Food in Bangkok: The Bibimbab

Posted on 15 April 2012 by christao408

Recently a new Korean restaurant opened near the mouth of Sukhumvit Soi 24 immediately across from the Emporium. It is called The Bibimbab and its menu focuses on the classic Korean one-pot meal which features a ridiculously hot stone bowl filled with rice, vegetables, meat, and chili paste, which you then mix together before eating. Tawn and I visited for dinner two weeks ago.

There are those cuisines with which I am extremely familiar and there are other cuisines about which I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like to. Korean is one of the latter. I always enjoy eating Korean food but I often feel a bit lost, uncertain of what I’m doing, how I should order, and whether the food I’m eating is very good or just passable by Korean standards. Bear that in mind as I talk about the restaurant, please.

The Bibimbab is an attractive place to passers-by. The restaurant is airy and bright. The logo is colorful and modern. It is the type of place that is designed to appeal to people like me: those who like Korean food but don’t know much about it. That fact alone should probably make me nervous, right?

We visited on a weeknight a few weeks after they opened. The tables were full and new customers were arriving and filling seats just as quickly as they were vacated. The interior looks a bit like a fast-food restaurant although it provides table service. The menu focuses on bibimbab, fried rice, and soups. They do not offer any of the “grill it yourself” dishes that are popular at many Korean restaurants.

The restaurant’s branding and social media marketing is very up-to-date. They clearly want you to connect with your favorite bibimbab restaurant via your smart phone, tablet, computer, etc.

Their website actually offers useful information for the novice Korean food eater including helpful cartoons illustrating how to eat different dishes as well as general Korean food eating etiquette tips. Above is one an example of one of those helpful cartoons.

Your meal begins with complimentary banchan. These are the side dishes (often erroneously referred to as kimchi, I learned – which refers only to the fermented vegetables) that accompany rice in Korean meals. Just by writing this entry, my knowledge about Korean food has expanded! The restaurant refills these throughout your meal. While the staff was busy, they were helpful and friendly.

An overview of our meal. We ordered two dishes and shared them. Along with the side of rice and broth that came with one dish, we had a very hearty meal for two people, coming in at about 500 baht or under US$17.

Our first dish was the jeyook bibimbab, rice and vegetables with spicy stir-fried pork. This was tasty. One of the nice things about bibimbab is the crispy crust of rice that forms at the bottom of the bowl. When it is time to eat it, there’s a nice crunchiness to it, a textural contrast to the rest of the dish.

We also ordered dakbokkeumtang – spicy chicken stew with vegetables. While this wasn’t the spiciest Korean soup I’ve had – I remember a date years ago who took me to a Korean restaurant in Los Angeles, serving me a spicy tofu soup that nearly dissolved my tongue – it was spicy enough. Flavors were good and I couldn’t help but think that this would be perfect food for chilly weather… if only we had some chilly weather in Bangkok!

Overall, I was satisfied with The Bibimbab and imagine we’ll go back from time to time. The prices are reasonable for dinner, the portions generous, and the food is tasty. The question about authenticity is one I can’t answer, but at some level you have to ask whether authenticity is more important than simply enjoying the food.

Lard-o-Licious Bangkok

Posted on 18 March 2012 by christao408

On March 16 and 17, an event space in Bangkok called Opposite hosted a pop-up restaurant called Lard-o-Licious. A friend of mine served as sous chef and invited me to the event. While some of my non-pork eating readers may be turned off, I was really excited to attend this dinner.

Opposite (second floor of the building on the right) is located off Sukhumvit Soi 51, a small alley just a short walk from the Thong Lo BTS station. It is also just one soi over from our condo. The pavement in front is uneven and badly in need of replacement. An international school is down the street and a few restaurants and massage parlors fill out the rest of the neighborhood.

Opposite is thus named because it is located directly across the soi from a bar/restaurant called WTF, owned by Somrak Sila and Christopher Wise, the same people who own Opposite. The space is about 60 square meters (600 square feet) and has a kitchen and bar area. It is perfect for gallery exhibitions, dinners, parties, performances, and other such events.

When I arrived I found my friend Brian Bartusch, on the left, helping chef Jess Barnes prepare dishes. The well-inked Jess hails from Melbourne, Australia and has worked in a wide variety of restaurants both there and in Bangkok including at Grossi Trattoria and Bed Supperclub. He will be the chef of Quince, a new Modern Australian restaurant set to open in May on Sukhumvit Soi 45.

Sneaking a peak in the kitchen, I saw some watermelon salad with toasted pistachios and some homemade pickled vegetables.

Plates and plates of freshly made bread, with which to slather up all of the good flavors that would follow.

As we arrived, there were plates on the tables with liver and Thai brandy pate with house made mustard fruits on crostini. I really enjoy pate (perhaps thanks to my paternal grandfather who fed me lots of liverwurst when I visited as a child) and this met expectations.

The space was arranged with three long tables running the length of the space, a small temporary bar mixing white sangria as guests arrived, a screen showing a loop of food-related videos, and lamps made from used plastic rice bags. The lamps echoed traditional northern Thai paper lamps and were a colorful touch.

Before dinner started, the organizers of the event said a few words then local illustrator Kathy Macleod showed us a 7-minute animated video providing a brief history of pork. I filmed it and have embedded it above for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, I didn’t seek out her permission to share the video but hopefully this counts as fair use. Please see her facebook page for more information about her comics. (Link to video on YouTube for high definition version.)

The first course was composed of four dishes. Shown here are steamed buns (similar to Chinese style bao) filled with pulled pork shoulder, red cabbage slaw, and prawn mayonnaise. These were very fun and the pork was flavorful and tender, albeit a little under-seasoned. I ended up eating only about half the bun for fear I would fill myself too quickly.

Also on the table were jars of head cheese – confit pork terrine served with olives and pickled vegetables. The name “head cheese” makes some people squeamish. Really, there is no need. It is basically made with the various scraps of meat from the animal’s head, much in the same way that sausage is made from various scraps of meat from elsewhere in the body. The head cheese was very flavorful and tender.

The next dish was roasted bone marrow with Italian parsley salad and shallot jam. Bone marrow is another one of those dishes that some folks have a problem with. Anthony Bourdain called it the “butter of the gods” and, in my opinion, he isn’t far off. It is rich and fatty and flavorful. While you might think that your cholesterol shoots through the roof just as soon as the platter is set down in front of you, the good news is that bone marrow is rich in monounsaturated fat as well as protein.

The final dish of the first course was a watermelon and mint salad served with rosewater, pistachio, and feta cheese. I was pleasantly surprised to see this dish, considering that I’ve made variations of it twice in the past month and a half.

The pacing was leisurely – the entire meal took over three hours – so we had time to visit with other people at the table and to get up and wander around. One of the interesting things about family style seating is that, of course, you end up meeting people sitting next to you whom you’ve never previously met. The drawback in this situation was that there were a lot of people who already knew each other and Tawn and I were outsiders, but folks were very friendly. I spent a good portion of the evening chatting with the owner of Bed Supperclub, who was seated directly across from me. I will say that in my advancing age, it is increasingly hard for me to carry on conversations in moderately loud environments.

The second course also featured four dishes. The first was smoked pork loin served with cabbage and sticky juices. The menu said it was served with puffed grains but I didn’t see those. There was wild rice served on the side to absorb the yummy juices. This dish was fantastic – very tender and flavorful.

Another interesting dish was the pork cooked in milk, served with white beans and lovage. Lovage is an herbacious perennial plant – a fact I had to look up. Braising the pork in milk worked very well to make it exceedingly tender. The dish was very enjoyable although it was lacking a little bit of salt. Tawn pointed out that, despite not being a Thai dish, a bit of fish sauce and a few Thai chilies would have complemented it perfectly.

A third dish was eggplant, labne and soy bean salad, with romesco sauce. This may have been the highlight of the evening. It had tremendous flavor, hearty but not heavy. Labne is yoghurt which has been strained to remove the whey.

The final dish in the second course was fennel, citrus, spring onions, celery, and holy basil. This was a combination of flavors I really liked but the fennel was tremendously tough which made it unpleasant to eat.

Our meal was accompanied by a trio of wines from a Thai vineyard called Monsoon Valley – a 2011 Colombard, 2010 Shiraz, and a 2010 fortified Muscat. All three were pleasant. Thai wines have been slowly improving and while they still have some way to go, I’ve been having more of them in the past year or two that impress me. There were also two home-brewed beers made by Brian, one a pale ale and the other a toasted coconut malt.

For dessert we had a bittersweet chocolate and blood cake (more of a mousse, really) with hazelnut pastry and tangerine ice cream. The big question at the table was, “Is it real blood!?” I went to ask the chef and, sure enough, it was real pig’s blood. A mixture of equal parts of chocolate and pig’s blood are blended and cooked. I think cream is added, if I recall correctly, along with some gelatin. It is then chilled overnight and foamed to lighten the texture. How did it taste? Fantastic. You would never had known there was blood in there – it just tasted like a very rich chocolate mousse.

All in all, the meal – which was about $65 per person inclusive of everything – was quite a reasonable price for a special occasion dinner. There was plenty of food and wine and the menu was both tasty and creative. I enjoy when food can engage me intellectually as well as in the more traditional ways such as through flavor, smell, and texture. I’m looking forward to the next pop-up restaurant event at Opposite as well as the opening in two months of Quince, Jess Barnes’ new restaurant here in Bangkok.

Dining in Bangkok: Krua Apsorn

Posted on 10 January 2012 by christao408

A few weeks ago, I accompanied my friend Chow for lunch at Krua Apsorn. Chow, who is the author of Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, was researching restaurants for an article in an Australian airline’s inflight magazine and needed an extra mouth to help her evaluate the food. Who am I to shirk my duty as a friend?

Krua Apsorn is a Central Thai style restaurant that has garnered much attention in recent years. With a homey charm, decent food, and a slightly obscure location, it is the type of place that makes foreigners feel like they’ve stumbled into a secret cave of culinary treasures. While it is worth a visit, I wouldn’t necessarily put it on my list of “must-visit” restaurants.

The original location of Krua Apsorn (there are now three) is on Samsen Road, which runs north from the Khao San backpacker district towards the Dusit Palace. Located a little ways past the National Library, the restaurant is off the beaten path for most visitors but not terribly difficult to reach. The chef used to cook for the King’s now-deceased mother and older sister and when this restaurant opened, Princess Galayani was known to visit it. Six years ago, the Bangkok Post named it one of Bangkok’s best restaurants and you can now find it listed in nearly every guide book.

Lunch reservations are recommended as this location is popular with large groups of office workers. The interior is modest and the emphasis is on the food rather than the decor. The staff is friendly although rushed and it took a while for us to get their attention to order and then again to get the bill at the end of lunch.

To ensure we gave the restaurant a fair sampling, we brought tremendous appetites, ordering and (for the most part) finishing more dishes than you would think two people could eat. We started with a classic Central Thai appetizer: miang kana. These make-it-yourself appetizers feature a variety of sweet, sour, spicy, savory, and salty tidbits that you wrap in a kailan (or Chinese broccoli) leaf with a splash of tamarind sauce.

Can you spot the following items? Shallot, lime, white ginger, peanut, dried shrimp, and fried pork rind. Combined with the tamarind sauce, this appetizer exemplifies the typical flavor profile that Thai dishes aspire to, a balance of different flavors that leave you very satisfied.

While I’m leery of ordering mussels thanks to a bad experience years ago in Seattle, we couldn’t pass up this dish that sat on nearly every other table. Called hoi malang puu pad chaa, these super fresh mussels were stir-fried in basil, fish sauce, and chilies. At first they didn’t seem too spicy but trying to avoid the chilies was a challenge and eventually you just had to give in and enjoy them.

Another dish was gaeng kiaow waan luuk chin plaa, green curry with fish balls. Green curry is one of the more accessible types of curry for foreigners’ tongues. This one was passable but the taste was watered down.

The rice arrived molded into the shape of a heart. Na rak maak! (Very cute!)

A dish for which the restaurant is famous is neua puu pad prik lueang – crabmeat stir fried with yellow chilies and long beans. The portion of lump crabmeat is generous, fresh, and sweet. The sauce itself is also a little sweet, almost tasting as if it had ghee added to it, although I doubt it does. The long beans were a little undercooked for my taste – reminding me of how when I brought my now-deceased paternal grandmother to eat Thai food once, she commented on a dish of stir fried vegetables, “My, they certainly like their vegetables crunchy.” All in all, this was a well-made dish, though, and one I would order again.

A dish of pad yot pak maew – chayote stems fried with garlic – provided a simple and refreshing contrast to some of the other, more strongly flavored dishes.

Another highlight from Krua Apsorn’s menu is kai fuu puu – crabmeat omelet. Their version, however, is so unlike the omelets you see elsewhere that it really makes you take notice. Cooked in a narrow dish rather than a broad skillet, the omelet gains a lot of volume, looking more like a souffle than a traditional Thai omelet.

Cross section of the kai fuu puu – standing very tall. That said, the amount of crabmeat in the omelet seemed skimpy when compared with, say, the amount of crabmeat in the stir fry with the yellow chilies. Still, this was one of the best dishes.

The final dish we ordered, this one from the daily specials menu, was puu lon pak sot or salted crab and coconut cream stew with fresh vegetables. This is a dish that is less common for foreigners to try and one that I haven’t run across too many times. It is made of salted crab, minced pork, coconut cream, and a variety of herbs and spices, boiled until thick.

The dish is actually more of a dip than a stew, as it is served with a selection of fresh vegetables – two types of eggplants (including the white ones), tumeric root, cabbage, and cucumbers – with which you eat the puu lon. I found the taste of the dish to be interesting, both complex and unusual. It is a bit sour, a bit salty, and very herbal. Chow didn’t care much for it because it has sort of a milky aftertaste but it wasn’t a problem to me.

For dessert, we tried some of the homemade fresh coconut sorbet (which was refreshing but didn’t photograph well) as well as this saku biak tua dam – miniature tapioca with black beans, served in sweetened coconut milk. This is one of my favorite Thai desserts because it is not overwhelmingly sweet and has a bit of saltiness as well as the heartiness of the beans.

What to think of the restaurant overall? You have to start out by understanding that this type of restaurant serves aahan juut, literally “bland food”. It is the type of food that appeals to your grandparents, comfort food that isn’t too assertive. That’s not a knock on the restaurant itself, because the food is well prepared with a lot of attention to the quality of ingredients and the methods of preparation. The flavors are relatively bland because that’s characteristic of Central Thai cuisine when compared with Northern, Northeastern, or Southern Thai.

With all that in mind, Krua Apsorn delivers a good dining experience and value for the money. Is it worth seeking out? If you are already near the restaurant, it is worth stopping by. If you have to trek all the way across the city, there are probably other aahan juut restaurants closer by that will satisfy you just as well and, if you are visiting from outside Thailand, there are other restaurants I would recommend you try before you get to Krua Apsorn.

Dining in LA: Lukshon

Posted on 26 December 2011 by christao408

While only in Los Angeles for a few hours between flights, it was time enough for my cousin Jackie and me to join Gary and William for dinner at Lukshon , a small plates restaurant in Culver City where chef Sang Yoon turns out clever takes on food from across east Asia with precision and, for the most part, a lot of flavor.

Lukshon is located in the Helms Bakery complex between Washington and Venice boulevards, just a few doors down from the chef’s other restaurant, Father’s Office. Jackie and I arrived on a Tuesday evening about 6:00, just as the restaurant was opening for business. Some corporate function was being set up on the outdoor patio and the two of us were the first customers into the restaurant.

We sat down at the bar to enjoy a drink while waiting for Gary and William to join. The bartender was an affable man who displayed a stunning breadth of knowledge about the wines and the cocktails on the menu. There is an elaborate machine in place for dispensing wines, a restaurant owner’s dream in terms of portion control I suppose. The nice thing was that we could get tastes of several wines before selecting one we wanted to order.

Over dinner, I tried one of the restaurant’s signature cocktails, the Yokohama Romance. It features Prunier VSOP cognac, cherry heering (a Danish cherry liqueur), kaffir lime, lemongrass, and shaoxing wine. What caught my attention was that while Jackie and I sat at the bar enjoying our wine, the bartender was preparing this drink in front of us. The last garnish is the kaffir lime leaf, which he placed in the palm of his hand then smacked with the other hand. This bruised the leaf, immediately releasing the very pleasant aroma. Intrigued, I ordered one over dinner and found it to be enjoyable and complex in the way a cocktail should be.

There are two parts to the dining room: a brighter space featuring the bar, some long tables, and the clean and modern open kitchen. The other part of the dining room is more intimate, with tables and banquettes set among a cozier ambience.

The menu, as the bartender explained it to us, is intended to be a journey through eastern and southeastern Asia, tracing the paths that various ingredients, techniques, and dishes have taken across the region thanks to migration and trade. As an example, I’ve written before about northern Thai style curried noodles that owe much to a Muslim region of southwestern China. Chef Sang Yoon plays with these culinary ethnographies.

Gary and William joined us soon after and we moved to the table, where they used their experience from previous visits to help guide us through the menu. The menu is composed of about 20 small plates, 3 noodle dishes, and 5 rice dishes. Everything is served family style which means that it is placed in the middle of the table for sharing by all diners. Here’s what we enjoyed:

Choosing a rice dish was a challenge as they all sounded good. We settled on XO rice, which is jasmine rice stir fried with XO sauce, long beans and scrambled egg. XO sauce is a sauce made of seafood, usually scallops, and chilies that is somewhat similar to Worcestershire sauce. Only “somewhat,” though. This was a pleasant dish but odd that it arrived first since fried rice is usually more of a concluding dish. The portion was modest, though, so no worries about us filling up on it.

The baby Monterey squid stuffed with Chiang Mai style pork sausage, candlenut, mint, and rau ram. This dish was technically well-made but didn’t inspire me as much as I had hoped. The squid was fresh and not too chewy. The pork sausage was a less common variety using fermented pork. The candlenut and rau ram provided nice flavors. Each component was solid but when the flavors came together I found it interesting but didn’t long for another bite of it.

A stand-out dish (one also mentioned by many professional reviewers) is the spicy chicken pops. These feature chicken drumettes cooked in a sauce of garlic, kecap manis, and Szechuan pepper. Think Asian style buffalo wings. Kecap manis is an Indonesian style sweet soy sauce. Szechuan pepper, which is not related to black pepper or to chili peppers, has a mild numbing effect on the tongue and, in larger quantities, the lips. This was a dish for which I could have done something very un-family style: hogged the entire plate.

Another interesting dish was the Chinese eggplant, which was braised with tomato sambal (a chili sauce) and served with fennel raita (a kind of yogurt sauce) and eggplant “fries.” It was a very satisfying dish, comfort food that seemed very appropriate given the cool weather LA was having that evening.

Our next dish was a lamb belly roti canai. Roti canai is a flatbread with Indian roots that is common in Indonesia and Malaysia. Here the tender lamb belly is served with chana dal (split peas), cumin, mint, and pickled cauliflower and topped with a raita (yogurt) sauce. This had a lot of pleasing flavors and was also very enjoyable.

The next dish to arrive was som tam, the Thai green papaya salad. Made with a lot of carrots and only a bit of green papaya, the dish also had cherry tomatoes, long beans, peanuts, crispy shallots and fish sauce. Now, maybe I’m a bit biased because I live in Thailand and received this dish with certain expectations, but my thought was that it was a poor representation of som tam. Not only was the kitchen stingy with the green papayas, but the dressing was very one-note. Normally, you have a combination of sweet, salty, umami, and acidic all in one dish. Here it was mostly sweet.

The next dish was garlic pork belly, stir fried with do ban jiang (a Chinese style paste made of fermented beans, usually soy or broad beans, and often with chilies), small nuggets of mochi (glutinous rice cake), cabbage, and garlic chives. This was another comforting dish with lots of full bodied flavors and some interesting textures (still crisp cabbage, chewy mochi). Serve this with a bowl of rice and you’d have a nice meal just by itself.

Our final dish was dan dan noodles, a Szechuan classic that features a spicy sauce made of preserved mustard greens, chili oil, Szechuan pepper, and minced pork. Think spaghetti with meat sauce done Chinese style. While I’m no expert, this version of dan dan noodles was very similar to what I’ve had at other restaurants, reminding me especially of a version I had in Taipei at Kiki Restaurant with Andy and his parents.

Dinner concluded with a plate of complimentary desserts, three types, each with small portions. I don’t recall specifically what they were, something like custards with sorbet on top, all of which featured Asian flavors. While I didn’t write down the details, I do recall that they were flavorful and at just two or three bites each, were a satisfying end to a pleasant meal.

All in all, I found Lukshon to be a meal that was not only tasty and reasonably priced (about $30/each including a drink) but mentally engaging, too. Add to that the pleasant company with whom I dined, and it was a memorable meal with which to end my visit to the United States.

Visit to Omaha

Posted on 21 December 2011 by christao408

Near the end of my trip, I drove up to Omaha to spent a night with Andy and Sugi. It is normally about a three-hour drive form Kansas City to Omaha. After about the first hour, I started to encounter snow which grew heavier the further north I went. By the time I hit the Iowa border, I was passing cars that had spun off the road and took that as a clear warning to slow down. Arriving in Omaha to sluggish and slushy late rush hour traffice, my trip took about an hour longer than normal.

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Sugi and Andy at the Mexican restaurant they took me to, Cilantro’s. Sugi managed to order the really good dish, a mixed fajitas that included some tasty chorizo. Andy had some tamales that were decent. My fish tacos totally missed the mark. Using tilapia, the tacos had a muddy flavor that I couldn’t get past. All in all, I decided not to post pictures because the dishes pretty much looked like American style Mexican food from just about any American style Mexican food restaurant. That said, the company was fantastic.

Now, I’m not totally unfamiliar with snow. But at the same time, I live in Bangkok so it isn’t something I have to deal with very often. Here’s a short video capturing my impressions.

View of Andy’s street the morning after my arrival. My poor little rental car really wasn’t up to the task. I wasn’t able to get it all the way up the driveway without it slipping on the ice.

The culinary highlight of the trip to Omaha was a drive across the river into Councli Bluffs, IA, where Tawn and I were married a bit more than two years ago. In the downtown area, just a few blocks from the courthouse, is Dixie Quicks, a combination restaurant and art gallery, which just recently relocated from Omaha.

The space is fairly large, much more so than their previous space, and features an eclectic style of decorating. Chef René Orduña’s menu is a hodge-podge of southern, Mexican, and Cajun, done to good effect. It was featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” although you shouldn’t hold that against them. The staff is friendly (ask Andy about his new nickname) and the food is good.

A vintage toy robot stands guard on the beautiful terrazo counter. The restaurant definitely has a retro-chic vibe.

A real stand-out item on the regularly changing menu is the cornbread crab cake. Loaded with plenty of lump crab meat, the use of cornbread gives the cakes an added dimension. The sauce is a tomato butter which is made, interestingly, using the steamer on an espresso machine. If I had it to do over, I’d just have ordered three of these and called it a day.

Chicken Tortilla soup with a wonderful mixture of vegetables. Good flavor and the avocado was a nice touch.

Sugi ordered tortas, which were filled with avocados and lots of other tasty things. Served with a side of pickled collard greens. I’ve never had pickled collard greens which were, as you might expect, vinegary. Made for a pleasant contrast. While I liked the tortas, I do think that a crustier bread would have been nicer. Just my preference, though.

My breakfast was chilaquilles, a first for me. A common Mexican breakfast dish, chilaquilles makes use of leftover tortillas, which are fried then simmered in salsa. In this version, tomatoes and peppers are used to create something that is reminiscent of lasagna but with Mexican flavors. Served with black beans and two soft fried eggs, this was a really tasty treat and something I look forward to seeking out at other restaurants.

We managed to get on really well with one of the owners, the one who gave Andy his nickname. Before we had even finished our main courses, two types of French toast had been sent out for dessert, compliments of the house. The chocolate and banana is on the left and fresh berries are on the right. The bread is the same as is used for the tortas and while I still maintain that a slightly crustier bread would be better, it was hard to fault this French toast.

The gallery next door was open for browsing, getting ready for a three-artist show that was debuting that evening. Here, a giant inflatable black squirrel holds an acorn.

All in all, Dixie Quicks was a highlight meal during my trip to the US. A drive up to Omaha is worthwhile if for no other reason that to visit Andy and Sugi. But having this restaurant there provides an added incentive.

Food in Bangkok: Prik Yuak

Posted on 2 November 2011 by christao408

Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market is popular among locals and visitors alike for its almost endless maze of vendors selling everything from fashion to frogs, souvenir trinkets to silverware for your dinner table. Shopping isn’t the only reason to visit the market, though. Hidden amongst all these vendors are several restaurants that are worth a trip, even if you have no plans to shop. A few weekends ago, we ate at Prik Yuak, a popular place whose good food and convenient location makes it worth a visit.

Prik Yuak is a Southern Thai style khao gaeng place. Khao gaeng refers to the prepared curries (and other dishes) that are served with rice. I shared a bit about this type of food in the third volume of my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series.

Ordering at Prik Yuak is both easy and hard: easy because all you need to do is point and they will plate the dishes up for you. Hard because you have to figure out what each thing is. My advice: so long as you have no allergies, religious dietary restrictions, or adverse reactions to chilies, go ahead and point away!

Portions are small – think “Thai tapas” – and this allows you to try many different tasty dishes even if you come to the restaurant by yourself or just one other person.

The restaurant itself is modest, located next to the edge of the market, immediately adjacent to exit 3 of the Kamphaeng Phet MRT station. In fact, make a u-turn to the right as you exit from the station and then continue back as far as you can go (40 meters or so) and you’ll have reached the restaurant. Grab a table after ordering and they will bring the food to you.

Plaa kem tod – The name of the dish refers to the salty fried fish that is the main flavoring ingredient. In this case, it is being served along with broccoli, although it is also served with other greens. Salted fish is a popular ingredient in Thai food, especially in the south, where it is an easy method of preservation for a region that is close to the sea. For foreigners, the taste can take some getting used to because it is very salty. The saltiness is balanced by the clean, unseasoned flavors of the vegetables, though.

Kai palow – This dish of stewed eggs and pork belly is often prepared with a Chinese five spice sauce. In this case, Prik Yuak uses a palm sugar caramel and soy sauce. This dish is ordered to accompany spicier dishes, as the sweet richness of the dish helps to counter the spice.

Kuag gling moo – Shredded pork fried with spices, most notably turmeric, with a garnish of thinly sliced kaffir lime leaf. This dish, which is spicy hot, has very assertive flavoring, making your taste buds come alive. The texture is also very fun to eat, small shreds of slightly crispy fried pork and fried shallots.

Gaeng tae po – This vegetable dish features something known locally as “morning glory” – not related to the flowers – a tubular green that grows near the water. It is served in a curry and is quite spicy but in a way that is very pleasant.

Panang moo – Panang style pork curry, which is milder than many other Thai curries. It has a heavy dose of coconut milk which provides some richness on the tongue, countering other spicier dishes. What makes Prik Yuak’s version of this dish unique is that they braise the pork first before cooking it in the curry. The result is a bowl full of very tender pork.

Pad prik king gai – Shredded fried chicken, cooked southern style with a dry curry (i.e. no coconut milk). At first glance, this appears similar to the kuag gling dish, above. But the flavor profile is very different. Instead of having turmeric and lots of spices, this curry is made mostly of chilies, ginger, galangal root, coriander root, and lemongrass. It is much more herbal and has a kick to it.

Kai tom yang matoom – A common condiment for the khao gaeng shops is boiled egg. Here we have boiled duck eggs done to a soft, creamy yolk. Again, the richness of the egg helps counteract the spiciness of several of the dishes. It is also an easy source of protein.

To provide some more veggies, a little crunch, and some cooling relief to your mouth, a platter of crudité is served. From left: kamin khao (white turmeric), long beans, and cucumbers.

And to drink? How about a coconut bowl of the favorite local cola: Pepsi. While I normally don’t drink sodas, it is a very refreshing accompaniment to a meal like this.

Conclusion: The food at Prik Yuak is first rate in terms of quality, price, and flavor. Best of all, the small servings allow you to try so many different things. I hope that as you read the descriptions, you noticed how varied the dishes are and how they complement each other. Something spicy, something sweet, something salty, something rich, something astringent – this is the quality of a balanced Thai meal, a feature that is lacking in a lot of western cooking, particularly in fast food America. When I go for too long without Thai food, I find that my palate is bored from the lack of different flavors in a single meal!

Food in HK – Another Tim Ho Wan Location

Posted on 21 September 2011 by christao408

In April 2010, Tawn and I had the opportunity to visit Tim Ho Wan, the Michelin star winning dim sum restaurant in the Yau Ma Tei area of Hong Kong. When you hear “Michelin star” the normal image is of a big, swanky restaurant. Tim Ho Wan is quite the opposite, a modest twenty-seater emphasizing their food and little else. Because of the chef’s success, a second location was opened in Sham Shui Po, the fabric district in Kowloon. While in Hong Kong earlier this month, we stopped in for a visit.

Tim Ho Wan

(Second Location)
9-11 Fuk Wing Street
Sham Shui Po
Kowloon
‎

Food: Amazing
Service: So-so
Ambience: None
Price: Bargain

Located roughly equidistant between the Sham Shui Po and Prince Edward MTR stations, the second location of Tim Ho Wan is fairly easy to get to. Recognizing it will be a bit more challenging if you don’t read Chinese – there is no English signage. However, the street it is on seems to have no other restaurants, and most of the time you will see a queue out front, so that’s your clue that you are in the right place.

There is also a third location now open in a decidedly more upscale and easier to reach spot: the MTR Airport Express Hong Kong station. Look for store 12A on level one. This way, you can zip into the city from the airport on a four-hour layover, have time to eat the Michelin star earning dim sum, and then head back to the airport!

We headed to the restaurant about 11:00 am on a weekday, sneaking in between the morning crowd (the restaurant opens at 8:00) and the lunch crowd. That meant no wait for us, although just thirty minutes later the other tables quickly filled up. This second location is probably three times larger than the first, so waits are reportedly much shorter than at the first location, where waits longer than an hour are common.

As for the food, it was still very good but I would dare say the quality and care of preparation is lower than we experienced at the original location. And, in one case, the hygienic standards were lower, too.

The cheong fun, wide rice noodles filled with pork, steamed, and served with soy sauce, remain a favorite of mine. Tim Ho Wan prepares them beautifully, with the most delicate and silky noodles I’ve ever had.

Close-up view of the cheong fun, called “vermicelli” on the menu. The dish is just HK$15, about US$2, and even at three times the price, I would classify it as a must-order dish.

Another dish the restaurant is acclaimed for is its char siu bao, or barbecue pork buns. These are baked with a crumb crust on top and have a delightfully flaky texture.

Inside view of the barbecue pork bun. As I understand it, the origin of these bao is that restaurants would use the leftover pork from the previous evening’s banquets as the filling. Of course, that is probably not the case at most restaurants these days. Tim Ho Wan’s are made of very high quality pork and I could eat a few servings of these buns and call it a day.

Another winning dish is what the menu calls the “glue rice dumpling”, or glutinous rice dumpling. Filled with sausage and other goodies then wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed, this is the most generously-sized item on the menu – about the size of my hand with fingers open wide. The quality of the ingredients is very high and the rice is very aromatic.

The pan fried turnip cakes, another dish that is usually a favorite of mine, disappointed. On our visit to the original Tim Ho Wan location, these cakes were fantastic, with a nicely browned crust and a flavor that comes from only the most seasoned of griddles. In fact, at the original location, this was my favorite dish. Unfortunately, the version at location number two was undercooked and uninspiring.

We made a wrong turn with the steamed beef balls in bean curd (tofu) skin. Commonly nicknamed “Chinese hamburgers”, these meatballs were cooked very rare. While I enjoy rare beef (steak tartare is wonderful), the texture didn’t work well in this dish. Additionally, one of our dining companions found a hair stuck in one of the balls. We brought this to the attention of a server, who replaced the dish but did not offer any compensation. While I know that Hong Kong doesn’t have a reputation for good customer service, the least I would expect at a Michelin starred restaurant (at any decent restaurant, for that matter) is that we not be charged for the dish that had to be replaced.

We headed back on track with the siu mai, steamed pork dumplings with shrimps. These mainstays of dim sum were tasty, although there was nothing particularly impressive about them compared to siu mai I’ve had at a dozen other dim sum restaurants.

Dining companions Tehlin with her daughter. When I ordered, I ordered for four hungry adults, forgetting that a child isn’t going to eat nearly as much. Oh, well, more for the rest of us!

Chris, Tawn, and Chinese aunty.

For dessert, we ordered two types of warm, sweet soup. One was the corn and purple glutinous rice and the other was green peas with sea lavender (a type of fragrant seaweed). Both were tasty but didn’t photograph very well. The third dessert, described as “tonic medlar & petal cake”, was tasty and beautiful. It is a gelatine of dried flowers, probably Chrysanthemum, that was beautifully golden and wonderfully aromatic. This is the type of dessert that is at once very simple – Jell-O! – but also very dramatic.

All told, we had twelve dishes and tea for four, and the bill came out to UK$177, about US$24 for three and a half people. While we did have the hair in the meatball incident and three dishes that were only average, the remaining dishes (especially the cheong fun and char siu bao) were fantastic and well worth the effort to find the restaurant.

Food in Chiang Mai: Huen Jai Yong

Posted on 19 August 2011 by christao408

On our final day in Chiang Mai, Tawn and I drove east of the city to search for Huen Jai Yong, a restaurant highly recommended by our hotel’s staff. Four or five people around the front desk agreed that this was the restaurant locals went to when they wanted to eat good Northern Thai food. In fact, the restaurant is known particularly for its Lamphun style cuisine. Lamphun is the province directly to the southeast of Chiang Mai.

As I learned from Wikipedia, Lamphun traces its roots to the 9th Century, when it was founded by Queen Chama Thevi as the capital of the most northern of the Mon kingdoms in the area that is now Thailand.

Located on Route 1317 some 15 kilometers west of the city, Huen Jai Yong still feels like it is out in the countryside. Its landmark is the large rain tree out by the driveway. In reality, though, civilization is fast approaching. Not a kilometer away, rice paddies have been transformed into housing developments.

The gardens behind the restaurant were in the midst of lamyai or longan season, with the trees heavily loaded with fruit. Chickens were strutting about the garden, scratching for bugs amidst the herbs and vegetables.

The restaurant itself is a charming old teak wood house, with seating upstairs, downstairs, and in a few adjacent buildings. A small gift shop is located out front where Tawn is standing.

We opted for the open-air seating under the house. This picture doesn’t show it very well, but several of the tables are made from old long boats with planks added to make the tabletops. On the sign in pink chalk you can see the restaurant’s name in Lanna, the old Northern Thai language that traces its roots to a time when this region was a kingdom independent of Siam.

We ordered a variety of foods, sampling several dishes we had eaten at Huen Phen as well as some specialties we had not tried on this trip. Sticki rice is a staple.

First, let’s answer the question, what makes Northern Thai cuisine distinct? Thailand has four major regions (North, Northeast/Issan, Central, and South) and each has its own style of cuisine although the have become increasingly merged as Thais move about the country.

Generally speaking, Northern Thai cuisine reflects the peoples who have historically lived in, passed through, and traded with the region. These include the Mon, Shan, and other Burmese groups; the Hui and Taochew people from China; as well as Indian, Northern Lao, and Malay people.

Northern Thailand is more mountainous, has better rainfall, and somewhat cooler temperatures than other parts of Thailand. The food tends to be heartier, a bit less spicy, makes more use of fresh herbs and vegetables, and makes less use of ingredients like coconut milk and fish than in other regions. Whereas fermented fish and shrimp are used as a flavoring in other regions, you see fermented soybeans (trace the roots to China) used more commonly in Northern Thai cooking.

Let’s take a look at what was served:

This dish of steamed squash and parboiled greens (similar to kale) and eggplant are served as a kind of side dish that you can go to for a break from whatever main dishes you are eating, kind of like the ban chan in Korean cuisine or pickles in many cultures.

Once again we see the ubiquitous sai oua sausage, this time served with some muu tod or fried pork, known in the Northern Thai dialect at jiin muu.

This dish, which is kind of hard to see thanks to the boiled eggs on top, looked at first to be nam prik noom, the roasted green chilli dip. In fact, though, it was tam baakeua, a salad made of roasted eggplant. Very tasty with the smoky meatiness of the eggplant enhanced with a variety of herbs and spices then served with the rich boiled eggs.

One option for eating the roasted eggplant was this dish of kaep muu or chitlins (as they are called in the southern United States), deep fried pork skin. Oh, so bad for you and yet so good, too!

An unusual dish was larb kua plaa nin, of a salad of pan seared tilapia fish flavored with lemongrass, shallots, chilies, and other herbs. Tasty and similar to, but less spicy than, other chopped meat salads that come from the Northeast. Interestingly, I learned that tilapia was introduced to Thailand as a gift of Japanese Crown Prince Akihito in 1965 to H.M. King Bhumipol. It has adapted very well and is found in rivers all across Thailand.

Another version of gaeng hong lay, the Burmese style stewed pork with a tomato based sauce. This particular version came very close to massman curry and was sweeter than the version we had at Huen Phen restaurant. While it was tasty, it was almost too sweet for my taste. Also interesting, it was made with fresh ginger instead of fried ginger.

Northern Thai cuisine uses fresh herbs prodigiously and we were served this plate of various herbs and yard beans. While I didn’t confirm it, I get the impression that these herbs are grown on the grounds of the restaurant.

We ended our meal with gaeng pak waan, a soup of “sweet vegetable” which are the tips of a vegetable similar to spinach but much less earthy in flavor. The broth is made from dried fish.

Our bill came out to about 400 baht for the two of us, about US $13.50. The meal was a perfect conclusion to our trip to Chiang Mai. The food is tasty, fresh, healthy, and the flavors are perhaps more accessible than any other style of Thai cuisine. Now, the question is, when are you coming for a visit?

Directions: From Central Airport Plaza take Mahidol Road towards San Kamphaeng (Route 1317) . Pass the junction of the Outer Ring Road and Route 1317 intersection, the make a U-turn at km 9. The restaurant will be on your left at the large rain tree.

Food in Chiang Mai – Khao Soi Sameujai Faaham

Posted on 18 August 2011 by christao408

Back to food in Chiang Mai, after a morning spent teaching monks how to cook, err… make sandwiches, I was hungry for some Thai food. The previous day Tawn and I had tried one highly recommended place for khao soi, the northern style curried nodles that are among my favorite foods in the world. We decided to head over to another well-recommended restaurant, Khao Soi Sameujai Faaham.

On Faaham Road across the Ping River from the old city, there are two khao soi places just about 100 meters apart. Khao Soi Sameujai Faaham (Thai: เสมอใจฟ้าฮ่าม) is on the west side of the road right next to Wat Faaham. The other restaurant, Khao Soi Lamduon, is on the east side of the road just a bit south of the wat and reportedly serves a spicier version of the dish. Sadly, we did not make it to Khao Soi Lamduon on this trip.

Yet another Northern Thai restaurant sponsored by which cola company? Regretfully, they do not have an English language sign but if you can find the wat (temple), the restaurant is immediately to the right of it. The good news is, their interior signage is very English friendly with photos, names, and descriptions of each dish.

The building is more of a food court, if you will, with different vendors offering different dishes, mostly Northern Thai but with some other common dishes (somtam or green papaya salad, with is really Issan or Northeastern Thai, for example) also available. The khao soi vendor is front and center, literally, with huge pots of curried broth and coconut cream simmering away.

Our khao soi arrived with the ubiquitous plate of condiments – picked cabbage, a slice of lime, and some shallots (the chilli paste is in a container on the table) – carefully balanced on top of the bowl of noodles and meat. Artful presentation or just efficiency? You decide.

Once the condiments were moved out of the way, I got a view of the goldenrod color of the broth. Like always, I tried a slurp of it before adding the condiments, the better to appreciate the unique attributes of this dish. The broth was a little bit sweeter with a slightly more pronounced curry flavor than what we had at Grandmother’s Khao Soi.

As a point of comparison, here was Grandmother’s Khao Soi. The color correction is accurate: the broth is a little darker and has a slightly meatier flavor than at Khao Soi Sameujai Faaham. Also, despite the big vat of coconut cream bubbling away at Sameujai Faaham, Grandmother’s was a bit more liberal with its application.

Which is better? Oh, you aren’t going to lure me into the middle of an impossible dillema! Both versions were very good and both had their own unique qualities. Oh, and I’ll be going back to both on my next visit to Chiang Mai!

The other vendor located out front is preparing satay gai, or grilled chicken skewers. This treat is definitely an import from the Indonesia/Malaysia corner of the world. It is more than just simply grilled chicken, though. The key to Thai satay is that the meat is marinated in a coconut milk and curry dressing so it takes on a rich flavor and retains its moisture.

Typical service for the satay: pickled cucumbers, chillies, and shallots and a dipping sauce made of ground peanuts, red curry paste, coconut milk, and lime juice. I know a lot of recipes tell you to use peanut butter, but trust me, it isn’t the same. Commercial peanut butters have many added ingredients, which change the taste of the sauce.

We ordered a dish of naam prik noom, the dip made of roasted green chillies. Compared with the version we ate at Huen Phen restauarnt with its fancy blanched vegetables, this version is quite modest with just some cabbage and cucumbers. This version of the naam prik, though, was spicy!

We also ordered sai oua, the herb-filled pork sausage. This is one of those foods that everyone does a little bit differently, so if someone is serving it, you should try just as a point of comparison.

We had every intention of saving room so we could stop down the street at Khao Soi Lamduon and split a bowl of khao soi just to try, but we were really full by this point. Alas, yet another reason we must get back to Chiang Mai soon.

Walking back to the temple next door where we had parked our car, we spotting this helpful bit of wisdom. Yaa puut nai sing tii mai ruu, leh yaa putt tuk yang tii ruu. “Don’t speak about things which you don’t know, and don’t speak everything that you do know.” Good advice with which to lead your life.

In my final entry about Chiang Mai food, we make a special drive out of town to try a Lamphun style restaurant, and I explain a bit about what makes Northern Thai food unique.

Food in Chiang Mai: Huen Phen

Posted on 15 August 2011 by christao408

When four independent sources, sources who are friends, colleagues, and other trustworthy sorts, recommend a restaurant, it’s a fair bet that the restaurant is worth visiting. For our first dinner in Chiang Mai, we wanted to eat somewhere in town that was well-known for its Northern Thai cuisine. We ended up at Huen Phen, located on Rachamankha Road in the southwestern quadrant of the old city.

There’s sort of a funny story about how we ended up here. Our first afternoon in the city, we met an American retiree friend, Vic, who has just recently moved to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. Vic is the sort of person who, shall we say, likes to stay in his comfort zone. When we met in the late afternoon, Vic suggested several restaurants we could eat at, all of which were branches of Bangkok chains, all of which were located in the city’s largest mall, and none of which featured Northern Thai cuisine.

Somewhat surprisingly, we persuaded Vic to join us at Huen Phen. We almost lost him along the way, though. We didn’t have a precise address so parked in front of a nearby temple and asked some locals. They said the restaurant was several blocks away and recommended we drive there. Once back in the car, following their directions we headed down a small, dark side street. By this point, Vic was getting a bit skeptical. Tawn saw a sign for parking, though, so we pulled to the curb, parked the car, and then walked up to the main street.

The exterior of the restaurant looked closed for business. Chairs were upturned on tables, the lights were out, and the gates were closed. Only this illuminated sign (can you guess which cola company sponsors it?) and a single gate were open.

As it turns out, there are actually two restaurants of the same name. The exterior restaurant, the one that was closed, is the lunchtime restaurant. It serves basically the same food but all prepared in large pots. The dinner restaurant is located down this narrow path that passes through a garden. Only a chalkboard sign posted on an easel pointed out the way. It was enough to make you think they didn’t want to be found all that easily.

The interior of the restaurant is packed with antiques and bric-a-brack, mostly Thai in nature. In appearance it is like a Lanna version of TGI Fridays. We had to wait only a few minutes before we were shown to our tables. As busy as the restaurant was, I’d imagine reservations are a good idea.

The crowd was mixed, although there were a lot of tourists. This is a worrying sign as restaurants that have too many tourists and not enough locals usually aren’t very good. Thankfully, though Huen Phen was every bit as good as all our friends, colleagues, and the employees of our hotel had promised.

We ordered quite a few dishes, considering there were just three of us eating. This first dish, a Northern Thai classic, is nam prik ong. It is minced pork with tomatoes and is only mildly spicy. It is served with blanched vegetables and is eaten as a dip.

The second dish was another type of dip called nam prik noom. “Nam prik” means chilli sauce. This is made from fire-roasted green chilies and the spiciness varies depending on how many of the seeds and how much of the seed membrane are left in. In this case, it was pretty darn hot. The use of nam prik is one way Northern Thais consume a lot of vegetables and it sure beats ranch dip any day of the week.

The third dish, also served with some vegetables on the side was sai oua, the ubiquitous Northern Thai pork sausage flavored with kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal root, red curry paste, and turmeric. It is usually only moderately spicy. This is a favorite dish of mine because I think the very herbal flavor of the sausage is distinct and enjoyable.

We also had gai tod, or fried chicken, seasoned with their special blend of herbs and spices. Very juicy and even finger lickin’ better than some other friend chicken recipes. It is served with the sweet chilli dipping sauce that is common with fried chicken in Thailand.

This is a version of larb muu, a minced pork salad that is actually more commonly associated with Issan, or Northeastern Thai cuisine. It is made with shallots, lemongrass, lime juice, and ground toasted rice. Very tasty. You may be noticing a theme here in the fact that meat is usually served as an accompaniment to vegetables, not as the main attraction.

A dish that I’ve never tried before and we thought would be interesting: gaeng khanoon sii khrong muu. It is a soup made with young jack fruit and pork ribs in a tamarind-flavored broth. I thought this was very tasty and something I would seek out again.

Of course, everything was eaten with this northern staple, khao niaw, or sticky rice. The traditional way is to eat with your hands, pinching off a small amount of rice, rolling it into a ball, and then dipping it into sauces, curries, etc. We used our fork and spoon as is the more contemporary Thai custom.

A final dish (although we ate a few more, I did not get photographs of them) was this Northern Thai/Burmese classic, gaeng hong lay. This is a stewed pork dish that has a broth made of tomato and curry. On one level, it bears some resemblance to massaman curry, but that is a much thicker and less tomatoey dish. This dish, which I ate a lot of while in Chiang Mai, is one of my all-time favorite dishes.

Our entire meal, which was a ton of food for three people, totaled 900 baht or 30 US dollars. From a Thai perspective, that’s a pricey meal, but by the standards of the quality and quantity of food, it was still quite inexpensive.

Now, to clear something up, while the restaurant spells its name “Huen Phen”, the pronunciation is more like huu-in pain with the “huu” pronounced through a wide smile. Because if you pronounce it as the restaurant chose to write it, you will likely not be understood. Especially if you pronounce the “ph” as “f”. The “f” sound is always transliterated with an “f” in Thailand, never with a “ph”. (Phuket is pronounced “puu get”, for example.)

christao408

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

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