I blog about phat Thai on occasion, but mostly for you people. I realize it’s huge abroad, particularly in the US, but to be honest, I’m not such a big fan of the stuff. Generally find it kinda stodgy and greasy, particularly when compared to a lot of Thai food out here.

But occasionally I’ll meet a vendor that changes my perceptions of a dish. This was the case a while back when I went to Chinatown with my friend Be. She was born in the area and wanted to take me to some of the places where she ate when she was a kid. One of these was open-air stall serving tiny dishes of phat Thai on Thanon Ratchawong.

I had walked by this stall heaps of times previously, but had never stopped by or noticed anything in particular about it. It took Be’s help and a closer look to reveal what I had been missing. To begin with, the couple, like many vendors in Bangkok’s Chinatown, fry the dish over hot coals:

which provides the dish with a subtle smokey flavour. The noodles that they use are thinner than regular phat Thai noodles, and are chopped into short lengths. They’ve also been cooked beforehand, having been previously fried with most of requisite ingredients (sliced shallots, dried shrimp, bits of firm tofu, seasoning, egg). To order, they pull out the pre-cooked noodles and then heat them up with bean sprouts, chopped Chinese chives and additional seasoning. To go orders are served in krathong, the tiny banana leaf cups shown at the top of this post.

The couple work pretty slowly, and there are usually lots of to go orders, so this isn’t exactly fast food. But if you’re patient, you’ll be rewarded with a phat Thai that is rich and liberally-seasoned rather than stodgy and bland (Be reckons they use duck eggs, which could contribute to this).  And despite being re-fried, the dish isn’t particularly oily either. Not quite sure how they accomplish that.

Phat Tha Ratchawong
Thanon Ratchawong
Most nights, 7-11pm

View Thai Eats in a larger map

and happen upon a drunk Kiwi chef grilling chicken on the side of the street, don’t be alarmed; foreigners haven’t started taking menial jobs, and food standards haven’t yet dropped that much. Rather, Hock and I simply wanted to make frango no churrasco, Portuguese-style grilled chicken.

You see, my new place doesn’t allow coal-burning stoves, so we asked the streetside Isaan restaurant downstairs if we could use their grill. They were kind enough to oblige, and the next day we brought down two small Thai free-range chickens that I had marinated overnight in my own homemade molho de piri-piri (dried phrik kariang chilies from Mae Hong Son, olive oil, garlic, vinegar, salt):

After removing the birds from the marinade, Hock spatchcocked them two different ways: one he cut down the breastbone and the other down the spine:

After a few minutes of grilling, it appeared that the latter seemed to work better, as it meant that the thicker breast meat was in the centre of the chicken, directly above the fire. Hock also pointed out that, whereas Americans and Australians happily go about spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on complicated barbecue systems, this guy, like many other Thai street vendors, gets by with an enamel basin and a wire grill. This is really all one needs, since we were grilling, not smoking, and a lid isn’t even necessary.

The coals were hot but not flaming, and it took a good 45 minutes to cook, all the while we drank our beers and received strange looks from passing Thais. Our kind sponsor helped us pass the time with shots of yaa dong, a bright-red, sickly-sweet Thai herbal liquor. In return, we gave him some chicken, our recipe and money for new coals.

The result was so tasty we forgot to take a pic of it.

Andy “Richter” Ricker, chef/owner of Pok Pok and Ping, makes som tam on the Today show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And Nong’s Khao Man Gai stall is written up in the Oregonian.

Vegetarians, cover your eyes: this is a particularly flesh-laden post. But in its defense I’d have to say that Ko Tek Chiang 3 is one of the best uses of meat that I’ve encountered in a long time.

The flesh in question is in the form of toon, a Chinese-style slow braise:

It’s a simple dish, consisting of cuts of pork or beef simmered until tender and served with a seasoned broth, a pinch of veggies and, if desired, rice.

We stuck with the nuea toon, beef (shown at the top of this post). The slices you see at the top of the bowl are tongue, which have their own particular meaty flavour and were virtually fall-apart tender. Below that you’ll find bits of beef similar to the Vietnamese-style corned beef one finds in pho, and the Thai favourite, big strips of gelatinous tendon. The broth has a pleasant amber colour and is peppery to the point of being spicy. The dish is truly, meatily wonderful, but, in what must be the proprietor’s bizarre inside joke, is served with some of the worst rice I’ve encountered anywhere in Thailand.

The other downside: Ko Tek Chiang 3 is located way out in Muang Thong Thani. The “3″ in the name implies that there are two branches elsewhere, but they have no business card so I wasn’t even able to establish an accurate address for this one. The Google Map location below, pinpointed with the consul of my iPhone, should be accurate though.

But it’s worth the drive for the tongue alone.

Ko Tek Chiang 3
Bond St., Muang Thong Thani
Lunch

View Thai Eats in a larger map

The name of this stall means ‘rising flame’, a reference to how the phat thai here is fried a small wok, which allows the flames to char the noodles. This is a substantial difference with the vast majority of phat thai, as the dish is generally made on a wide flat surface with no flames at all.

The vendor sets up at the little alleyway of ‘famous’ stalls at the popular Soi 38 night market, and in addition to flames, there are a few more interesting things about how he rolls. He begins the dish by flash-frying shrimp, dried shrimp and tofu in plenty of oil over a very, very hot flame. Next, the fire is turned down and dry rice noodles are moistened with a few splashes of tinned milk and seasoned with sugar, vinegar, dried chili and fish sauce. The heat is increased again and the noodles and seasonings are mixed thoroughly (shown above). After a few seconds, chopped Chinese chives and bean sprouts are tossed in and the dish is removed. In a new wok, he then scrambles a few eggs over a very high heat and when cooked, adds these to the noodle mixture. And when serving the dish, instead of the usual sliced banana flower, he uses a few sprigs of pennywort.

Unfortunately, despite all these clever variations, the result is a pretty bog standard dish of phat thai:

Not bad, but wholly unremarkable, and most sadly, lacking the smokiness that I assume was the intent of making the dish in this manner.

Oh well.

Phat Thai Fai Look
Corner Thanon Sukhumvit & Soi 38
8pm-late

View Thai Eats in a larger map