taipei 101 and then also take the Maokong Gondola from the Taipei Zoo station. Somewhat along the lines of the Nong Ping 360 gondola that has opened in Hong Kong, the Maokong Gondola is an extensive line, built into the MRT system, that takes you up a series of hills and mountains to a temple from which you get a good view of the larger Taipei area.

The engineering of the system is fascinating as at one point the gondola line has to drop below a large number of high-tension power lines. The view is less spectacular than, say, from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, but is still very nice.

Below: Sunset as seen from one of the gondola cars. Note that you can see Taipei 101 in the photo, which looks roughly northwest.

By the time I descended the gondola, the sun was tucking into the western horizon, ready for bed. Knowing that the airport was quite a ride away, I didn’t want to risk being delayed by going to the top of Taipei 101, which was a good thirty minutes away from the Taipei Zoo station where I picked up the gondola.

I called Jay to report my whereabouts, lest he feel responsible for having lost a visitor to the sprawling Taiwanese capital, and we agreed to meet for a quick dinner near his office. We headed out to a night market, a familiar site in Chinese cities around the world. Once again, we had some really tasty food to eat.

Above: Various meats and veggies are added to hot broth to make a satisfying soup. Below: A fresh oyster omelet is prepared for us.

Above: Our oyster omelet and zoh geng or meat noodle stew with pork sausage. Tasty, unfussy food for the market shopper.

Even though it was a Tuesday night, there were plenty of shoppers looking for bargains, below.

By this point, it was pushing 8:30 and I had an 11:05 flight. Not wanting to risk heavy traffic, we headed back to the Shangri-La Hotel and five minutes later I was on a bus to the airport. Many thanks to Jay for taking time out of his busy day to ensure I had a proper introduction to Taipei food. I’m going to pack Tawn up and head back one of these days soon to get some more.

Conclusion

The trip to the airport was smooth. I reclaimed my checked bag about thirty minutes late, but the lady didn’t charge me anything extra. Outbound immigration was a little confused why my boarding pass was stamped with an entry stamp and then subsequently voided. After a brief explanation, the officer added an exit stamp to the mess and I was on my way. Just enough time to shower and change at the transit hotel so my final flight would be made in comfort.

Eighteen hours doesn’t seem to be enough time to explore a city, but I found a lot to enjoy about Taipei and look forward to a trip back. It is much less intense than Hong Kong, a city I love, and that is a positive thing. Not everywhere needs to be so vertical and intense.

The flight back to Khrungthep was smooth and I enjoyed a long conversation with an American-born Thai from Arizona who was flying in to visit relatives and explore business opportunities. With the number of times this young man called me “sir”, I assumed he had served in the military at some point. Turns out to just be good manners on his part combined with a touch of looking middle-aged on my part.

All Day at the Aquarium of the Pacific

Posted on 14 August 2008 by christao408

Saturday was aquarium day. I coordinated meeting two sets of friends, one from the North County of San Diego and the other from Culver City. Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific seemed to be a great meeting place as it is central and appeals to children, which both sets of friends have.

Unfortunately, coordinating the timing didn’t work quite as well as it could have, so I essentially did two tours of the aquarium. That’s okay, though, as it is a surprisingly good aquarium and when seeing it through the eyes of children, you can always find something new to enjoy.

Danielle and Ian drove up from San Diego in the morning and were waiting for me outside the aquarium with their children, Piper and Devin. The last time I saw them was in July 2005, when Piper was only about a year old. (Trip report here on airliners.net that covers the First Class flight I took after that visit from LAX en route to BKK aboard Asiana) Needless to say, she has grown quite a bit in the meantime. Very well mannered, she shook my hand and said hello. Devin also was very outgoing. Right: Ian watches as Piper and Devin get up close and personal with the sea lion tank.

The most popular parts of the aquarium were the two petting tanks. One for the sharks and another for the rays. Below: Danielle, Devin, Ian and Piper at the shark petting tank. Remember, we use two fingers to pet the sharks, not our whole hands.

From the upper outdoor level of the aquarium, you get a view of the Queen Mary in the harbour. Quite a view and somewhere I should visit one of these days.

The aquarium was fascinating for me just because all of this sea life amazes me. Especially the jellyfish. How in the world do these things work? It seems impossible. Plus, they are amazing to watch. Put on some ambient music and just stare at them for hours.

A bit after lunch, Piper and Devin were starting to tire so Danielle and Ian got ready to pack them up and head home. Perfect timing, too, as the second wave of friends had arrived so there was a few minutes of introductions and chit-chat.

Below: We pose beneath a blue whale that is suspended in the aquarium lobby.

With that, I started my second round of the aquarium, this time with Lalima and Aaron and their son, also named Devin. Lilian and Samantha flew down from San Jose to join us, so it was a high school reunion.

Below: Lily, Samantha, Lalima and Aaron observe the rays at the ray petting tank. There was one very playful ray who liked to swim right along the edge and flap his wings and splash people. Such a character!

After a quicker breeze through the exhibits and a search for Nemo and Dory in the tropical fish section (we found them), we headed out for a mid-afternoon lunch at The Corner Place, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Cerritos. This, according to Samantha, is one of only two restaurants she knows of on the west coast that serve dong chi mee kuk sul, a cold rice noodle soup with a vinegar/ginger broth, garnished with green onions, julienned cucumbers and a slice of tomato, pictured below.

A refreshing summertime specialty, the restaurant is so jealous of its recipe that it won’t even sell you a to-go order of the soup. In fact, Samantha was once apprehended trying to sneak some of it away in a plastic container! They are serious about this soup.

If was enjoyable, reminding me a bit of khao chae, the jasmine-scented cold rice soup that Thais enjoy during the hot season. Not so much in the taste or flavor but just in the idea of a refreshing cool dish to eat when the weather is warm.

In additional to the soup, we enjoyed beef kalbi, the typical Korean grilled beef with garnishes, shown below.

What most amazed me was that Devin, all of two years old, was so adventurous that he would try each of the different varieties of kimchee that were on the table. Spicy? No problem. Sour? No problem. If he didn’t like a flavor, he would chew and swallow his mouthful and then politely decline any more. No spitting out his food.

It probably helps that several months ago his parents brought him to Bangladesh to visit Lalima’s extended family, so he’s been exposed to a lot of different types of food. But some of it must be personality and he’s just a very easy-going, open-minded sort of child.

Below, Lalima and I wait patiently for our food.

After a few hours of napping back at Bill and Alex’s place, I drove to Culver City to join the gang at Aaron and Lalima’s house. We had a very nice barbecue dinner sitting on the patio. The menu included grilled shrimp and pineapple with roasted squash and a tomato and avocado salad. Dessert was Lalima’s famous homemade peppermint ice cream. Delicious.

It was a bit late when dinner was finally ready – nearly ten o’clock! – but Devin was a trooper and stayed up to eat with us, conking out just as soon as he had finished eating. Below: Aaron, Samantha, Lalima, Lilian and Devin.

Poor Devin suffers from a mother and two aunties who like to take lots and lots (and lots!) of pictures. He must have the strongest cheek muscles of any child his age from all the smiling he’s asked to do.

It was a really fun Saturday in SoCal and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see this friends.

Trip to the land of honey part 2

Posted on 29 May 2008 by christao408

After some political interruptions, let’s return to the second part of my trip to the land of honey – the literal translation of Bangnamphung, the location of the nearby weekend floating market.

The floating market isn’t really a “floating” market. Instead, it is a weekend market built alongside the khlong (canal) that may have at one point years ago had some vendors in boats but which eventually was developed by well-meaning local officials into a destination for local tourists.

It is still a fun place to visit, but isn’t the quaint local market that you might envision. Still, there aren’t too many foreigners there. I did see one other but I pushed him into the water so there wouldn’t be any competition.

Some areas of the market sell crafts and products, others sell fresh fruits and vegetables, but most of the market space is dedicated to prepared foods. This is because, as any Thai will tell you, there is absolutely nothing more fun to do than eat! Eat in a group and you’re in an even higher plane of heaven.

Below, Khun Tawn borrows my straw hat as he prepares to chow down.

Here’s a guide to our culinary explorations. First, we enjoyed that tasty snack that thrills your tongue, pak pbed. Literally translated, “duck mouth” or grilled duck beak. Let’s get a closeup of that beauty:

Here’s one of several vendors grilling the delicacy, proof that you can eat pretty much every last part of a duck except the quack.

And did Paul try one? Despite the pose, I wouldn’t count on it! Aori, however, thinks they are the best thing in the world, or pretty darn close to it. They taste smoky and the beak is edible albeit crunchy. The tongue (still intact) is supposed to be the best part. As my paternal grandmother used to say, to each his own.

Moving on to other delights, we have hoy tod or fried mussels. Normally fried in a batch with scrambled eggs, this vendor did a little play on tradition by frying an individual mussel in a half-moon shaped khanom khrug pan with a little egg to make versions of the original dish. Tawn didn’t feel like it was an improvement.

We also had some khao klug gapii, friend rice with shrimp paste served with a variety of condiments including lime, cucumbers, shallots, green beans, chili, scrambled eggs, green mango, dried shirmp, and sweet and sour pork sauce.

Turning to some more traditional Thai foods, here is som tam, the ubiquitous green papaya salad that is crunchy, sweet, vinegary, salty and spicy all at once. A fixture of northeastern Thailand, it has been adopted by Bangkokians as a de facto official dish in part because so many people who live in the Big Mango are from the northeast of Thailand.

Something you can find in nearly every culture, fried chicken wings. I don’t know what they use to season them, but these were incredible.

Our little culinary tour included some flavors of Muslim Thai food, predominately from the south of the Kingdom but brought into the local culinary lexicon by the many small pockets of Muslims who live in and around Khrungthep. Here is gai satay, chicken skewers served with a peanut sauce. The onions and cucumbers, pickled in rice wine vinegar, provide a clean contrast to the sweet richness of the dipping sauce.

Below, the satay vendor prepares an endless supply of satay served with toasted white bread. Note the way the fans are rigged to blow the smoke and smell away from the tables but towards potential customers.

The tables were tightly nested together and this young man behind us almost had to climb over us to get out to buy some ice cream.

This homemade ice cream is made from fresh young coconuts that are locally grown with the scoops served in pieces of the shell that still have shreds of the coconut flesh attached.

Chatting with his family, they encouraged him to try speaking whatever English he has learned in school, but I couldn’t get so much as a “hello” out of him.

Below: Yes, there is actually something floating at the floating market. Here a vendor grills khao niyaw ping, literally “grilled sticky rice” wrapped in a banana leaf and filled either with baked taro root or baked banana.

Actually, the guy doing the grilling is the husband of one of the ladies sitting at the stall onshore and conducting transactions. How he got stuck in the boat, I don’t know, but at least he was in the shade and there was a little breeze along the water.

One final food item was kai nokgrata nam siiyuu, grilled quail eggs (they are boiled first otherwise they would take forever to cook on the grill) served with soy sauce.

After eating our fill and far beyond it, we wandered around the market to see what else was interesting. We saw these seed pods called teen bet naam, which look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Here I am standing on one of the concrete pathways built above the marshy ground.

The market also included a park area with public karaoke. Anyone was invited to sing and, judging from Tawn’s reaction below, greater discretion should be used before people go on stage and inflict their voices on others.

Despite the lush local atmosphere, the latest security systems are installed to help the police keep an eye on all corners of the market.

Walking back along the khlong to the main road where we would catch motorbikes back to the pier, we saw a group of local children playing in the water and diving from the bridge and the water pipe. Once I started taking pictures and they saw they had an audience, all sorts of derringdo ensued.

On the ferry ride back across the Chao Phraya River, I took these shots of two youngsters:

Lovely helmet, huh? I can’t imagine what good it would do him on the back of a motorcycle but it is the thought that counts, right? Whoops! That was very “naive farang” of me. I should let Thailand be Thai.

That concludes our trip to the land of honey. And, I’ll have you know, I did return home with two bottles of unpasteurized local honey to add to my morning oatmeal.

A braise in Bangkok

Posted on 25 May 2008 by christao408

With all this cloudy, overcast weather as of late – providing a wintry look, if not wintry temperatures – I’ve been in the mood for something braised. A nice chunk of meat, slowly cooked in a pool of simmering liquid until it is just falling off the bone… mmmm, that’s good eating!

Tawn doesn’t eat a lot of meat, so I had to provide plenty of advance notice about our dinner. Thankfully, he was willing to try so long as I also made mashed potatoes.

The recipe was a fairly simple one, adapted from the Junior League of San Francisco’s cookbook. Lamb shanks, aromatics, potatoes, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, and red wine. I was supposed to include parsnips and pearl onions, neither of which I could find at the market.

I started by seasoning the shanks, dredging them in flour, then browning them in an oven-proof pot. This is supposed to be a Dutch oven ideally, but I haven’t one of those. Maybe Santa will bring me one…

After browning, you remove the shanks and cook the aromatics (carrots, celery, onions and in my case, Japanese spring onions and garlic) until they are lightly browned. Add the tomato paste and cook for a minute or so, then add the chopped tomatoes and red wine. Stir well and then add the potatoes.

Partially cover it and then put it into a medium-low oven for three hours or more, turning the shanks occasionally, until the meat is super-tender and loose from the bone. From that point, cook about one more hour so that the connective tissue is fully dissolved.

From there, remove and reserve part of the sauce, and allow the remainder of the ingredients to cool. They can be refrigerated overnight to allow the flavors to develop further. When you are ready to eat, reheat the food in the oven for about an hour or until warmed through.

On the stove, you’ll strain and reduce the liquid until it has made a nice sauce. I added some additional wine and a little beef stock to round out the flavor. I probably should have added the stock to the original dish, but those are lessons learned for next time. Below: the first time I’ve used all four burners!

Finally, after all that work you will have your finished product. Serve it with whatever other dishes you like. In my case, buttermilk horseradish mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus with lemon-olive oil dressing.

The meat turned out delicious and flavorful, although I hadn’t cooked it quite as long as I mentioned above so some of the connective tissues were still connecting. Not a problem, just a little more work with the fork and knife. Still, a very nice attempt at a wintry dinner.

The next day, though, skies were clear and summery again!

Ootoya: oishi des ne?

Posted on 29 April 2008 by christao408

I love Thai food and one of the great things about living in Thailand is – no surprise here – there is no shortage of great, inexpensive Thai food.

If Khrungthep is the Mt. Olympus of Thailand then Thai food is our ambrosia and, ignoring the obvious question of who the gods and goddesses are, blended fresh watermelon juice must be our nectar.

Even with that plethora of good Thai food, from time to time I still want to eat something else. Just as when I lived in San Francisco I didn’t eat American food all the time so, too, here in Thailand I like to travel around visiting the different huts in the global culinary village.

One of my favorite huts to stop by is the one run by Ootoya, a Japanese chain that specializes in teishoku, or set meals, comprised of a protein, bowl of rice, miso soup, and a plate of pickles. Ootoya doesn’t do sushi and is largely about grilled items. The food is fresh, portions generous but not overwhelming, and the ingredients healthy. Below: Examples of Ootoya’s teishoku, grilled hamburger with onion sauce on the left and grilled saba (mackerel) on the right.

There are plenty of locations throughout the city, especially in the mid-Sukhumvit area where there are a lot of Japanese expats.

One other nice thing is that Ootoya updates its menu regularly. There are a lot of “spring specials” on the menu, even though the seasons here don’t quite correspond with the seasons in Japan. It is just nice that we get to see a wide variety of dishes. One of their winter specials was baked then grilled slices of daikon radish served with a fermented red bean sauce. So tasty! Very simple combination but tremendously satisfying.

For spring we have fresh steamed vegetables, served in a steaming basket and sterno stove at your table. Unfortunately, it takes practically the whole meal for the veggies to get tender! Short video segment below.

In other news, we had a brief visit from our friend Tomas recently, right. Tomas and his partner Jose moved a few years ago from Houston to London and after a short return to the United States are back in London.

Tomas was here at a conference and fortunately could make the time to meet for dinner at Curries and More followed by some drinks at the top of the Banyan Tree Hotel.

Don’t think that Tawn and I aren’t interesting in accepting their invitation to stay with them on our next visit to London. Prices being what they are in the British Isles and the dollar’s value being what it is, we’ll certainly take the offer of lodging especially when it comes with a generous serving of Tomas and Jose’s warm hospitality!

christao408

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

Tag Archives: cuisine