coffee or tea

The above is not a question, but rather the name of a new restaurant on Soi Sena 1, not far from my house. From the outside it looked like the kind of cute cafe/restaurant that seem to be popping up everywhere in Thailand. In reality it was much more basic, and was the kind of inexpensive and basic eating place that university students thrive on. Sometimes these places can be good. Sometimes they can be great. This one was almost good.

I started with khao khluk kapi:

This is rice that has been cooked with shrimp paste (kapi) and topped with sour shredded mango, sliced omelet, cucumber, chilies, dried shrimp and Chinese sausage, among other things. This dish usually includes a side of muu waan, pork stir-fried in copious sugar and minimal soy sauce, which I don't care for and always ask them to hold. I've actually been wanting to feature this dish for a long time, it's a brilliant Thai invention, but this is not the greatest example, as the dish is usually much more attractively arranged. In addition, the best khao khluk kapi have a few more toppings, and come with a bowl of broth.

We also had flash-fried morning glory:

a dish that probably constitutes a good third of out diet! It's crunchy, garlicky, salty and green, and everything else that's good.

And the last was tom yam po taek thale:

Po taek (literally "broken pier", not sure why), is simply tom yam with the addition of bai kraphrao (I think this is called "holy basil" in English). This one was extremely spicy; I reckon there's few groups of people around the world who can tolerate food of this heat other than the Thais. The 'shrooms were nice, but the seafood (shrimp, squid, fish) was crap.

Tacos!

As the title suggests, this post is definately NOT about Thai food. But after living here for nearly seven years now, one does get the odd craving for some Western-style food. Rather than satisfying this urge by eating at overpriced and underwhelming restaurants, I usually just make it myself.

My latest craving was tacos. Not Old El Paso crispy shell ground beef iceberg lettuce American tacos, but real tacos, as illustrted in this fun New York Times piece. This, coupled with the blog mentioned in the article, The Great Taco Hunt, put me over the edge; I had to make tacos. Luckily, or coincidentally, or both, it just so happened that Mark Bittman recently did a piece on making tacos. Following his recipe for Pastor, marinated pork, I went out, bought the ingredients, and here are the results (not the greatest pics--I was really anxious to try them!):

They really came out quite nicely. Bittman's recipe involved marinading the pork overnight in a mixture of dried spices (coriander, cumin, peppercorns and cinnamon) and orange and lime juice. The next step required roasting the meat in an oven, but as I don't have an oven, I just simmered the meat in a bit of water in a large pot. After about two hours I took off the lid to allow the liquid to evaporate and the meat was incredibly tender and fragrant.

Here you can see the condiments:

I made a guacamole (with Thai avocadoes), a salsa fresca (with Thai jalapenos and some nice tomatoes) and a chile colorado sauce, recipe courtesy of the excellent RollyBrook Mexican food blog.

Even the tortillas were made in Thailand, an included a semi-decent corn tortilla:

And a less decent flour torilla:

Will definately be making tacos again.

A market dinner

It's Tuesday, and that means mini market night in my neighborhood. Not too much to choose from on Tuesdays--Saturday is big market day--but there is one lady selling decent northern Thai food, which is what I ended up choosing.

Many of you are familiar with laap (or laab or larb), but I doubt many of you have tried the northern version, laap khua:

Khua means fried, and in this dish ground pork, along with pork liver, heart, tripe, skin and intestines, are sauteed with a curry paste. The curry paste contains a dried herb called ma khwaen, which gives this dish a spicy "numbing" flavor, somewhat similar to Szechuan pepper.

With this I had the northern staple, nam phrik num:

A "dip" of grilled chilies, garlic, tomatoes and shallots eaten with deep-fried pork rinds:

and par-boiled and fresh veggies:

All of this was taken, as is the tradition, with sticky rice. A decent meal--and all for 45 baht ($1.25)!

Noodle re-run

Today's lunch was taken at a local noodle joint that I've previously described here. Don't normally like to do reruns, but this place has a great dish that I've only recently discovered. The dish is called hoy jor, and looks like this:

Hoy jor is ground pork mixed with crab and copious black pepper, which is then wrapped in a tofu skin and deep-fried. It's similiar to the dish mentioned here, and is essentially a protein-based spring roll. The dish is served with a sweetish plum dipping sauce that is easily forgettable, but the hoy jor itself is crispy outside and tender inside, and has so much pepper it's almost spicy. Very good--we usually get two dishes.

Another thing I ordered that I usually don't is crysanthemum juice:

Don't think I'll be doing that again. Way too sweet, and tastes like a Chinese apothecary smells!

And I couldn't resist the usual, kwaytiao khae:

The meatballs and fishballs (there are about five different kinds) here are outstanding.

Cream of the earth

I recently wrote a piece for ThaiDay about the various kinds of milk--goat, organic and "real" yogurt--now available in Thailand. There are some interesting people doing some neat things with dairy products nowadays, something of a surprise, considering that a generation ago milk was regarded with considerable suspicion by most Thais. Link here.

These are my most viewed pics...?

I've recently been posting all the images you see here at Flickr, as it gives me more control over the quality of the images. I really like the service and its functions, especially the one that allows one to see how many times an image has been viewed. It's fun to see which pics people are interested in, and up to this point, the pic below is, for some reason, has been my most viewed image:

What is it that interests people about this photo? Is it the woman? Is it chicken? The juxtaposition of chicks and chicken? I think it might be the last one, as my second most viewed photo at the time of writing is this:

!!

And before the above were added, my most viewed pic was this:

The missus's friend eating a bowl of noodles (pork) in Sukhothai! Chicks and food! Now I know what people want, so don't be surprised if you start to see more of this.

Bak Kut Teh

This is dish of Chinese origin normally associated with Singapore and Malaysia that I've been seeing more and more of in Bangkok. In the best tradition of investigative food journalism, I selflessly decided to see what all the fuss was about and stopped by a local place cleverly named Ba Kut Teh.

The signature dish, bak kut teh, is a thickish stew served in an earthenware bowl:

The fragrant broth contained the requisite pork ribs and joints as well as a couple kinds of mushroom and some cabbage. The stew was served with two sauces, soy sauce and a spicy-sour chili sauce, and a bowl of plain rice. It was good, but didn't quite have the deep flavor of something that had been simmering for hours. Judging by the current popularity of this dish, I'm sure there's got to be better bak kut teh out there than this, and I'll be keeping my eyes open from now on.

As sides we ordered a dish of khanom jeep, steamed "dumplings" of ground pork and crab:

and an odd but oddly delicious deep-fried sausagelike "roll" of meat and veggies:

also very nice. All in all a good eat, and a nice break from the usual Thai suspects.

Eating the island

As mentioned earlier, I recently did a piece for ThaiDay on the local cuisine of Ko Samui. Seeing as most of the images that have already been blogged, rather than rehash them again, here is a direct link to the article at the ThaiDay site. Read it. In my opinion it's the most interesting piece I've done for them yet.

Bangkok B&W Episode 5

Am making every effort to improve my photo skillz, and today took a jaunty stroll through the sunny streets of Bangkok, gaily snapping photos of the gentle natives. OK, of course it wasn't like that; car exaust from rush hour nearly made me vomit and two people yelled at me for taking their photos, but it was still good fun. I started at the Saphan Taksin BTS station and made my way along Charoen Krung Road all the way to Chinatown, a long walk that I've never done in its entirety.

Taken from Takin Bridge, these are commuters getting off the Chao Phraya Express Boat:

and getting off the river crossing boat from Thonburi:

Just up the road a bit is the Bang Rak market. Can you tell what these people are doing? (It would be much easier if there was color.):

Noy naa (custard apples) for sale along Charoen Krung:

And street vendors:

Approaching Chinatown there is an area where there are countless shops that deal in used engine parts:

How many Thais can you fit in a tuk tuk?

Not hard to tell what part of town these were taken in:

Kan Eng

Tonight's dinner was at a khao tom restaurant called Kan Eng ("On Our Own", or something similiar). As I think I've mentioned before, khao tom literally means "boiled rice" and usually refers to a dish of rice soup, such as this, featured previously. However in another sense it can also refer to the repertoire of made-to-order Chinese-style dishes that are typically consumed with small bowls of watery boiled rice.

We started with tom jap chay, a Chinese-style "stew" of pork ribs, mustard greens, dried mushrooms, white radish and whole garlic cloves (!):

And there were hoy talaep (I think that's what they're called...?):

Small cockles that look and taste like rubber, and when eaten raw, emit an alarmingly red juice that looks like blood. These were par-boiled and served with a really strong garlic-chili-fish sauce "seafood" dipping sauce, which really made them taste just like the sauce (which made them edible).

This bad boy is probably one of my favorite Thai veggie dishes:

It's a stir fry of the of the tender stalks and leaves of the small gourd known as chayote (or mirleton if you're in New Orleans or fak maew in Thailand) with garlic and fermented soybeans. Incidentally, in a bizarre example of foodblogger synchronicity, this veggie is also the basis of a question in today's post at the Hanoi-based sticky rice. I think I've answered it.

And to complete our vegetable feeding frenzy, there was phat khanaeng fai daeng:

Khanaeng is a crunchy green leaf somewhere between brussels sprouts and kale (yes, such a thing exists), and is fried here with hearty chunks of salted preserved fish. Very salty, very garlicky, and very good.

More Vietnamese

Only a few days back from Hanoi and already longing for (good) spring rolls and banh xeo... Luckily the Thais like Vietnamese nosh as well, be it their own slightly different interpretation of it. Unfortunately Thai restaurants serving Vietnamese usually spin about four or five of the same dishes, most of which are illustrated below. (Oddly enough, pho, probably the most famous Vietnamese dish of all, is quite hard to find.) This usually makes for pretty predictable eating unless you find the odd place that really stands out, like I did today. The place is called Nong Khai (not this Nong Khai featured previously, although they have similiar menus), and has the best Vietnamese-Thai/Thai-Vietnamee I've come across yet. Witness:

We started with deep-fried spring rolls:

Pretty darn good--comperable to stuff I ate in Hanoi actually. Although these were filled with ground pork, and I prefer the Vietnamese crab-filled variety.

Next was another Thai-Vietnamese staple and the restaurant's signature dish, naem nueang. This is a kind of grilled pork sausage:

served with chopped fruits and veggies (unripe banana, cucumber, garlic, unripe mango, chilies), rice paper, a peanut-based sauce and a tray of fresh herbs. You take a piece of lettuce and top it with the sausage and whatever else you fancy:

Again, this place did a really good version. The herbs were all fresh and clean, and the grilled sausage delicious. Usually I don't care for the peanut sauce as it can often be very sweet, but this one was just right.

Next was banh xeo, what Thais call khanom bueang yuan:

Normally a tasteless oily sheet filled with ground pork, this one was delicious, the outside being both crispy and tasty, and the filling of bean sprouts and pork sausage very nice.

Lastly was kuay jap yuan, a thickish noodle soup with pork ribs and Vietnamese sausage, and topped with fresh herbs:

Again, much better than the standard. Looks like I know where I'll be getting my quasi-Vietnamese fix.

Northern nosh

Good northern Thai food is very, very hard to find in Bangkok. By comparison, Isaan (NE Thai) is available on every corner, and southern Thai on every third corner, but one really has to search hard to find northern Thai eats here. Fortunately for me, a place opened not far from my house serving some pretty darn good ahaan meuang ("northern food"). Can't remember the name, but it's located in a quasi-yuppie shopping complex called, bewilderingly, Plaza Lagoon.

We started with northern hors d'oeuvres (that's actually what it was called in Thai), a platter of several dishes associated with northern Thai cooking:

As seen from above:

in the center you have nam phrik num, a "dip" of roasted chilies, shallots and garlic, at 12 o'clock some par-boiled veggies that are meant to be eaten with the dip, at 3 o'clock we've got khor muu yaang, grilled pork collar, served here with a spicy dip (not really a northern dish per se, but done very well nonetheless), at 6 o'clock is one of the most famous northern dishes of all, the herb and pork grilled sausage known as sai ua, and finally at 9 o'clock, deep-fried pork rinds, another northern specialty, meant to be taken with the nam phrik num. The only loser in this lot was the nam phrik num, seemingly made a few days earlier and extremely limp and lifeless...

Next was kaeng phak waan plaa yaang, a soup/curry of phak waan ("sweet vegetable", a leafy green that is significantly more green and leafy than it is sweet) and dried fish:

Very, very good. Actually one of the best Thai dishes I've had in a long time. Like many northern Thai dishes, this soup makes somewhat unusual use of noodles, and is laden with glass jelly noodles.

And finally, this slightly blurry pic (sorry) is of another famous northern Thai dish, kaeng hang leh:

This is essentially a Burmese dish (hang being the Thai pronunciation of hin, the Burmese word for curry) and employs hearty chunks of pork belly (including the skin and fat) in sweetish-sourish sauce that is eerily similar to US-style barbecue sauce. This is not the most flattering comparison, I know, but trust me, it tastes much better than it sounds (and looks). This dish is often made in great amounts for northern Thai festivals and religious ceremonies. This restaurant's version was pretty good, but a bit thin and somewhat too sweet.

All in all a pretty good eat. Not as good of course as dinner in Mae Hong Son, but just about as good as it gets in Bangkok. I'll be back.

Breakfast in Trang

ThaiDay, 20/07/06

Southern city solves Thailand's morning blues with its Chinese dim sum breakfast buffets.

Despite the diversity and ubiquity of its cuisine, breakfast in Thailand can often be a dreary sight. The old standby, rice soup, soon becomes tedious after the first couple starchy, stodgy bowls. The omnipresent “American breakfast” consisting typically of oily fried eggs, lighter-than-air white bread, curiously colored hot dogs and undercooked bacon is neither breakfast nor American. And the combination of instant coffee and the oily deep-fried dough known as pa thong ko are enough to send most foreigners running in the other direction. What’s a traveler to do? My suggestion: go to Trang.

Located in southern Thailand, the relatively little-visited city of Trang seems to thrive on breakfast alone. Populated mostly by Thais of Chinese origin, the residents of this city have made early morning eating a true delight with atmospheric cafés that haven’t changed in decades, great halls dedicated to dim sum, and old-fashioned coffee shop-slash-food courts combining both caffeine and food.

“There are at least 70 dim sum shops in Trang city,” estimates Ja, owner of Ruean Thai (075 219 342), one of the city’s best-known dim sum eateries. In his cavernous restaurant located slightly outside downtown Trang, early risers are blessed with a selection of more than 40 steamed dim sum items. “We make all our dim sum by hand,” he explains with evident pride. “Many other places just buy the frozen dim sum and steam it.”

Ruean Thai’s dim sum ranges from quail eggs wrapped in ground pork to plain tofu, and the protocol is much like other dim sum restaurants in the city. After choosing a seat, diners are presented with a large tray of deep-fried dim sum items. You choose what you want, then walk over to the steaming counter where you select your steamed dim sum, which are steamed to order in bamboo trays. Every order is accompanied by a bottomless pot of Chinese tea, and despite the dish’s Chinese origins, chopsticks are nowhere to be seen, the people of Trang favoring tiny forks.

Steaming dim sum at Reuan Thai restaurant, one of the city's best known dim sum eateries.

Along with dim sum, many of Trang’s restaurants also feature another dish not normally associated with breakfast, roast pork. “Before people in Trang didn’t eat roast pork every day,” explains Prasert Namphut, owner of Trang Muu Yaang, a popular restaurant that sells the dish. “Before, it was only for special occasions, or given as an offering on Chinese holidays.”

Nowadays however muu yang, roast pork, is available every day, and in virtually every restaurant. The dish is prepared by marinating an entire pig for eight hours in a mixture of Chinese spices and sauces. “The recipe we use comes from China, it’s an old one that has been used here in Trang for a long time,” explains Prasert. After being marinated, the entire pig is roast for two hours in a giant oven. This relatively short cooking time gives Trang’s roast pork a crispy, nearly charred texture, much unlike the tender, juicy meat that most Americans would associate with barbecued pork.

Every part of the pig is sold, including the head and feet, but the most popular part is undoubtedly the delicious but fatty belly. This cut includes a crispy outer layer of skin, a tender layer of white meat, soft fat and a charred layer of dark meat. The belly is chopped into small bite-sized squares and is served plain along with dim sum, or over rice. Trang Muu Yaang’s roast pork was assertively oily, and the marinade had a sweetness associated with that of American-style barbeque sauce.

Other restaurants featuring similar selections of dim sum and roast pork are the popular Phong Ocha (075 219 918) and Ko Lan (075 222 925). The roast pork at Ko Lan was somewhat spicy, suggesting coriander and cumin, and had little of the barbeque sauce sweetness of its neighbor. However the skin was shatteringly crispy, and overall a bit too fatty to stomach for breakfast. Despite the grease, Trang’s roast pork is so popular that is has become a souvenir, and most shops sell the dish in decorative take-away boxes.

Trang Muu Yang serves dim sum and its popular specialty, roast pork, which is made using an old Chinese recipe.

If all you need in the morning is a simple cup of coffee, then Trang is also well equipped with numerous old-world cafés. Known locally as raan kopi, the shops are almost exclusively owned by Thais of Chinese origin, and many seem suspended in time, sporting the same décor and selling the products they have for decades.

Perhaps the oldest surviving raan kopi, and undoubtedly the most atmospheric, is Yu Chiang, located on Praram 6 Road near the market. Although the owners aren’t exactly sure how old the shop is (one said 60, another 100 years old), it is obvious that the Yu Chiang has changed very little since the day it opened. Faded green paint from the restaurant’s last renovation (50 years ago?) is coupled with ancient marble-top tables and rickety wooden chairs. Adding to the atmosphere is the shop’s clientele of crusty old men of Chinese origin, aged monks, and laborers smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.

Yu Chiang, a coffee shop in Trang, has changed little since its inception at least 60 years ago.

The coffee at Yu Chiang is still made the old way, using a sock-like filter filled with locally grown and roasted beans, and water from a charcoal-burning stove. The only thing that seems to have changed is the prices. “Coffee used to cost one baht a glass,” explains Yu Chiang’s friendly barista. “That seemed like a lot back then. Now it costs 10 baht, and that’s nothing today!”

For those seeking food with their atmosphere and coffee, there is no better choice than Asia Ocha. Located on Kantang Road, not far from the train station. Asia Ocha is a combination coffee shop and food center of the kind that is still found in Singapore and Malaysia, but hardly exists any more in Thailand. “The shop is no less than 50 years old,” explains Somlak Theekhasenee, the second-generation owner. “You can tell if a coffee shop is really old by looking at the tables. If they’re marble, then the shop is old,” he explains.

Making coffee the old-fashioned way, Yu Chiang coffee shop.

Asia Ocha’s tables are indeed both marble and old, however Somlak is proud of the shop’s original price list, a stained document stating that, at the time of its printing, coffee cost one baht per cup. He seems oblivious to the fact that his shop is in serious need of a paint job, something doesn’t which doesn’t seem the concern the numerous diners slurping noodles to the sound of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”.

Other unique coffee shop/restaurants include that of the Koh Teng Hotel (075 218 148), a building dating back to 1948 and located on Rama 6, and Sin Ocha (075 211 191), just steps from Trang’s railway station. The latter offers the usual combination of food and coffee, but without much of the old-world atmosphere. Sin Ocha was originally opened in 1967, but recently underwent a significant renovation and suggests little of its former self. This is made up for by the excellent coffee, which is probably the best in town. Served the traditional way, in short glasses with a dose of sweetened condensed milk, the coffee at Sin Ocha is made in a modern espresso machine, and even features a thin “crema” of foam at the top.

When asked why coffee shops are so popular in Trang, Sin Ocha’s second-generation owner, Sutus Chayankiat, explains that, “In the old days most people in Trang were involved in harvesting rubber. Going to a café after work was a way of exchanging news and info.” Although the people of today’s Trang are involved in a variety of jobs, the city’s raan kopi and dim sum restaurants still largely serve this purpose, and provide a convenient meeting place for locals, and more importantly for us, good coffee and a decent breakfast.

Hanoi

OK, this is going to be a big one. I just got back from six days in Hanoi, Vietnam and have a lot to share. I've been to Vietnam before, but never Hanoi, and found it to be one of the craziest and most intense, but also most photogenic places I've ever been. The food scene was definately interesting, but I think Graham at Noodlepie would probably agree with me if I said it wasn't as diverse or delicious as Saigon's. Nonetheless, it's still Vietnam, which invariably means good eats.

Probably the most famous Vietnamese dish of all is in fact a Hanoi dish:

Yes, pho. This beef noodle soup is available almost everywhere, from shops:

to the streets:

It's popular for breakfast, but I prefered this dish, which here in Thailand is known as khao kriap paak maw:

The dish is made by spreading rice flour and water mixture over a hot surface:

and the fresh "noodle" that results is then filled with pork and served with the dipping sauce and veggies seen above. Utterly delicious.

Other than pho, undoubtedly the most common dish in Hanoi is bun cha, grilled pork served with sides of rice noodles, fresh herbs and a sweet/sour dipping sauce. This dish can be found at virtually every corner in the city:

as well as at proper restaurants, this one in the Old Quarter:

A similar dish is made with chim, pigeon, this on Ta Hien street, which Graham refers to as "Pigeon Street"!

I love morning markets, and a unusual one could be found on Pho Hang Be in the Old Quarter. The weird thing about this market is that at exactly 7 AM, all of the vendors suddenly got up and ran away! Where they went and why I'm still not sure, but it made for some great photos:

Other things seen at this morning market were silkworm worms:

fruits:

and herbs:

A more or less stationary market is the Dong Xuan market, north of the Old Quarter:

Or if you chose, the market simply comes to you:

If you're thirsty after all this, then have a glass of freshly squeezed sugarcane juice:

Or a glass of beer at one of the many, many, many bia hoi ("draught beer") joints:

Or if you're hungry, have a dish of deep-fried eels:

or maybe some other seafood:

Some more, not entirely food-related photos from Hanoi can be seen at this Flickr slideshow, or at this page.

Outta here!

Off to Hanoi, Vietnam for a week. Will be sure to come back with lotsa food pics.

Austin

Island Eats

I was recently on Ko Samui. This was actually my first time there despite having lived in Thailand several years! I'm not much of a beach person and initially wasn't very impressed by the island, but after renting a motorcycle and exploring for a few days, the place really grew on me. The native Ko Samui people are among the friendliest I've ever met in Thailand, and the islands local cuisine was simply amazing.

I was on the island to do a story on the local cuisine for ThaiDay. That report will follow in the next week or so, but I was so excited about the food that I wanted to give a bit of a preview. Surprisingly, local food is quite hard to come by on Ko Samui. There are countless restaurants selling Japanese, German, English, Australian and Italian food, but there are only about six or so restaurants where local Ko Samui dishes are available. The most famous of which is almost certainly Bangpo Seafood (077 420 010), a low-key restaurant in the Maenam area. This place makes use of the more interesting local ingredients on Samui such as waay, a small octopus that is used fresh, or when out of season, dried:

At Pangpo Seafood waay is made into a thick stir-fry with coconut milk and fresh herbs:

Another unusual ingredient used by the locals is the eggs of the sea urchin. The raw roe is mixed with sour mango, chili paste, chilies and lime to make a yam, or Thai-style salad:

Fish also plays a big role, and ranges from tiny little "anchovies" deep-fried and served as an appetizer:

to larger fish, such as the one below, which as been coated with a mixture of coconut milk, fresh turmeric, black pepper and salt before being grilled over coals:

Coconut is Samui's largest crop and large stands of the tree can be found across the island:

The extracted milk from coconuts seems to find its way into nearly every local dish, as I learned when I met with Sermsi Thongrueang, a native of Samui and a woman with reputation as a good cook. She taught me how to make khao man thua khiaow, rice cooked with coconut milk, dried beans and salt:

And even grated a fresh coconut

to make khoei jii, a very unique appetizer of shrimp paste, shallots, garlic, coconut meat and chilies ground up, spread on a coconut shell and grilled:

Another good use of coconut was at Sabeinglae restaurant (077 233 083), near Malai. The restaurant serves a kaeng khua, a thick, rich coconut milk curry topped with fragrant cumin leaves:

The main ingredient in this curry was an acquatic creature called het loop:

Sabeinglae also serves an excellent dish similiar to the coconut-milk stir fry at Bangpo, but using squid and lots of crushed black pepper:

Samui is also home to some fun markets:

The green pods above are known in English as "stink bean", and are very very popular in southern Thai cooking.

Here's the Muslim fishing village at Hua Thanon:

the source of much of the island's seafood.

Puff piece

ThaiDay, 12/07/06

Exploring Saraburi, the country's curry puff capital.

Travelers passing through the small town of Saraburi, about 100 km north of Bangkok, may have noticed the almost absurd abundance of a particular snack. Resembling a small round pocket of dough similar to an Indian samosa or a Mexican empanada, the dish is sold in countless shops in the town and is known in Thai as kalee pap. If this doesn’t ring a bell, it may help if I reveal that kalee pap is the Thai pronunciation of the English words “curry puff”, and is a snack with obscure origins that has become wholly associated with this otherwise unremarkable town.

Curry puffs for sale at Renu, Saraburi.

Being one of the first major towns one reaches when driving north from Bangkok, the streets at the southern end of Saraburi are strategically lined with shops selling this deep-fried snack. On my way through the town one day I was astonished by the amount of curry puffs for sale, as well as the amount of people buying, and decided to stop by to learn about the origin of the snack and what it is that makes it so popular.

I stop in for a few curry puffs at Renu, one of the many shops selling the snack, and speak with the owner, Somjai Likhananusorn. “I’ve been making kalee pap for about six years,” explains Likhananusorn, who has been cooking all her life. Today she makes 13 varieties of curry puff, selling them every day from 5 AM to 9 PM. She estimates that she makes more than 1,000 a day. “Our best selling kalee pap are chicken and pork. After that it’s our fruit-flavored ones,” she explains.

At Renu, three people make the curry puff, each handling a different step.

I ask why curry puffs are so popular in Saraburi, and Likhananusorn says that the snack actually originates in nearby Muak Lek district of Nakhorn Ratchasima province. “Travelers liked the snack but complained that they had to go all the way to Muak Lek to buy it,” explains Likhananusorn. She describes how somebody got the idea of selling the snack in Saraburi, which is conveniently located along the main north-south highway. In typical Thai fashion, this person’s success inspired an almost overnight rush of people to start set up their own curry puff shops, and today kalee pap are now more associated with Saraburi than their original home just up the road.

Making curry puffs is a time-consuming process that I am able to witness first-hand at Likhananusorn’s tiny shop. She explains that the best method involves the cooperation of three people, the first of whom rolls out two discs of dough into a flat sheet about the size of a hand. By rolling two discs of dough on top of each other the snack obtains its characteristic layered look when deep-fried. Likhananusorn’s daughter then fills the dough with a heaping tablespoon of filling and folds the curry puff into its rough shape. Likhananusorn then finishes the process by deftly twisting its edges into something like a ropelike braid to seal it.

Somjai Likhananusorn, owner of Renu, gives the curry puffs a final twist.

When a batch is ready, the curry puffs are then deep-fried for about 20 minutes in a specially designed deep fryer with two frying basins. Working as a team in this manner, Likhananusorn’s daughter estimates that they can make as many as 400 curry puffs in an hour.

I mention that that kalee pap are very similar to samosa, and that the majority of the vendors I saw selling the snack in Muak Lek were Muslim, which coupled with the name, seems to suggest that curry puffs are Indian or Muslim in origin. “I’ve been told that it’s a Muslim dish,” says Likhananusorn. “But their kalee pap are different, they use butter in the dough and they don’t eat pork.”

In any event, as the name suggests, Renu’s chicken kalee pap are seasoned with a liberal amount of curry powder. However, as a result of the intense competition in Saraburi, vendors have to be creative, and today kalee pap can be found with fillings diverse as pork and shitake musroom, and pineapple and raisin.

Upon leaving I am given a box of curry puffs to take home. Finding myself stuck in traffic on the way back to Bangkok, I can’t resist the urge to nibble on a few. Crunching through one, I realize that curry puffs really are the ideal road food. They’re small, savory, filling, and at five baht each, a terrific value. Now if they could only do something about the crumbs…

Making chili water

Fiery Foods, August 2006

A lesson on Thailand's nam phrik kapi.

The first Thai dish I ever learned to make is probably the simplest Thai dish of all: Using a mortar and pestle, grind up a few small chilies with a couple cloves of garlic, squeeze in the juice of a lime, add sugar and a heaping spoonful of the pungent shrimp paste known as kapi, and mash this mess together until a thick gray muck results. The result: nam phrik kapi, one of the most common dishes in central Thailand.

Nam phrik, literally “chili water”, is the name of a family of spicy dips or relishes from Thailand. Normally eaten with rice and fresh or parboiled vegetables, nam phrik are well known to all Thais, but rarely seem to make it out of the country, and can even be hard to find in Thai restaurants in Thailand. They are generally homemade, often prepared using a well-worn granite mortar and pestle, and the recipes are as numerous as the chefs who grind them.

Nam phrik are probably among Thailand’s oldest recipes, and along with a curry or soup and a fried dish, are one of the essential elements of a “complete” Thai meal. The dish has even penetrated into the vernacular; a Thai friend recently told me he was “kin nam phrik jaak thuay derm”, literally, always eating nam phrik from the same bowl, an oblique way of saying that he was bored in his relationship.

Stripped down to its most basic elements, a nam phrik will usually encompass all of the four Thai tastes: salty, sweet, spicy and sour, although the various ingredients added to produce these flavors vary greatly. In general though, chilies, especially the tiny but pungent phrik khii nuu (“mouse shit chilies”) are used to add the heat, fresh-squeezed lime juice to add the sour flavor, and sugar, especially a kind of raw palm sugar called nam taan piib, to add the sweet taste. Some nam phrik are even flavored with maengdaa, a type of insect that secretes a fruit-like essence that is not as entirely unpleasant as it sounds. There are also “dry” nam phrik, which usually incorporate shallots, garlic, dried chilies and dried shrimp, all fried in oil until crispy, then ground together, and possessing such evocative names as nam phrik narok (“Hell Chili Paste”).

Nam phrik are probably the most regionally variable of Thailand’s foods, and one can usually tell what area of Thailand one is in simply by looking at the nam phrik on the dinner table. Northern Thais, fond of their vegetables, take the slender dark green chilies known as phrik num, roast them along with garlic and shallots, and mash the results together in the dish known as nam phrik num. This nam phrik is traditionally served with parboiled vegetables and deep-fried pork crackling, another northern Thai specialty. In far southern Thailand, the aforementioned nam phrik kapi is an obligatory side dish in most restaurants, and because the southern version tends to be much spicier than in Bangkok it is usually served with “cooling” vegetables such as cucumber. And finally, in the northeastern region of Thailand, nam phrik is often made with plaa raa, a mud-like, unfiltered, unpasteurized fish paste with a smell and taste even more pungent than that of kapi. The most basic nam phrik of all is nam plaa phrik: a small saucer of fish sauce mixed with thinly sliced chilies, and sometimes sliced garlic and lime juice, a rough equivalent to the salt shaker in western countries.

Despite the variety, the single unifying element of nam phrik is in the manner in which they are eaten, and although some extravagant versions exist, the majority are eaten with a simple assortment of raw or parboiled vegetables. This typically ranges from cucumbers to long green beans or eggplants, but can also include different regional fresh herbs or roots, such as white turmeric or sawtooth coriander. In parts of Thailand where steamed rice is eaten, one or two vegetables are placed on a small amount of rice, the nam phrik spooned over this, and the entire package is consumed using a spoon. In other regions where people tend to eat sticky rice, such as the north and northeast of Thailand, the vegetables as well as the rice are individually dipped into the nam phrik by hand, and followed by a bit of sticky rice, also eaten using the hands.

Recipes:

Nam Plaa Phrik
This is the most basic form of the family of spicy relishes known as nam phrik in Thailand. Nam plaa phrik is spooned over one’s rice to spice up bland food, much the way salt is used in the west.

3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (nam plaa)
3+ phrik khii nuu (very small Thai chilies), sliced in rings as thinly as possible
1 clove garlic, sliced
1/2 lime

Put the fish sauce in a shallow dish, add chilies, garlic, and squeeze lime juice to taste.

Nam Phrik Kapi with Fresh and Fried Vegetables

Nam Phrik Kapi is probably the most well known nam phrik in Thailand. As the name suggests, it is made with kapi, a salted and fermented paste of fine shrimp known as khoei, and is always served with fresh and/or parboiled vegetables, as well as egg-battered deep-fried vegetables, as described below. The amount of ingredients listed below for the nam phrik are largely for reference; a Thai chef would virtually never use measuring instruments to cook, and a dish is usually made to taste, keeping in mind a desired balance of the four tastes: sour, spicy, salty and sweet.

3+ phrik khii nuu (very small Thai chillies)
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon sugar
1 squeezed lime (about 1 tablespoon of juice)
1/4 cup Kapi (Thai shrimp paste)
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons makheua phuang (pea-sized Thai eggplant)

4 eggs
1 Chinese or Japanese eggplant, sliced into 1 cm thick rounds and put in a bowl of water mixed with 1 tablespoon of vinegar to prevent browning
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 bunch of cha om (a pungent vegetable sometimes available frozen in Thai grocery stores)

An assortment of fresh Thai vegetables, such as eggplant, cabbage, carrot, wing bean, long bean, all cut into long bite-size pieces

Using a mortar and pestle, grind the phrik khii nuu with the garlic until a rough paste is formed. Add the sugar and the lime juice and grind together. Add the shrimp paste and continue grinding until a paste forms. Add water. If the mixture is still too thick, add additional water, a teaspoonful at a time (nam phrik kapi should have the consistency of a slightly watery paste). Taste and add more chilies, lime or sugar, to taste. Add the makheua phuang, breaking slightly, but not grinding, with the pestle. Put nam phrik kapi in a serving bowl.

Beat eggs with a few drops of fish sauce or a pinch of salt, divide into two bowls and set aside. Drain eggplant and mix thoroughly with one of the bowls of egg. Heat cooking oil in a wok and taking two or three slices at a time, fry the eggplant in oil on both sides until crispy. Set on paper towels to drain. Remove the tender cha om leaves and blend with the eggs. Fry mixture in hot oil as a thick omelet or frittata, turning over to cook on both sides. Drain on a paper towel until cool then slice into bite-sized squares.

Arrange the fresh and fried vegetables on a plate and serve with rice and bowl of nam phrik kapi.

Nam Phrik Ong

Nam Phrik Ong is a dish that originates from the Tai Yai or Shan, a Thai ethnic group that lives in northern Thailand and Myanmar. Ong means to fry in the Tai Yai dialect, and the dish makes use of pork and tomatoes, both staples of Tai Yai cooking. Nam phrik ong is now eaten among all northern Thais, regardless of ethnicity.

Chili Paste
7 large dried chilies, soaked in warm water until soft
3 peeled shallots
1 head of garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons chopped lemongrass (using only lower white part)
2 tablespoons of shrimp paste
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 cup ground pork
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Fresh, crispy vegetables such as cucumber, long beans, wing beans, cabbage, sliced or chopped into bite-size pieces
Pork rinds

Using a mortar and pestle or food processor, blend curry paste ingredients together finely.

With the mortar and pestle, mash the tomatoes into the curry paste.

Heat oil in a wok over low heat. Add chopped garlic and fry until crispy. Add curry paste and tomato mixture and fry, constantly stirring, until the mixture begins to become fragrant, and oil begins to rise and accumulate, 5 to 10 minutes. Add pork and continue to stir until pork is fully cooked and the oil again begins to rise. If mixture seems dry at any point, add water, 1/4 cup at a time. Nam phrik ong should have the consistency and appearance of a thick, oily spaghetti sauce.

Serve in a bowl, sprinkled with cilantro, and serve with fresh vegetables, pork rinds, and sticky rice.

Nam Phrik Num

This is another northern style curry that has become popular among people all over Thailand. The main ingredient is phrik num, long slender green chilies that are almost exclusively used in this particular dish. Depending on the chilies used, the nam phrik can range from mild to mouth-searingly hot.

7 phrik num or other long green chili
10 cherry tomatoes
5 shallots
2 heads of garlic
1 teaspoon salt

8 bamboo skewers

Fresh vegetables, such as cucumber
Parboiled vegetables, such as cabbage, long beans, Thai eggplant, wing beans
Pork rinds

Skewer the chilies, tomatoes, shallots and garlic and grill until charred. When done, put all grilled ingredients in a plastic bag for 10 minutes and peel off burnt outside layer.

Using a mortar and pestle, grind salt and grilled ingredients together until blended, but still chunky (phrik num should ideally be in long strands or strips).

Serve in a bowl, with fresh and parboiled vegetables, pork rinds, and sticky rice.

A weekend in wine country

ThaiDay, 06/07/06

A rolling tour of the tastes of Khao Yai.

Despite being home to just two wine-producing vineyards, the area known as the Khao Yai Valley has gained a reputation as Thailand’s wine country. Although essentially accurate, the label is somewhat pre-emptive as it implies a degree of development and refinement that simply hasn’t been reached yet. As of now, much of the food and wine-based tourism is still in its early stages, but the basics are there, and being less than two hours from Bangkok, has the potential to be a unique weekend getaway.

Young vines at PB Valley, the Khao Yai area's largest winery.

With this in mind, I head north one morning with the aim of spending a weekend discovering and tasting what Thailand’s fledgling wine country has to offer. After a mere hour and a half, I stopped by Dairy Home (044 361 841), a small dairy/restaurant just off the main highway. Dairy Home is located in Muak Lek district, the site of yet another European-style food import: dairy farming. It was in this same area that Thailand’s dairy industry was started nearly 40 years ago, and not surprisingly, the restaurant offers fresh organic milk products, as well as a decent a breakfast set with homemade bread, sausage and butter and good coffee.

After breakfast I continue along the hilly roads that cut across the Khao Yai Valley to GranMonte Vineyards, a family-owned estate and one of the two wine producing vineyards in the region. Located in a secluded corner that owners have christened Asoke Valley, the vineyard has been growing grapes for nearly eight years. At Montino, the vineyard’s “cellar”, my companion and I sample four red wines, all of the shiraz/syrah varietal, the dominant grape of the Khao Yai valley. GranMonte’s 2002 “Celebration” vintage was for me the most balanced of the lot, featuring both full body and a strong but pleasant aroma.

Some of the wines available at GranMonte Vinyards.

Impressed by the gorgeous setting, we decided to have lunch at VinCotto, the vineyard’s attractive restaurant. VinCotto’s menu was designed by one of the estate’s owners, and features a relatively short menu of dishes meant to be taken with GranMonte’s wines. I begin with the soft shell crab salad, a plate of iceberg lettuce topped with an immense soft shell crab and oddly enough, several onion rings. Unfortunately even the winery’s decent but overpriced 2003 chenin blanc wasn’t enough to help this dish. Somewhat better was my main course, spiced shoulder of lamb sautéed with garlic and served over fettuccini. My companion made a better choice and enjoyed her spicy squid-ink spaghetti.

In general the weekend revealed that most attempts at Western-style food in the Khao Yai valley are forgettable, and the prices less so. A much better choice is, not surprisingly, Thai food, and one of the most popular restaurants in the area is Narknava (02 253 2455) a decidedly basic restaurant serving Thai-Muslim dishes. The restaurant is known for its 100-baht chicken biryani, which judging by the number of customers, is worth the price. We enjoyed a dish of spiced rice coupled with a fried fish and a bowl of piquant chicken soup, both spicy and delicious. Being a Muslim restaurant there’s not a drop of wine—or any other alcohol—to be seen.

From there we wound our way to PB Valley, the area’s largest vineyard, and our base for the weekend. PB Valley, whose grapes are used to produce wines under the Khao Yai and Pirom labels, is also home to a resort consisting of a few mock-Tudor “villas” perched on a hillside overlooking the vineyard as well as much of the valley. The rooms were basic but comfortable, and part of the fun lied in their almost remote location deep in the vineyard, and the scenic drive it took to reach them.

Grapes at PB Valley.

For dinner we visited the resort’s restaurant, The Hornbill Grill. Although the menu features a few German-style dishes, we decided to go Thai, and ordered a few of the recommended dishes. As most of Khao Yai’s wines are relatively high in alcohol and body, this is not a problem, as the wines are made to tolerate the heat of Thai cooking. We ordered deep-fried tapean fish in spicy Thai sauce, a dish that more closely resembled the Isaan dish laab than a fried fish. We also enjoyed the fried boar with baby pepper and the spicy enoki mushroom salad with shrimp. These dishes were helped along by a bottle of Pirom tempranillo 2004, a red wine from grapes of Spanish origin that is probably the region’s finest bottle.

Waking up early the next morning, we left the car behind and explored the vineyard on foot. Strolling among the seemingly endless rows of grapes, it took the occasional banana tree or tropical bird to remind me I was still in Thailand. The vineyard, like much of the surrounding area, takes the form of a rolling valley edged by forested mountains and gray limestone cliffs, a setting made even more beautiful by the rugged symmetry of rows of grape vines.

PB Valley.

After breakfast I met with Prayut Piangbunta, a youthful native of Chiang Mai who is the Khao Yai Winery’s resident winemaker. Piangbunta also happens to be the country’s only Thai winemaker, and has agreed to show us his winery. We are taken from room to room while Piangbunta describes the wine making process and the functioning of the equipment. At one point we stop to taste the 2006 vintage, still being held in towering stainless steel tanks. Piangbunta gives me a glass of 100% colombard, which despite its cloudy appearance, is deliciously crisp and fruity, causing me look forward to its release in 2008. “I let the wine reflect the vintage,” explains Piangbunta of his winemaking philosophy. “I don’t add sugar or acid, I let the yeast make the wine.
Although at present, going behind the scenes at Khao Yai Winery is only possible by appointment, Piangbunta is working on plans to offer tours on a regular basis in the near future. For now, visitors will have to make due with the wine tastings that are given every weekend and the occasional tour.

With the end of our weekend drawing near, we reluctantly leave PB and stop for a light lunch at the Fabb Fashion Café. The restaurant is one of a growing number of Bangkok-based establishments opening branches in the area. I order an Italian sausage salad with balsamic vinegar, an odd combination that was oddly satisfying. Our waiter told us that the prices at Khao Yai are significantly cheaper than those of the restaurant’s Bangkok counterpart, which already seemed expensive given the rural setting.

The Italian sausage salad with balsamic vinegar at the Fabb Fashion Cafe.

Another import is the popular Bangkok-based chain, Cabbages and Condoms. Run under the auspices of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), the leafy open-air restaurant features local ingredients such as mushrooms from a nearby mushroom farm and fresh herbs from the resort’s pesticide-free garden.

After a final drive through the hills, it was time to head back to Bangkok. Although the Khao Yai Valley wine district may not yet live up to its label, it is by all means a fun getaway and a beautiful destination, and possibly an early glimpse at what may in the future be a bona fide wine district.

Lerdthip

Tonight's dinner was at a khao tom restaurant called Lerdthip. Khao tom literally means "boiled rice", but can also refer to a restaurant that has Thai and Chinese-Thai style food made to order and eaten with watery rice served in bowls.

I began with kaeng paa look chin plaa kraay, "jungle" curry with fishballs made from a type of freshwater fish:

Although it looks pretty, I've et better. This one was a bit too bland and sight too salty.

I also ordered yam hoy naang rom, a "salad" of raw oysters:

I always order this dish, forgetting that I don't really like this dish. Actually it's not bad, but I don't really care for yam that employ that sweetish, red sauce. I would much rather have the simple mixture of lime juice, chilies, fish sauce and sugar, as illustrated in painstaking detail here.

Khuat ordered pet phalo, duck stewed in Chinese-style spices:

For me this dish is like the Thai equivalent of steak; a big hunk of meat. Not bad, but boring.

She also ordered phat phak boong fai daeng, flash-fried morning glory:

God, I love this stuff. It's everything I like in food: spicy, crunchy, garlicky, salty, and it's veggies. I eat it so often I think it should constitute a whole other food group for me.

And finally in an moment of feeding frenzy that was later regretted, we also ordered ahaan thale luak, a variety of seafood par-boiled and served with two dipping sauces:

Not bad, but there are places that do this much better.