Nittaya Curry Shop

Many Thai dishes begin with a thick, pungent paste, typically combining chilies, garlic, shallots and sometimes dried spices. These pastes are known as phrik kaeng or khrueang kaeng, and in the past, were made at home, using a mortar and pestle. Nowadays, at least in Bangkok, most people skip this time-consuming step and buy pre-made pastes. There are lots of brands out there, but if you're lucky enough to live near Banglamphu, you can get yours at Nittaya.

Having made curry pastes for several decades now, Nittaya has quite a reputation. They've got everything here, from ready-to-go matsaman paste, to an excellent nam phrik phao. The curry pastes are kept in covered containers:

although this does little to mask the...delicious odour. They're sold by weight, and the staff can even put your choice into a leak-proof tube.

Nittaya also sells heaps of prepared curries and other dishes:

(To see a larger version of this pic, go here.)

Nittaya Curry Shop (Google Maps link)
136-40 Th Chakhraphong
02 282 8212
10am-7pm

Guilty pleasures

Lest you think it's all famous restaurants and ancient recipes for me here in Bangkok, I do enjoy (relatively) trashy food once in a while. This desire usually manifests itself early in the morning, when I'm on my way to Chinatown to take photos. Stopping by Hua Lamphong, the city's main train terminal, I beeline to the snacks shown above. The waffle-like pastry above is in fact, cleverly known as The Waffle (motto: "Enjoy your life enjoy your waffle"). Lately I've been opting for sesame-salt flavour, but I'm also an firm supporter of rum-raisin. A hunk of The Waffle is best enjoyed with a steaming paper cup of espresso from Black Canyon (motto: "A drink from paradise... available on Earth"), a bargain at 50 baht.

And if there was any additional need to justify my decision, here's the view at Hua Lamphong:

(For a larger version of this pic, go here.)

Friend and fellow blogger Newley Purnell is also a big player on the Bangkok waffle scene. He has been known to down one or two The Waffles, but is probably most recognized for his promotion of that ancient Thai snack dish, the waffle-coated hot dog.

Choy Tii

Ever find yourself in a rut? There's so much good stuff to eat in Bangkok's Chinatown, but somehow I always find myself going to the same places. Thus with the intention of trying something new, I stopped by Choy Tii, a shophouse noodle joint on Thanon Plaeng Naam in the heart of Bangkok's Chinatown. What initially drew me in was the shop's sign (above), which advertised phat mee hong kong, Hong Kong-style fried noodles. Unfortunately Choy Tii was out of the thin, pale wheat noodles used to make this dish and I was asked if I'd rather have mee haeng, 'dry noodles'. I agreed, reluctantly, and received this:

The noodles, the flat kind known as bamii, were par-boiled along with a few leaves of lettuce, and the whole lot was topped with cubes of fatty muu waan, 'sweet pork', and generous lashings of thick dark Chinese-style vinegar. The dish was meaty, oily and sour, and I thought it was one of the best bowls of noodles I've had in a long while. I ate every last bit.

Looking at the sign again it appeared that yen taa fo was Choy Tii's signature dish, so I decided to try a bowl. I was highly disappointed: the soggy noodles, tasteless factory-like fishballs and weak broth were particularly disappointing, especially after the wonderful yet simple bowl I had just eaten. It was almost enough to make me order another mee haeng.

Choy Tii (Google Maps link)
59 Th Plaeng Naam
02 222 6087
Lunch & dinner

Poj Spa Kar

This restaurant, pronounced phot saphaa khaan, is famous for its cook, who is the relative of a former cook in the royal palace. The restaurant, which has been located in the same place since 1925, claims to follow these royal recipes, and serves excellent old-school faves such as mee krawp (sweet/sour crispy noodles) and kaeng liang (a thick soup combining shrimp and vegetables). I particularly like the more unusual dishes such as a delicious salad of fresh herbs and grilled pork, and the deceptively simple but delicious omelet with lemongrass (pictured above).

Poj Spa Kar (Google Maps link)
443 Th Tanao
02 222 2686
10:30am-2:30pm, 5:30-9pm Mon-Fri; 11am-9:30pm Sat-Sun

Media roundup

It's been a busy holiday season:

Phil, of The Last Appetite, and I did a piece about Cambodia's pepper (above) that is in the current issue of Chile Pepper.

I took the photos for a piece about dining in Bangkok in last month's Olive.

I believe I have a piece about phat thai in the current issue of Intermezzo.

Here's an interview (in French), with friend and photographer Eric Valli about our experience photographing bird nest gatherers in southern Thailand one year ago. His photos, including one that I took, were in a recent Paris Match.

And lastly, RealThai was mentioned in a recent New York Times piece on food in Bangkok.

Sor Raad Naa

You'd think you could get fried rice just about anywhere in Bangkok. But Cherry insisted we needed to go to Thanon Thaa Din Daeng, across the river in Thonburi. Cherry has taken me to some good places on this street before, so I had no reason to object.

What makes Sor Raad Naa's fried rice worth the journey is that owner fries the rice old-school style in a wide flat wok over very, very hot coals. Occasionally he tilts the wok to impart everything with a smoky flavour:

If the coals aren't hot enough, he flips a switch that turns on a high powered fan. He does two types of fried rice, one with tomato (pictured above) and another with Chinese kale:

The tomato version was slightly sour, and I imagine that the kale version would taste slightly bitter from the greens. Both are topped with pork that has been marinated and cooked ahead of time.

As the name suggests, the shop was originally known for its raad naa, noodles fried in a thick gravy. They also do the fried noodle dish, phat sii iw, but it seemed that most people, like us, came for the fried rice.

Other places on the same street that Cherry has taken me to include the famous satay place and Chua Jiab Nugan.

Sor Laad Naa (Google Maps link)
Soi 13, Th Thaa Din Daeng
Lunch & dinner

Sanguan Sri

This restaurant (pronounced sa ngoo an see), resembling a concrete bunker filled with office furniture circa 1973, has been a longtime favourite of the the lower Sukhumvit professional set. The kitchen specializes in central and southern Thai fare, with an emphasis on sweet-savoury dishes and curries.

On a recent visit, friends Liz and Dan and I ordered khaao tang naa tang (pictured above), crispy rice cakes served with a sweet-savoury coconut milk, herb and ground pork topping. On previous visits I have had a good kaeng phet pet yaang, red curry with grilled duck breast served over khanom jeen noodles, and an interesting salad containing dried fish:

I've eaten here quite a few times recently, and have enjoyed each meal. This is in contrast to David Thompson, who told me he didn't enjoy his latest visit. I urge those of you in Bangkok to stop by and let us know what you thought.

To find Sanguan Sri, enter Thanon Withayu and look for a gray, featureless building that you'll inevitably walk past without noticing.

Sanguan Sri (Google Maps link)
59/1 Th Withayu
02 252 7637
Mon-Sat, 10am-2pm

Maan Mueng/Yaa Maeng Wai

I've mentioned this northern Thai restaurant suburban Bangkok previously, but after a recent meal, and now that I'm mapping restaurants, feel compelled to mention it again.

Perhaps I wasn't so decisive about this before, but after my third visit, I'd say that this place serves the best northern Thai food I've eaten outside of the region. In fact, I'd wager that Maan Mueng puts out better northern Thai nosh than many restaurants in Chiang Mai! If you come during the day, the selection if huge, and you can just point to whatever looks good from the pots out front. It's probably one of the only places in Bangkok where you can get seasonal dishes, such as the dish pictured above. It's called yam phak hueat, and is made from sour-tasting leaf (phak hueat) that is minced and par-boiled before being mixed with a curry paste and some other herbs and seasonings. It may not look (or sound?) that pleasant, but was delicious.

Another fun dish was something of a northern Thai tempura; big green chilies stuffed with a delicious minced pork mixture, then battered and deep-fried:

But perhaps the coolest thing about Maan Mueng is the greens; there's a vast table topped with bowls containing different veggies, leaves and herbs, many of which most Bangkok Thais wouldn't even recognize:

A waitress warned me that one herb I chose would make my mouth numb. She was right.

Maan Mueng, which is also known as Yaa Maeng Wai, and which is now open evenings, recently moved a bit further up Ramkhamhaeng, and is now truly outside of the city, but is definitely worth a visit.

Maan Mueng/Yaa Maeng Wai (Google Maps link)
Ramkhamhaeng 162
8am-10pm (closed Tuesday)
081 913 3413/081 771 1708

Samut Songkhram's morning market

Samut Songkhram, a small town south of Bangkok, has one of the most interesting fresh markets in the country. As illustrated above, a significant part of the market is located directly on the city's railroad tracks. When the train runs through, as it does several times each day, everybody picks up and moves to allow it to pass, then immediately gets back down to important task of vending. The aesthetics of the situation, not to mention the excellent food, led to some interesting images, some of which can be seen here.

Update: Reader cranrob sent a link to a hilarious YouTube video (not mine) of the train running through the market:

Foreign food

It may not look like it, but these very Thai-looking sweets, photographed at a market in Samut Songkhram, are in fact Portuguese in origin. Here's a description of how they came about, excerpted from an article I wrote a while back for Chile Pepper magazine:

Other than simply having brought new ingredients to the people and places they colonized, in some cases, by living and mixing with local populations, the Portuguese also had an impact on the way Asians cooked. This can be seen as early as the early 16th century, when after having secured the port of Melaka in present-day Malaysia, the Portuguese went abroad to nearby Thailand, then known as Siam. Establishing friendly relations with the kingdom that was based in Ayuthaya, the Portuguese influenced an unexpected aspect of Thai cuisine: its sweets. By introducing the concept of using egg yolks and flour, ingredients integral to Portuguese dessert making, the Portuguese had an impact on Thai desserts that exists until today. Remnants of this legacy can still be found Ayuthaya today. There I came across a variety of Thai sweets, probably variants of ovos moles, a Portuguese egg custard. These bright orange sweets included foy thong, ‘golden strands’, thong yot, ‘golden drops’, and thong yip, ‘pinched gold’, the names all including the Thai word for gold, thong, a reference to the color imparted by the use of duck-egg yolks.

Do I have any Portuguese readers out there? Am curious to know if these sweets still take the same form in their country of origin.

Stay tuned for more pics from Samut Songkhram's very impressive market.

Kok Kaat

Curries are a big deal in Kanchanaburi. People in this province love them, and love lots of them. I saw a restaurant in Thong Phaa Phoom district advertising 100 dishes. You can recognize such restaurants by the stainless steel pots out front. Other than curries, you'll also find soups, stir-fries and other dishes. Understandably, it's a big decision:

Finding myself both in Kanchanaburi and hungry, I was lucky to find Ko Kaat, a roadside stall boasting 39 dishes. After lifting about 20 lids, my partner in eating, Aong and I finally rounded it down to four dishes. Unfortunately, Kok Kaat appears to favour quantity over quality, and the dishes were had were average, although not bad. These included a pretty good tom yam het, mushroom tom yam:

and kaeng khii lek, a curry made from a bitter leaf:

For a few more pics, see the slideshow here.

Kok Kaat (Google Maps link)
211/1 Th Saengchuto, Kanchanaburi
034 512481
7am-3pm

Jay Wa

Khao man kai, Hainanese-style chicken rice is a dish you can find just about anywhere in Bangkok. The hard part is finding a good one. Working on vague word-of-mouth instructions, my food detective friend Aong and I found ourselves near the Victory Monument confronted by two identical-looking khao man kai restaurants. Employing an innate ability to find good eats in Bangkok that has yet to fail us, we chose Jay Wa. Good choice. The rice was perfectly-cooked (not too soggy or to dry), and my favourite part, the sauce -- a mixture of tao jiaw (fermented soybeans), ginger and vinegar -- was also wonderful.

In the course of our gluttony we discovered that Jay Wa also does a wonderful kuaytiaw yentafo (a noodle soup combining fish balls and a red, spicy broth).

Khao Man Kai Jay Wa (Google Maps link)
Victory Monument
02 640 9891
lunch & dinner

A change is gonna come...

In the words of the great Mr. Cooke, I'd like to announce some significant changes coming to RealThai. In the next couple days, those visiting this blog will automatically be redirected to a more general foodblog at my online portfolio, www.austinbushphotography.com/foodblog. RealThai has been just as international as it has been Thai for while now, so you can expect to see no real change in content. However I thought thought that integrating my blogs (I'll also have a photography blog, www.austinbushphotography.com/photoblog) with my online portfolio would make a unique 'hub' of all my work. I hope you'll agree, and I also hope you'll take the time to check out the new images that form my portfolio, as well as my photography blog. Enjoy!

Naay Mong

Mr. Mong makes the best hawy thawt, fried oysters, in town. Actually, don't tell Mr. Mong, but I prefer it when Mrs. Mong is at the stove (see above). Her dish is greasy, has little nutritional value, and honestly, doesn't look very attractive:

but it's delicious, which is what counts.

To make it, they fry a flour and egg-based batter over a coal-burning stove until it resembles crispy and nearly burnt pancake:

They then toss either mussels or oysters on the stove and along with some spring onions, soy sauce and a corn starch wash, fry until just done. These are then used to top the crispy batter.

I'm told they also make an excellent fried rice with crab.

Naay Mong (Google Maps link)
539 Thanon Phlapplaachai
02 623 1890
5-10pm

Thai Charoen

Wandering about Bangkok's Chinatown as I often do, I tend to pass by lots of good eats, usually immediately after I've finished eating. I always make a mental note to come back, but it's not often that this happens.

A couple weeks ago I finally made it back a shop that I had noticed several times. Thai Charoen, a tiny family-run place along Thanon Charoen Krung, sells equal parts Thai (curries, spicy stir-fried dishes) and Chinese (stewed veggies, fried noodles), and dishes, such as the stuffed squid shown above, that seem to straddle both cuisines.

I had eggplant stir-fried with fish dumplings (another Thai-Chinese 'fusion' dish), and a bowl of jap chai, a Chinese vegetable stew.

Both excellent, and I would recommend stopping by. And on this note, I realize Bangkok is a big, confusing town, so from now on, I'm going to try to link all my restaurant writeups to Google Maps. Hope this helps!

Thai Charoen
454 Thanon Charoen Krung (Google Maps link)
02 221 2633
9am-7pm

Not exactly food related, but

the images I got of actors getting ready for a ngiw performance in Bangkok's Chinatown are still pretty cool. Some more can be seen at my photo blog, The Old Main Drag.

Chinatown, December 15, 2007

Menu for Hope '07

What is Menu for Hope?
It's when food bloggers from all over the world join together, and take leave from our usual obsession with our own stomachs. Throughout the year, we tend to wank on about food, beer, wine and other such visceral pleasures, but for two weeks every December, we pull together a bunch of excellent prizes and ask you, our readers, to help us support those who are not so lucky, to whom food is not a mere indulgence but a matter of survival. This Menu for Hope is our small way to help. All proceeds go to the World Food Program.

RealThai and all other excellent and gracious foodblogfriends have managed to add to the global prize pool....prizes are:

BANGKOK PRIZES
From me, a free copy of latest edition of the Lonely Planet's Bangkok Guide (which I'm currently writing) + one-day Bangkok food tour. (value $200 USD)
Code: AP30

Dinner for 2 @ Bangkok's premier destination restaurant Bed Supperclub Bangkok (value 3500 baht)
Code: AP28

18 year old Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky Gold Signature (value 95 USD) also from the good folks at Bed Supperclub
Code: AP23

12 bottles of deliciously good 42 Below Vodkas to see you through 2008 courtesy of the kind kiwis at 42 Below (value 12,000 baht)
Code: AP24

6 bottles of 42 Below Seven Tiki Rum. Also from the kiwi crew. Makes perfect mojitos (value 6,000 baht)
Code: AP25


One night accommodation at hip hotel Dream Hotel, Bangkok (value $280++ USD). Donate and sleep in peace in their sumptuous DREAM Beds
Code: AP29

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA PRIZES
One night accommodation at uber hip hotel Hotel De La Paix, Siem Reap (value $235 USD)
Code: AP31

One night accommodation at boutique hotel in the heart of Siem Reap's charming laneway Be Hotel Angkor subject to availability (value $150 USD)
Code: AP32

Market Tour and Cooking Class with Joannes Riviere, Khmer food expert and author of La Cuisine du Cambodge avec les apprentis de Sala Bai. He knows all the women at the market, speaks fluent Khmer and can teach you how to make a mean samlor machu
Code: AP33

Wild Jungle Honey Collecting Tour with Angkor Conservation Centre for Biodiversity Sustainable Bee Program. A once in a lifetime experience. Trek into the jungle with experienced guides, collect wild honey and taste the magic that is freshly harvested bee pollen (value 200 USD)
Code: AP34

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle
Here's what you need to do:

1. Choose a prize or prizes of your choice from our Menu for Hope above or at the global prize list site
2. Go to the donation site at First Giving and make a donation.
3. Please specify which prize you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code.
Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 - 2xEU01, 3xEU02.
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Regional Prizes
UK: The Passionate Cook and Cooksister!
Europe:Food Beam
US: West Coast:Rasa Malaysia
US: East Coast: Serious Eats
US: Central: Kalyn's Kitchen
Canada: The Domestic Goddess
Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand: Grab Your Fork
and, last but not least, our special Wine Blog Host: Vinography

Check back on Chez Pim on Wednesday, January 9 for the results of the raffle.
Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!

A brief Australian interlude

I recently made my first trip to Australia to attend a Lonely Planet writers' workshop (ta Tony and Maureen!). The workshop was held at LPHQ in Melbourne, but I touched down near Byron Bay, at a place called Brunswick Heads. My friend K lives a short walk from the sea, which, I've been told, is good for a variety of things, in particular easy access to excellent fish and chips:

It was also a pleasure to discover that Australians consistently do excellent coffee:

although the nomenclature is a bit difficult to get one's head around. In Australia, an espresso is known as a 'short black', but at the coffee bar above I mistakenly called it a 'small black' and received a blank stare as a response!

After a long weekend of relaxing by the beach, I flew over to Melbourne for the workshop. I only had an afternoon free to explore the city, so armed with tips from Phil and Hock, I headed directly to the amazing Queen Vic Market:

I really loved the deli section (above) that has all that good stuff that is so hard to find, and/or too expensive here in Bangkok.

This was followed by a delicious lamb souvlaki at Medallion Cafe in the Greek district (apparently Melbourne is the largest Greek city outside of Greece), immensely filling Western-Chinese at the brilliantly named Supper Inn, and a mini pub crawl to Transport (which boasts 150+ kinds of beer including the excellent Crackenback Pale Ale, and the local brew, Mountain Goat Pale Ale), and Hock's old haunt, Troika.

Melbourne has to the be most Asian 'Western' city I've ever visited, and seeing as LP HQ is in Footscray, home to the city's largest concentration of Vietnamese, J, one of my former editors, took some of us out for a Vietnamese lunch:

where we had huge bowls of a very tasty vegetarian pho:

Yuy Lee

You've just got to keep your eyes open. Khao soi, the northern Thai curry noodle dish that every foreigner seems to love, is in fact available in Bangkok. My most recent discovery was on Thanon Sukhumvit, an unlikely place to find good, let alone, regional Thai food. A small family-run shophouse outfit, Yuy Lee has been serving khao soi for a couple decades. Despite this, the product of their labour:

is, in my opinion, decent, but not exceptional. The broth could have used a bit more oomph, and the noodles were regular round bamee noodles, not the flattish noodles typically used in khao soi. The deep-fried crispy noodles were also of the cheap, packaged variety.

Much stronger was the khanom jeen naam ngiao (pictured above). The broth was fragrant and deliciously sour (from the addition of tomatoes), and loaded with deep-fried crispy garlic. If I went to Yuy Lee again, I would probably go straight for this rather than waste time with the khao soi.

For a cutting edge dispatch from the heart of khao soi country, check out The Last Appetite's recent post, which in a bizarre circle, also links back here.

Yuy Lee (Google Maps link)
25 Sukhumvit Soi 31
02 258 4600
10am-8pm, closed Sun