Category: Thailand

Thailand, Digested: Bonus Bug Round

There’s a lot of weird stuff to eat in Asia: dogs, snakes, sketchy-looking eggs. And bugs.

I like food. I’ll taste almost anything. But I refuse to play the macho “what’s the weirdest thing you ever ate” game, and if I’m just not hungry, well…I’m just not hungry.

That’s what happened to Peter and me the day we finally saw bugs for sale. We had just spent several hours grazing heavily at Chatuchak and Or Tor Kor markets. First, we had some strawberries:

Strawberries

Then we had some fried chicken:

Chatuchak Chicken

Then we went to Or Tor Kor and ate all kinds of beautiful fruit. We didn’t have any durian, though, partially because they looked so menacing:

Sneaky Durians

Straight out of a sci-fi film. Imagine the stinky but strangely custardy aliens that would burst forth!

Anyway, we were finally trudging back to the SkyTrain when we passed the cart selling bugs. They were all deep-fried and covered in salt, and you could mix and match about five different varieties. Peter stopped. “Bugs?” he asked, halfheartedly. “Enh,” I answered, weakly. It was 3pm–naptime–and 95 degrees. We kept walking.

“I thought you’d be the one to talk me into it!” Peter said, with a shade of disappointment in his voice.

“Sorry–I’m stuffed,” I sighed. I did feel a little regretful.

Not long after we got home to New York, we invited a few people over for a bonanza Thai dinner. Peter pedaled off to the Thai grocery in the next neighborhood over. He came back with durian chips, dried shrimp, lemongrass, perky little ‘mouse-shit’ chilis…and frozen bugs.

They were labeled “crickets,” but lord help me if I ever see a live cricket that big. These crickets had full-on biceps and quadriceps. Even through the plastic wrap, I could see the texture in their wings.

To make them extra unappealing, they were labeled “fish bait”–to convince the FDA that no nutritional labeling was required. I gulped.

“How do we cook them?” Peter asked.

I told Peter that was his department, and tried to put the whole thing out of my head.

Fast-forward to dinnertime. A crowd of hungry friends is in the living room, eating crispy spring rolls. The fat is still hot in the wok.

“I’m gonna go ahead and cook these,” Peter said to me, “but I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to eat them.”

They sizzled and popped in the frying oil, and came out looking even more creepy and glossy. Peter sprinkled them with salt and sugar and whisked the plate out to the coffee table.


There was a short pause, a collective moment of anxiety, and then our friend Katie shrugged and popped one in her mouth.

“Huh, they’re good,” she said, shrugging again.

Well played, Ms. Trainor. Well played. Now of course we all felt like idiots and had to dig in. I eyeballed mine. His glossy head and torso looked like they would explode with goo when I bit in. I closed my eyes and chomped off the back half of the cricket.

In a single instant, the cricket transformed from horrifying over-large bug to…tasty bar snack. It was crispy and salty and would go great with a beer. And it was nearly hollow–any inner goo had been cooked away in the deep fryer.

As I marveled at the capacity of the human brain to transform everything into food, I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. I started to gag–I could feel the cricket’s hairy little legs scraping around in my mouth. They refused to succumb to my teeth, the bastards. I finally had to spit a nasty wad of gray, gritty stuff out into the trash. I was glad I wasn’t doing this on a Bangkok street.

About this time, I heard Katie–who is known for her ability to eat a chicken leg clean down to the bone–say from the other room, “Oh, yeah–they’re a little better if you pull the legs off first.”

I didn’t try another. But a couple people, including Peter, ate two or three. They were a hit. And now I know: next time I’ll rip the legs off. Because I’m an omnivore with an incredible capacity for rationalizing what I’m eating…but my teeth are not that powerful.

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 5

Last of the top 5 Thai delights, but certainly not least…

5) Crab omelet and tom yum. We took advantage of one of our fine Bangkok hosts, Jarrett Wrisley. He had treated us splendidly one night, introducing us to excellent people and feeding us Isan-style grilled chicken, an amazing eggplant salad, scrumptious larb, etc., all under a big old tent by an expressway. Heaven. Then he took us out and got us drunk, the Thai way, on a bottle of whiskey and club soda and a splash of Coke. (Well, first there was drunkenness the Thai hipster way, with radioactive-color slushies.)

And then, at the end of the night, he happened to drop the fact that he was having dinner with Rick Bayless the next night. Our eyes bugged out. Rick Bayless, Ambassador of Lard! (Peter and I imagine that he pops up out of nowhere every time we use lard–“Oh, Rick Bayless! Thanks for joining us!”–and he tells us fun facts about it.) Rick Bayless, Mr. Mexico! Seriously, he’s a chef I’m impressed with no end.

So we tagged along when Jarrett met Rick and his family at a restaurant called Raan Jay Fai, and in addition to getting to meet this guy and talk lard facts with him (and it turns out he has read and liked Forking Fantastic!–astounding!), we also got yet another amazing meal.

Raan Jay Fai--Inside

The crab omelet was, as Peter said, the best crab cake ever. Really–that’s how much crab was in it. Decadent. And the tom yum, the hot-sour seafood soup, was so bright and sharp and intense that it just sliced through my brain–and that was before I saw the shrimp in it that was bigger than my fist. (Does that still count as a shrimp?)

And that was also before I admired up close the restaurant’s kitchen: a couple of woks set on top of charcoal fires, in the alley next to the dining room.

Raan Jay Fai

That was our last real dinner in Bangkok. As usual, I wish I’d eaten more. But here’s another remarkable thing about Thai food culture: all the food comes in refreshingly small portions. And because there’s so damn much bounty everywhere, we never felt anxious, like we had to stock up on the tastiness, and so paced ourselves admirably, and managed to eat very moderately the whole time.

Which does me no good now, sitting here in the freezing blandness that is the northeastern United States. Peter and I have cooked a ton of Thai food since we got home, but of course it’s not quite the same. It’s not 95 degrees and humid, and there aren’t hot-pink taxis whizzing past, for one. We’re not eating with spoons, for two. (OK, yes, we are–it still doesn’t help.)

To take the edge off a little, I started reading David Thompson’s massive Thai Food book a little more closely. (Ack! Thai Street Food coming this October!)

In the history chapter, there’s a quote from a Thai ambassador to France in the 17th century. The guy says, “Here are few spices and much meat, and an attraction of quantity replaces piquant wholesomeness.” Oh, snap!

I’ve ranted a little on this blog before about how annoying it is that the French went and made themselves the bosses of the food world. It seems even more ridiculous now.

All that’s getting me through: how soon can I go back?

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 4

I’m usually a sweet breakfast person. (A wise friend once said: “For breakfast and dessert, you’re totally allowed to stick with your own culture.” This was after she’d had to endure too many nasty Japanese “desserts,” I think.)

But Thailand changed all that. When the food is this amazingly good, why pussy-foot around just because it’s before noon? Bring on the noodles! (It helps that you can get crazy-sweet iced coffee and tea first thing in the a.m., though.)

Which brings us to the next tasty item…

4) Goose. In a culture where there’s not much roasting going on, I was a little leery of going to a Chinese restaurant that served nothing but goose. I could only think of fat and flabby skin. But how can you argue with the man at the Atlanta Hotel who describes it in swooning tones? And who makes the front-desk girl call the restaurant, ask if they still have goose (at 11am–apparently they usually run out before noon), and write down the directions for a cab driver?

Goose Directions

So we go. The cabbie gets frustrated by traffic and lets us out early. We show our piece of paper to various people on the sidewalk. They squint, then their eyes light up with delight. Yes! That goose place! They point enthusiastically down the street. One man even shadows us for a couple of blocks, pointing straight ahead every time we pause and look doubtful.

There are still two geese hanging from hooks when we get there. (Yes, we even have to show the piece of paper to the woman at the restaurant–Are you this? we gesture.) One is chopped up for us, served with its poaching liquid, all star anise-y, and a killer garlic relish. Rice on the side. Cold tea to wash it down. We are content. It is the best breakfast ever.

Goose--Before

As a bonus, on the way back down the street, we pass everyone we’d asked for directions. Did you find it? they gesture. Yes! we gesture back. Two thumbs up! Thank you kindly! They smile.

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 3

What else did I eat in Thailand? Well…there was a larger category of:

3) Things that looked like other things. Early in our Bangkok visit, we found a little food court setup–a bunch of carts around a huge collection of plastic tables, all set in what looked like a converted parking lot. We foolishly thought, What luck! We’ve wound up near some exceptional street food!

Food Court

That was before we understood that there was a food court like this, oh, every other block?

But one thing they had at this market that I didn’t see anywhere else in quite the same form was…

Faux Taco

…tacos?

No–they were sweet. I had such cognitive dissonance while eating it that I couldn’t figure out what was in it. (This is what I imagine the entire meal at El Bulli is like?) But generous food expert and fellow Lonely Planet writer Austin Bush, who happens to live right around the corner from this particular food court and maintains the excellent Bangkok food map, was able to tell me they’re khanom beuang, “made from a bean-based batter and filled with sweetened egg yolks and dried fruit.” Ah-ha. (Also, he says there is a savory version, with shrimp in. They probably look like waffles or something… Which reminds me, the waffles in Thailand are delicious too!)

Another confusing thing we ate, though not nearly so mind-bending, were these poffertjes.

Coconut Poffertjes

Oh, no–wait. Poffertjes are Dutch mini-pancakes. These were made in the exact same cast-iron trays, but distinctly non-European–the batter was made with coconut milk, and there were scallions sprinkled on top. (And of course no butter on top–I actually heard someone laugh at the idea of cooking with butter while I was in Thailand.)
Certainly the first time I’ve encountered scallions in a sweet context. These were in Chiang Mai, in a totally fabulous market we just happened to walk by–as we were getting very used to doing by that time, and it was only Day 3.

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 2

Continuing my swooning praise of Thai food culture…

2) “Orange” juice. How can I convey the insane pleasure that comes from slurping up a straw-ful of what you think will be just plain old orange juice…only to discover it is the sweetest, tangiest, most intense tangerine nectar you’ve ever drunk? It was tangerine season–the streets were filled with the things. I’m crying a little just thinking about it. I wish I had drunk more.

And I know it’s bad form to dwell on just how cheap things are when you travel, but…it was only 30 cents. Again, I’m crying.

And I’m sorry I don’t have a photo. It looked just like orange juice. Here’s me with some giant fake fish balls instead. They’re orange too.

Fish Balls

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***

Thailand, Digested: Top 5 Delights, Part 1

Grilled BananasOK, before we begin, I just want to make something very clear–something that other people failed to do for me before I visited Thailand. (To be fair, Cristina did come closest to warning me, in the way her eyes gleamed when she talked about the place.)

Sure, I read that the Thais have a very strong food culture. Yes, I knew they were into street food. Yes, I was sure Thai food in Thailand would be very different from what we get in restaurants here. But this did not even begin to scratch the surface of the truth:

The Thais are complete maniacs about food!

Really. Slavering maniacs. In the best possible way. I have never been anywhere where people are so food obsessed. I’ve been to France. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve been to Aleppo, where everything is delicious and people talk about food all the time.

But none of this was anything like Thailand. People are eating 24 hours a day. You cannot walk a block in Bangkok without passing some stall selling food. And not just, like, hot dogs. This is food that involves a dozen ingredients, and it’s made to order. Food that is deep-fried on the spot. Food that is simmered to perfection. Food that is savory. Food that is sweet. Food that is mind-blowingly both.

I left Thailand more than two weeks ago, and I still quite can’t believe all that I saw and ate, and we barely scratched the surface. So, to bring some arbitrary order to the buzzed incoherence, I put together a short list of the best things we ate. And because I got too enthusiastic while typing, I broke each item into a separate post. So:

1) Cockles and mussels. This was the night the true bizarreness of Thai food culture finally sank in. We walked all day through Chinatown, which, because it was Sunday, happened to be mostly closed. We had some dumplings and some noodles with spicy beef and also some meat on a stick, and some odd little deep-fried puffs. Like I said, most everything was closed.

Late in the afternoon, we finally got over to a dedicated market zone, but everyone was closing up shop. I got a charger for my phone for $2, so it wasn’t a complete loss. We figured we’d wander back to the nearest metro stop and skip out of this dead neighborhood. The area was also oddly dirty. (This is another thing no one told me about Thailand: the Thais are total clean freaks. Not a shred of lettuce on the ground in a market, for instance.)

And that was when we turned onto Thanon Yaowarat.

While we’d been walking around in the shuttered business-y part of Chinatown, half of Bangkok was setting up the dinner stalls along this street. And the other half of Bangkok had arrived to eat. Imagine the strip in Vegas, but with all the neon in Thai and Chinese characters, and instead of casinos, restaurants selling various parts of pigs. And then add a second layer of sidewalk restaurants.

We wound up on a side street called Soi Texas, where every sort of seafood was available. Which was where we sat by a street cart and ate the clammiest little cockles, with black-bean sauce, and meaty mussels, all shucked by a husband-wife-daughter team who were totally in the zone.

Cockles and Mussels

After this, as well as some satay from some other alley, we finally staggered out of Chinatown. We went to a crazy-deluxe movie theater (Barca-lounger seats, with pillows and blankets) at a mall, but not before getting briefly lost on the ground-floor food court. Which was, of course, mobbed (I thought everyone was in Chinatown!) and delicious-looking, even in its upscale-ness. After the movie, we staggered out of the mall and peered over the SkyTrain platform onto the street below. And of course the street was lined with street carts, all of which were thronged with customers. That’s when Peter and I just started laughing out loud.

Sidewalk Food Stalls

To be continued….

**For more pics, see my Flickr set.***