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Khao Tom Jay Suay

A cook at Khao Tom Jay Suay, a restaurant in Bangkok's Chinatown Other than noodles, the greatest contribution the Chinese have made to Thai cooking, at least in my opinion, is khao tom. The Thai words literally mean "boiled rice," but in this case they refer to restaurants that serve a variety Chinese/Thai dishes to order, often with small bowls of watery rice. One of my favourite khao tom places in Bangkok is Khao Tom Jay Suay, an ancient shophouse restaurant in Chinatown. The restaurant is colloquially known as Khao Tom Roy Pee, "100 Year Old Khao Tom," but I was told it's really only about 50 years old.

You can recognise Khao Tom Jay Suay by the vast table out front holding the restaurant's huge array of raw ingredients, mostly different types of vegetables:

Selecting ingredients at Khao Tom Jay Suay, a restaurant in Bangkok's Chinatown

Directly behind this, and shown at the top of this post, a fellow works a station with several prepared dishes. These include several types of meats and fish, a few stir-fried dishes and soups such as jap chai, a type of vegetable-heavy Chinese stew. He shouts the orders out to two additional stations within the restaurant,  a soup station and a separate stir-fry station, and as far as I could tell, no order is recorded on paper.

Must-order dishes at Jay Suay include the delicious smoked duck; muu phat nam liap, minced pork fried with salted Chinese olive; the previously-mentioned jap chai; and any flash-fried veggie dish. On our visit we ordered all of these, as well as a stink bean stir-fry, a tom yam of squid and mushrooms, and a salad of plaa salit thot, a type of deep-fried fish:

Dishes at Khao Tom Jay Suay, a restaurant in Bangkok's Chinatown

You'll be sitting on the side of a smelly street and it will inevitably be hot, but the food is full-flavoured and excellent.

Khao Tom Jay Suay 547 Thanon Phlap Phla Chai 02 223 9592

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A bite to eat in Siem Reap

A mural at Angkor Wat depicting eating Cambodia isn't generally known as a culinary destination, but I really enjoyed the eats during five recent days in Siem Reap. The quality of the city's foreign cuisine, particularly its French, was much better than that of a huge city like Bangkok. Among other meals, we had a fun lunch at Le Bistrot de Paris, and on a daily basis, excellent pastries from the Blue Pumpkin (unfortunately we never made it to dinner at the allegedly delicious Abacus). And the Cambodian food was excellent too, for which I have to thank Chef Joannès Rivière, Executive Chef at Hôtel de la Paix. Chef Jo oversees a truly delicious Khmer set menu at Meric, the hotel's restaurant, which includes dishes such as his famous stuffed frog, a trio of pounded salads (coconut with pork, wild eggplant with fish, and sesame with chicken), and an equal parts tart and smokey star fuit salad with smoked fish. It was really one of the best restaurant meals I've had in a long time, but unfortunately the restaurant was too dark to document with my crappy old Nikon D100 (you can though see a pic of Meric's famous watermelon salad here).

The next day Jo took me to New Cheip Sok, a restaurant he recommends not only for it's kick ass Khmer food, but also for its noteworthy and classy wall of beer bottles:

The wall of beer bottles at New Chiep Sok, a restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia

I left the ordering to Chef Jo. There was prahoc k'tis:

Prahoc k'tis, a 'dip' of fish, coconut and herbs at New Chiep Sok, a restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia

a delicious 'dip' of Cambodian fish sauce, fish, herbs and coconut milk, served with fresh and par-boiled veggies. This was a dish that exemplified Khmer flavours: mild, herbal and balanced, and revolving around something fishy.

There was deep-fried pigeon:

Deep-fried pigeons at New Chiep Sok, a restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia

which were served with the simple but absolutely brilliant Khmer dipping sauce of salt, pepper and lime:

A dip for deep-fried foods at New Chiep Sok, a restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Mam, raw Khmer-style fermented fish served with a platter of fresh herbs, veggies and fruit and slices of pork:

Mam, fermented fish, served with sliced pork, fruit and vegetables and herbs at New Chiep Sok, a restaurant in Siem Reap, Cambodia

And the house specialty, "hidden eggplant", a Chinese-Khmer deep-fried dish combining minced pork and eggplant:

New Chiep Sok N# 253 Stung Thmey Village, Siem Reap, Cambodia +855 12 630 570

Hôtel de la Paix Sivutha Boulevard, Siem Reap, Cambodia + 855 63 966 000

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A walk through Mae Hong Son's morning market

Shoppers at Mae Hong Son's morning market The morning market in Mae Hong Son is one of my favourite in Thailand. Despite being a rather small market, and the fact that I've spent quite a bit of time there, on each subsequent visit I always seem able to find some new ingredient or dish I wasn't previously aware of. This is partially due to the fact that Mae Hong Son is rather more seasonal than other places in Thailand. Much of what's on offer is dictated by the weather, which unfortunately during the rainy season is rather limited. I missed the bright red tomatoes and fern shoots of the cooler months, but was compensated by the variety weird edible insect larvae, tender edible fruit tree leaves and bamboo shoots of the rainy season. Year round there's always an odd selection of items from just across the border in Burma: calendars with Burmese pop stars, pickled tea leaves and packets of herbal medicines. And breakfast at the market is always one of the weirdest and most satisfying in the country.

To view a slideshow of some random images from Mae Hong Son's morning market, click on the image above and use keyboard arrows or hold your mouse above the images to navigate through them.

Pa Ni

Serving Shan/Thai Yai sweets, Mae Hong Son As mentioned previously, Mae Hong Son was pretty wet, so we spent a lot of our time indoors, much of it eating and drinking. Of all the things we consumed there, I'm pretty sure that the local sweets were the biggest hit among the two chefs. We bought several banana leaf packages of the sweets on a daily basis, and they never seemed to tire of them.

Our sole khanom purveyor was Pa Ni, a native of Mae Hong Son who was taught by her mother to make Shan/Thai Yai-style sweets over forty years ago. My personal fave of her repertoire is something called peng mong:

Peng mong, a Shan/Thai Yai sweet, Mae Hong Son

According to Pa Ni, this one is made using what she calls paeng mi, "noodle flour" (I suspect this simply wheat flour), and has the consistency of a Western-style cake, with a salty/sweet coconut topping acting as the frosting. Because of the crumb-like consistency of the sweet, Chef Andy reckons some sort of leavening agent is used here, a rarity in Thai sweets.

My second favourite has to be alawa jun:

Alawa jun, a Shan/Thai Yai sweet, Mae Hong Son

a significantly heavier sweet made from rice flour, ample coconut cream and a slight hint of durian (Pa Ni adds thurian kuan, durian paste, to this sweet). Like all of Pa Ni's sweets, the top is slightly singed, the result of a "baking" process where, after steaming the sweets, she covers the trays and tops this with a layer of hot coals.

The regular alawa:

Alawa, a Shan/Thai Yai sweet, Mae Hong Son

is slightly lighter and gets most of its flavour from sugar and coconut milk.

And Suay thamin:

Suay thamin, a Shan/Thai Yai sweet as made by Pa Ni, Mae Hong Son

is the Shan pronunciation of the Burmese shwe thamin, "golden rice", and is rather heavy sweet made from sticky rice.

For an earlier post on Thai Yai sweets, go here.

Pa Ni 9 Thanon Singhanat Bamrung, Mae Hong Son

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Back in the MHS

Sunset outside Mae Hong Son, Thailand If you'll recall, back in February I spent a month in the northern Thai city of Mae Hong Son. Cool weather, great scenery, great food and ample opportunity to explore combined to make the month one of the most pleasant of my life, and ever since then I've dreaming, virtually on a daily basis, of going back.

In mid-August I finally got my chance, and this time was accompanied by Chef Andy of Pok Pok fame, Chef Hock and for two brief days, Maytel (herself more a Restaurant Manager than a Chef). We spent a week in Mae Hong Son, and as Maytel describes here, there was a great deal cooking and eating, although unfortunately not as much exploring as I'd like to have done. I've never previously been to Mae Hong Son during the wet season, and found it to be very... wet. Due to the rain, we were largely housebound the first two days and a couple days after that, I came down with a flu and was housebound again for a few more days... Needless to say, this was something of a disappointment after so many months of wanting to come back, but in the end it was worth it simply for the moments of health and clear weather and scenes such as the above.

A couple food-related blogs to follow.

Media roundup

Heaps of exposure this month: in addition to pieces in about four different in-flight mags, if you rush to your local bookist you can find two pieces I did in this this month's Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, including a roundup of the best places to get your khao soi on in Chiang Mai. I contributed a short piece on Bangkok eats to this month's Saveur (there's also a link on their website, courtesy of Bangkok-based scribe, Jarrett Wrisely). And finally, the 13th edition of Lonely Planet's Thailand is now in shops. I did the Bangkok and Northern Thailand chapters, and am particularly proud of my work on the latter, having made the most significant changes to that chapter in a decade (I still have my copy of Thailand from my first visit in 1997).

Hàng Me

 Bánh bèo at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam How many different dishes can one make with some form of carbohydrate, shrimp and the occasional pork rind? Leave it to the Vietnamese to have created a fantastic number of dishes using these relatively limited ingredients, all of them creative and delicious.

I became aware of this at a restaurant called Hàng Me in the central Vietnamese city of Hue. Although located steps from the backpacker strip, the place was filled with locals and littered with the banana leaves used to steam the various dishes -- both signs of good eats.

I started with the dish above, bánh bèo. Mentioned previously, the dish takes the form of a noodle steamed in a ceramic cup and topped with a savoury shrimp mixture and pork rinds. I enjoyed this one even more than the one in Hoi An: the noodle at Hàng Me was soft and slightly salty, and pork rinds make just about anything taste better.

Another variant on the noodle-and-shrimp theme was bánh nam:

Bánh nam at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam

This was my favourite item of the meal. The noodle, steamed in a banana leaf:

Making bánh nam at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam

was again incredibly tender and savoury, and the shrimp topping was deliciously meaty, fatty and rich.

Bánh ram ít were almost identical to bánh bèo, except that the noodle here is perched on a crispy round of pork rind:

Bánh ram ít at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam

Bánh loc, another combination of carb and shrimp, was steamed in what I assume was a bamboo leaf:

Bánh loc at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam

The noodle element was apparently made from tapioca flour and is supplemented with two shrimps and a piece of fatty pork belly. The slightly rubbery texture of the noodle and the fact that the shrimp weren't shelled made this my least favourite item of the meal.

As I was about to leave, they brought out a few slices of freshly-made chả tôm, steamed 'cake' of prawns:

Chả  tôm at Hàng Me, a restaurant in Hue, Vietnam

Eggy, meaty, and, at that point at least, graciously lacking a noodle element, it was a perfect end to my most memorable meal in Vietnam.

Hàng Me 45 Võ Thị Sáu, Hue 7am-10pm 054 383 7341

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Bánh Canh Cá Lóc

Bánh canh cá lóc, a fish and noodle dish, Hue, Vietnam Often it's little more than an atmospheric locale that draws me a to a particular vendor or restaurant:

At a stall selling bánh canh cá lóc, a fish and noodle dish, Hue, Vietnam

Such was the case with the ancient dining room of this streetside stall in the central Vietnamese city of Hue. Practically before I really even knew what was being served, I'd taken a seat and placed an order.

It was a few seconds later that I learned that I'd be eating  bánh canh cá lóc:

At a stall selling bánh canh cá lóc, a fish and noodle dish, Hue, Vietnam

Not knowing exactly what this was, I watched with wonder how patties of a pasty white dough were rolled onto PVC pipes:

The ingredients to make the noodles for bánh canh cá lóc, Hue, Vietnam

Thin slices of the dough were chopped off directly into the broth:

At a stall selling bánh canh cá lóc, a fish and noodle dish, Hue, Vietnam

forming the noodles of the dish (shown at the top of this post). I found them a bit chalky, but liked the broth and other ingredients, which included fillets of snakehead fish (the epynomous cá lóc), oily and orange from having been fried with turmeric, chunks of giờ, a type of Vietnamese sausage, a single quail's egg and heaps of green onion.

The sides, present on every table, included banana leaf packages of delicious giờ and nem (fermented pork sausage), and tiny hard-boiled quail's eggs, which were meant to be dipped in a salt and chili mixture. I grew to love these sides in Vietnam, and they made every meal a fun experience.

And if, like me, you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of bánh in Vietnam, have a look at this handy online Banh Guide.

Bánh Canh Cá Lóc Hùng Vương, Hue 4pm-late

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Phương

Bánh mì at Phương, a stall in Hoi An, Vietnam I must admit that of the reasons I was most excited to visit Vietnam was because I knew I'd be able to consume bánh mì, Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches, on a daily basis. This dish is virtually non-existent in Bangkok, and is in my opinion, the perfect sandwich. Unfortunately, other than coincidentally stumbling across the same delicious bánh mì in Saigon that was mentioned at EatingAsia, most bánh mì I encountered during my week in Vietnam were hastily put together and not entirely delicious.

This was until I arrived in Hoi An and came across Phương. Judging by the throng of impatient customers alone, I knew this would be the bánh mì I had been expecting:

Phương, a bánh mì stall in Hoi An, Vietnam

I ordered bánh mì pâté, a crispy submarine of bread filled, assembly line-style, with peppery pork liver pâté, slices of barbecued pork, thin slices of cucumber and tomato, a few sprigs of cilantro, hot pepper sauce and a final sprinkling of Maggi:

Making bánh mì at Phương, a stall in Hoi An, Vietnam

The result was crispy, meaty, oily, spicy and veggie; essentially everything a sandwich should be.

Phương Near corner of Bạch Đằng and Nguyễn Duy Hiệu, Hội An Daytime

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Bánh bèo nhân tôm

Bánh bèo nhân tôm, steamed noodle topped with shrimp and croutons, Hoi An I didn't really take to Hoi An. Don't get me wrong, the city's famed Chinese and French-colonial-style buildings were beautiful, and the setting was pleasant. But virtually every single structure seemed dedicated to selling t-shirts or overpriced food to tourists, and there seemed to be more of the latter than locals. And on top of all this, when I was in town, the town's central market was in the process of being rebuilt, which apparently caused many of the local vendors I had read about at EatingAsia to stay at home. That's why, after having walked around in search of a meal on my first day, I was happy to discover the scene below:

Eating bánh bèo nhân tôm, steamed noodle topped with shrimp and croutons, Hoi An

This street vendor was feeding a steady stream of satisfied locals, and was one of the few eating options in Hoi An's old town that didn't seem to be aimed specifically at Western tourists.

A closer look, not to mention help from a friendly local, revealed that she was making bánh bèo nhân tôm (pictured above), a round noodle steamed in a ceramic cup. At each order the woman tops the noodle with a creamy orange mixture made from shrimp, and a sprinkling of crispy croutons:

Serving bánh bèo nhân tôm, steamed noodle topped with shrimp and croutons, Hoi An

The dish had a lot in common with cao lầu, another of Hoi An's signature dishes, both in the slightly dark colour of the noodle and in the use of croutons. The result was equal parts soft, salty, creamy and crunchy -- a perfect example of the disparate ingredients, flavours and textures the Vietnamese are so absolutely brilliant at combining.

Bánh bèo nhân tôm Hội An Daytime

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Bánh Xèo 46A

The banh xeo at Banh Xeo 46A, a restaurant in Saigon, Vietnam Lonely Planet's Vietnam reckons that Bánh Xèo 46A makes the best bánh xèo in Saigon. I'm certainly no authority on the dish, a type of Vietnamese filled crepe, but I reckon Bánh Xèo 46A do the best version of the dish I've had.

Unlike the bánh xèo served in Laos and Thailand (where it's known as khanom beuang yuan), where the crepe is often paper-thin and crispy, the dish here is pleasantly eggy, hearty and relatively thick. The filling was also slightly different than bánh xèo I've had previously, and in addition to the usual shrimp, sliced shallots and bean sprouts, included thin slices of fatty pork belly. Watching the locals eat I also learned the definitive way to attack a dish of bánh xèo: roll a hearty hunk of the crepe up in an entire lettuce leaf until you have something the size and shape of a spring roll, and using your hand, dip it in the dipping sauce.

Bánh Xèo 46A 46A  Đ Đinh Công Tráng 03 824 1110 Breakfast, lunch & dinner

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Vietnoodles

A bowl of mì trứng, wheat and egg noodles, Saigon, Vietnam I had nearly forgotten about the Vietnamese obsession with noodles. Virtually every dish you encounter in this country contains some sort of doughy strand. There are so many noodle options I've yet to even consume a single dish of phở, arguably Vietnam's most recognized noodle dish.

Vietnamese noodles usually take the traditional form, such as the dish shown above, mì trứng, wheat and egg noodles with chicken.

Another standard is bún bò Huế, thick udon-like rice noodles served with slices of tender beef:

A bowl of bún bò Huế, Saigon, Vietnam

But often things verge towards the unfamiliar, such as câu lầu, Hoi An's signature dish:

A bowl of câu lầu, Hoi An, Vietnam

A mixture of light brown and slightly grainy noodles, shredded herbs and slices of pork. The dish is served without broth and is garnished with squares of the noodle that have been deep-fried until crispy.

This noodle dish, also taken in Hoi An, employed short, squiggly lengths of a clear noodle and was served with a small baguette:

Unidentified bowl of noodles served with bread, Hoi An, Vietnam

And Vietnamese noodles don't even have to be noodle-like, as is the case with bánh bèo:

A dish of vánh bèo, Saigon, Vietnam

round disks concealed under a shrimp-based dressing, clear shrimp-filled dumplings and Vietnamese sausage.

Hồng Hạnh

Banh da, deep-fried rice cracker, served here with tiny snails stir-fried with fresh herbs, Hong Hanh, Saigon, Vietnam As mentioned previously, this is a bit of a whirlwind trip, which leaves me relatively little time to explore dining options on my own. Knowing I'd be in Saigon I went directly to EatingAsia's Vietnam archives and found I wasn't staying very far from Hồng Hạnh, a restaurant specialising in Hue-style cuisine they appeared to have much praise for. I jotted down a couple dishes that looked interesting and headed over one evening.

Even before your bottom hits the chair at Hồng Hạnh you're presented with two side dishes:

Hue-style side-dishes including banh cong chien, a deep-fried meat-filled bun, nem and gio, Vietnamese-style sausages, Hong Hanh, Saigon, Vietnam

On the left is bản công thành chiến, a deep-fried, meat-filled bun. On the right and wrapped in banana leaves are two different kinds of Vietnamese sausage: giờ, a pepper-studded piece of steamed minced pork, and nem chua, raw fermented pork with plenty of garlic. Both were wonderful, particularly the giờ, and I could have ordered a beer and called it a meal.

But following EatingAsia's tips I ordered bún thịt nướng (no pic) and the dish pictured at the top of this post, bánh đa, a deep-fried rice cracker served with tiny freshwater snails fried with fresh herbs. The former takes the form of thin rice noodles and shredded herbs topped with thin slices of grilled pork. the dish was sweet from the ubiquitous nước chấm, a syrup and fish sauce condiment, and could have used a few more fresh herbs, but instantly reminded me of the fresh Vietnamese flavours I'd been missing since my last visit to the country. I really enjoyed the latter, which was as simple as it was rich and herbal.

Coming back the next day, I arrived just before lunchtime. Business was slow, and after a couple minutes one of the employees came over and sat with me:

A friendly employee at Hong Hanh restaurant, Saigon, Vietnam

She couldn't speak much English, and compensated by helping me order, and eventually, taking it upon herself to season my dishes with copious chili (luckily I like spicy). With her help, I ordered bánh ít trần:

Banh it tran,

a dish described in the English-language menu as "round patty stuffed with green peas paste and meat taken with taro cake stuffed with meat." The two patties, one of which was fried and crispy, the other steamed and sticky, were stuck together, were served with shredded daikon and carrots, and two types of Vietnamese sausage. Unusual, but tasty.

We also decided on a bowl of bánh canh cua:

Banh canh cua, a soup of crab, pork and tapioca noodles, Hong Hanh, Saigon, Vietnam

a thick crab-based broth with pork and, according to EatingAsia, tapioca starch noodles. The crab wasn't the pleasantest I've ever encountered, but I really enjoyed the fishy heartiness of the soup, the clear slippery noodles and the fact that the Vietnamese will put crushed black pepper on just about anything.

Two excellent meals, and if for some reason I had to head back to Saigon again on this trip, I'd eat there again.

Hồng Hạnh 17A Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, Saigon 08 3827 4252 Lunch & dinner

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Back in the SRV

Iced coffee at a streetside cafe, Saigon, Vietnam The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, that is.

Motivated by an open schedule and a temporary lack of work, I've decided to spend a week in Vietnam. Starting in Ho Chi Minh City, I'll be taking the Reunification Express north, with a stop in Hoi An (and possibly Hue), before terminating in Hanoi. It's a bit of a whirlwind trip, and having relatively little time to explore each destination, I'm relying on the generous consul of guidebooks, websites and blogs. Luckily, there's some great eats advice out there, and I'll be posting my pics from various meals and markets as often as I can get a decent WiFi connection.

Nay Yong

 Green curry with freshwater fish dumplings and white radish at Nay Yong, a stall in Bangkok's Chinatown After a long hiatus, I find myself yet again spending quite a bit of time in Bangkok's Chinatown. This is mostly due to some photo assignments I'm working on, but I've also been making some eating trips as I now live only a couple metro stops away. As always, I've got my own repertoire of favourite stalls and dishes, but I'm also making an effort to discover some new places.

My most recent discovery is Nay Yong, a streetside curry stall on Thanon Yaowarat, Chinatown's main drag:

Curries at Nay Yong, a stall in Bangkok's Chinatown

It's very similar to the exceedingly popular Jek Pui, located just around the corner, and likewise is associated with mild Chinese/Thai-style curries such as kaeng karii. I chose green curry served with look chin plaa kray, freshwater fish dumplings, and hearty chunks of white radish (shown at the top of this post). The curry is served over rice or khanom jeen noodles (I chose the former), and I also ordered a side of deep-fried kun chiang, a type of Chinese sausage, a traditional accompaniment to this dish. The curry is tasty but mild, and definitely benefits from the optional condiments of sliced fresh chili and a sweet soy sauce. The kun chiang here is also quite nice, and is not as waxy and bland as elsewhere.

There's another "branch" of Nay Yong virtually across the street, in the cluster of street stalls near the entrance to Talat Kao.

Nay Yong Thanon Yaowarat 7pm-late

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Nay Mong

Or suan, a type of oyster omelet, at Nay Mong, a restaurant in Bangkok's Chinatown I last blogged about this shophouse restaurant in Bangkok's Chinatown back in 2007, but after several recent meals there, feel compelled to do a re-run. Actually, despite my numerous visits, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I've only ever ordered one dish at Nay Mong: or lua, a crispy oyster and egg omelet (shown here). It eventually took the help of a couple newbies to get me out of my rut.

Visiting the restaurant on a recent eating tour of Chinatown, Hock's father in law, P, was clever enough to order or suan, the 'soft' version the dish (shown above). I'd had this dish elsewhere, but Nay Mong's take was simply head and shoulders above anything else. Like or lua, the dish combines just four ingredients: oysters, egg, green onions and a sticky batter (and of course, seasoning). But in this case, the ingredients are deftly fried, resulting in a light creamy texture that seems to emphasize the eggy and salty flavours of the dish; a profound contrast with the starchy, sticky, heavy pancake that one finds at most places.

I still love or lua, but there is definitely going to be some serious indecision on my next visit. And to add to this, I've also been told on good authority that Nay Mong does a very good crab fried rice.

Maybe next year.

Nay Mong 539 Thanon Phlapplaachai 02 623 1890 5-10pm

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Phat Thai Ratchawong

Phat Thai to go, served in banana leaf cups, Phat Tha Ratchawong, Bangkok 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:

Making phat Thai at Phat Tha Ratchawong, a stall in Bangkok's Chinatown

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

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If you find yourself in Bangkok

Hock grilling Portuguese-style chicken on the streets of BKK 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):

Portuguese-style chicken ready to be grilled on the streets of BKK

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:

Portuguese-style chicken ready to be grilled on the streets of BKK

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.

Ko Tek Chiang 3

A bowl of nuea toon, braised beef, at Ko Tek Chiang 3, a restaurant outside Bangkok 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:

Making nuea toon, braised beef, at Ko Tek Chiang 3, a restaurant outside Bangkok

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

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