Food in Bangkok: Karmakamet Diner

Posted on 9 March 2014 by christao408

Hot new “must try” restaurants in Bangkok are like dandelions: they pop up frequently but don’t last long. One recent flowery addition to the local dining scene, Karmakamet Diner, stands a chance at staying around, at least if their brunch is any indication.

Karmakamet is a local brand specializing in high-quality and beautifully packaged perfumes, aromatics, and candles. They started with a small shop at Chatuchak Market and grew slowly. Eventually, a small tea shop opened at Central World Plaza and then not that long ago a cafe opened in Silom.

In the last few months, they have opened their first full-blown restaurant in a stylish converted warehouse tucked just behind Emporium’s second car park structure. The building resembles a greenhouse-cum-factory with views of the pretty garden through windows glazed to keep the sunlight from being unbearable.

The interior space is richly designed with lots of vintage-looking details. Most of the dandelion restaurants in Bangkok also feature fetching interiors, but Karmakamet Diner seems to have been more thoughtfully designed than most. It really is a pleasant space with interesting things to notice whichever direction you look.

Of course, my primary concern in any restaurant is the food. While I haven’t been there for dinner yet, I have had weekend brunch there three times over the past six weeks. Each time the food quality was consistent, the presentation attractive, and while the dishes are relatively pricey, I find them a fair value given the quality, portion size, and beautiful setting. Let’s take a look at what I tried – rest assured I dined with other people and didn’t eat all of this food myself!

Home made granola with fresh fruits and yogurt. Tasty, although it is granola so I’m not sure that I can expect anything amazing.

The crab-avocado sandwich has a spicy truffle mayonnaise, rocket, hard boiled egg, and tomato confit. This was a tasty sandwich although the use of plain thick-cut white bread was a bit of a letdown. Something whole grain would have been nicer.

Panini with roasted vegetables, melted cheese, pesto, and a ridiculously tasty portion of ratatouille. A pretty simple dish but well-executed. The choice of bread was very good.

The croque madame was one of the highlights. Layered buttered toast with Gruyere cheese, ham, bacon, and sous-vide egg, topped with melted Mozzarella. It is every bit as rich and decadent as it sounds. Perhaps not for the high of cholesterol!

A pasta dish featuring capellini with cod roe and garlic. This was a nice dish, pleasantly salty from the roe. There was also a very spicy crab pasta (not pictured) that was enjoyable and, true to its promise, very spicy.

Penne with N’Duja, an Italian spicy sausage that seems to be quite the favored ingredient here in Bangkok these days, along with Burrata cheese. The sauce was really tasty, though, and the pasta was properly cooked.

Eggs Benedict – available with either ham or smoked salmon, or with salmon patties as a substitute for the English muffins. I tried the ham and the salmon patty versions and enjoyed both. The eggs were perfectly cooked with firm whites and liquid yolks. The Hollandaise sauce is smooth and velvety although just a bit more tart than I like. There is a careful balance to achieve with the acidity, maybe a matter of preference more than anything else.

The “full breakfast” features just about everything you would consider to be a breakfast food, plus a bit of mixed greens salad. It is a huge portion and makes you glad that food is generally served family style here in Thailand. As a side note, food at Karmakamet Diner did come out family style in a hodge-potch manner. Diners ordering individual plates be forewarned!

The so-called “can’t resist pancake” – the pancake is buried under duck confit, sautéed potatoes, crisp bacon, and sour cream served with a side of maple syrup. My first reaction (before taking a bite) was “what the heck is this mess?” After I tried it, all was forgiven. The pancake is really just there to absorb all the tasty flavors from the bacon, duck, and syrup.

For dessert, we shared a massive slice of French toast surrounded with fresh fruits and topped with an orange sauce and maple syrup. Shared among four or six people, it is just the right amount of sweet with which to conclude the meal.

Service was generally attentive and responsive. One thing that I greatly appreciate is that the kitchen properly warms the plates before putting food on them. Especially for dishes like Eggs Benedict, a cool or even room-temperature plate will cause the sauce to quickly form an unappealing skin. The plates were warm, almost hot, to the touch. Bonus points for attention to that detail.

Without having tried the dinner menu, I’m not yet sure if Karmakamet Diner is just another pretty dandelion restaurant, soon to fade with the changing trends. But if brunch is any indication, I think they may blossom into something much more lasting and substantial.

Food in San Francisco – From Fried Chicken to Salt and Pepper Ice Cream

Posted on 30 March 2013 by christao408

There was a fair amount of eating while we were in San Francisco, much of it good. Here are a trio of spots we visited.

Little Skillet

While still in Bangkok, Tawn and I had developed a hankering for fried chicken. Despite the preponderance of grilled chicken, there is very little fried chicken in Thailand outside of KFC (which isn’t that bad, actually). Doing some research, I stumbled across an entry on public television and radio channel KQED’s food blog about the best fried chicken in the Bay Area and planned on visiting Little Skillet.

This “restaurant” is just a walk-up window in an alley not far from the Caltrain station and AT&T Park. An offshoot of the “neo-soulfood” farmerbrown restaurant, Little Skillet is open only for extended lunchtime hours and keeps a short and simple menu. Fried chicken features prominently. You order at the window and wait for your name to be called. Eating options include sitting on the loading dock of a warehouse across the street or, if you buy some of their coffee, the java joint next door lets you use their tables.

The biscuits are tasty and buttery, although more crumbly and less flaky than the ones I make. Still, they were pretty good.

Tawn, who prefers his chicken drier than I do, opted for the fried chicken po’boy sandwich. Made with chicken breast, he exclaimed that it was the best fried chicken he had ever had.

Aiming to evaluate Little Skillet by its ability with the classics, I ordered a two-piece fried chicken with waffles. Tawn’s exclamation was well-placed: this was amazing fried chicken. The meat was flavorful and extremely well-seasoned. The coating was crispy and adhered well to the skin. The homemade honey jalapeño hot sauce is a perfect foil for the juicy, crispy, deep-fried goodness of the chicken. While I’ve never understood the combination with chicken, the waffles were light with just the right amount of crispiness.

Little Skillet is on the must return to list!

Wise Sons Delicatessen

Speaking of the must return to list, we made a return visit to Wise Sons Deli, located on 24th Street just east of South Van Ness Avenue.

After our first visit last June to this relatively new entrant to the San Francisco deli scene, we were eager to return. Exiled New Yorkers have long bemoaned the lack of good deli food in San Francisco but that has recently started to change, not least of all by the entry of Wise Sons’ proprietors Evan Bloom and Leo Beckerman. Their meats are cured in-house and the quality of food, homey atmosphere, and friendly service make the place feel like it has been on this corner for decades.

On my last visit, I enjoyed a tasty pastrami sandwich. This time, I tried their corned beef Reuben. I’ve had a lot of Reubens in my life, many of which were made by my mother. This was simply the best one I’ve ever had, the one that came closest to recapturing my childhood memories, except that this corned beef was much better than any my mother ever made. Wise Sons cooks the brisket until fork tender and cuts it relatively thick. To say it “melts in your mouth” is accurate. Unlike a lot of brisket, this beef isn’t at all tough or chewy.

We also shared a plate of sinful pastrami cheese fries, minus the pastrami since Tawn isn’t a beef eater. The fries are loaded with Swiss bechamel sauce, caramelized onions, pickled cucumbers and jalapeño peppers, with a side of Russian dressing. Couldn’t eat this every day so that’s why we ate it this day!

Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream

While San Francisco isn’t known for its pastrami, it does have a great reputation for ice cream. Swensen’s, the global ice cream chain, was founded in San Francisco, and there are many small ice cream parlors that make interesting and innovative flavors from. One of the most prominent of these parlors is Humphrey Slocombe. Located just around the corner from Wise Sons, Humphrey Slocombe opened in 2008 and quickly gained notice for flavors like salted black licorice, hibiscus beet, and Jesus Juice.

We were pretty full from lunch but Tawn ordered a Tin Roof Sundae: three scoops of Tahitian vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, candied peanuts, and a sprinkle of sea salt. Oh, boy!

Enjoying calories I didn’t really need. I also tried a taste of their salt and pepper ice cream, which tastes amazingly of… salt and pepper!

Well, hope that’s enough food porn to get your weekend off to a good start. There’s more to come!

Food in Shanghai – Part 1

Posted on 13 November 2012 by christao408

Shanghai is a city of immigrants and the most international of Chinese cities. This mixture of people and cultures means that there is an opportunity to try many different types of food from lowbrow to high-society. We arrived in Shanghai armed with a list of recommended restaurants and were hosted by people who had their own “must try” lists, so we had more places to eat than we had meals! I’m combining a few different meals into this entry.

Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Knowing that, we wanted to see how folks in Shanghai fuel their day. The morning that we arrived, Tawn’s cousins Paul and Nicha took us to a Kiwi restaurant near their apartment for a satisfyingly typical western style breakfast. On subsequent mornings, though, we went native for our breakfasts.

A common breakfast dish anywhere with Chinese influence: rice porridge, known as jok (“joke”) or congee (“con-jee”). For breakfast, you can also order these “Chinese donuts” which are fried sticks of dough perfect for tearing up and adding to your jok. They are not sweet, though. If you are a porridge sort of person, as I am, you will probably enjoy jok.

Another breakfast snack was what might be described as a rice burrito. Sticky rice rolled around some dried pork and pickled vegetables. This is the exact same thing we had for breakfast when we were in Taipei in November 2009.

Another breakfast item, bought from a Muslim vendor, was this roti – a thin, multi-layered pancake with salt, green onions, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Tasty but heavy.

At the same vendor, we sampled these thin cakes stuffed with black sesame paste. The cakes are griddled and have a very flaky texture.

Detail shot showing the light, flaky texture of the cakes and the black sesame filling, which is slightly sweet. We also bought a hot beverage that was made from blended black sesame seeds. It had a very pleasant flavor.

Lunch

Shanghai is known for its dumplings and everyone has their favorite type of dumplings and their favorite vendors. On this trip, I fell in love with sheng jian bao – a pan-fried pork soup filled dumpling sprinkled with sesame seeds.

We tried sheng jian bao from a few different places but kept returning to the place where we first tried them: Yang’s Dumplings. With a few branches in Shanghai, Yang’s popularity is clear by the queue that stretches from the front door most anytime during the day. You queue up on the left, ordering and paying at the cashier, and then queue up on the right to wait to collect your order.

A view of the cramped but efficient kitchen at Yang’s Dumplings on Wujiang Luu above the West Nanjing Street subway station. The menu has only about a dozen items but these dumplings are the superstar item.

The secret that makes sheng jian bao different from xiao long bao (made popular at places like Din Tai Fung restaurant) is that the sheng jian are fried in a heavy pan and steamed at the same time, a process making them a relative of Japanese gyoza – potstickers. This provides a crispy, crunchy bottom with a tender, steamed top – the perfect combination of textures. An order is four dumplings, enough for a hungry person or for two people to share if you have also ordered some soup or greens.

Tawn and his cousin’s wife, Nicha, demonstrate two techniques for eating sheng jian bao: steamed top up or pan fried bottom up. The trick here is to be very careful because the inside of the dumpling is filled with ground pork and a minor ocean of hot soup. You don’t want to let the succulent soup spill so you have to gently tear the top of the dumpling and slurp the soup out. I found the “steamed top up” technique to be easier.

The sad circumstance that we kept facing throughout our visit to Shanghai was this: an empty bowl, its tasty contents just a fading flavor on our tongues.

Trying to Eat Healthy

Posted on 1 August 2011 by christao408

Most weeknights, Tawn and I try to eat dinner at home. Whatever I cook, it almost always includes a salad with lots of vegetables. This is our attempt to fill up on veggies, rather than on meats and carbs. Sometimes, I try for something a little fancier like this steak salad with thin slices of American sirloin, roasted red peppers and onions, and shavings of Parmesan cheese. Most of the time, though, the salads are a little less ambitious.

Weekday breakfasts are also eat at home meals, usually oatmeal with a combination of dried fruits and nuts, sometimes with a little quinoa, which provides some protein to start my day. Since I work from home, my lunches are also usually eaten at home, often leftovers from dinner the night before. From time to time, though, I will step out for lunch, stopping most often at a neighborhood ramen shop for some noodles.

All this weekday eating at home is offset by frequent social events on the weekends, when we end up eating out for most of the meals. On both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, we had engagements for lunch and dinner. The odd calculus of this pattern of socializing is that while my wallet gets thinner, my mid-drift gets thicker.

Katsu Set Lunch

Posted on 6 January 2011 by christao408

Okay, since I did a long, thoughtful, political analysis as yesterday’s post, I just need to write about something fun and easy: lunch. Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy Japanese food? It’s healthy, balanced, attentively prepared, and artfully presented.

Japanese make up our largest group of foreigners living here in Thailand, which isn’t so surprising when you trace history back to Japan’s invasion (note: they didn’t colonize, it was just an invasion!*) of Siam in World War II. They have had a close relationship ever since.

Because of the large presence of Japanese, we enjoy an abundance of good and affordable Japanese restaurants. The other day I stopped at one for this set lunch:

Working clockwise from the upper left: Katsu – pork loin breaded in Japanese-style breadcrumbs served with a salad of shredded cabbage and sesame dressing; a boiled egg custard (savory); stewed vegetables and chicken; another small salad; miso soup; pickled radish; steamed rice; and katsu dipping sauce in the center.

All this for 230 baht, about US$7.00. For Bangkok, that’s a relatively pricey lunch but it was still a very good value in my eyes.

*As for the asterisk, the Thais are very proud that their country has never been colonized by a foreign power and this is drilled into young Thais’ heads from the earliest age. Is it true? Well, you have to add some caveats: Significant portions of the Kingdom of Siam (as Thailand was formerly known) were ceded to foreign powers to avoid a war or potential colonization. Also, Japan occupied Siam during World War II, ostensibly at the “invitation” of its government. An invitation at the point of a sword, if you will. So if you set aside those exceptions, then Siam/Thailand has indeed never been colonized.

christao408

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

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