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Behind the stage at a traditional Chinese performance, Chinatown, Bangkok
From “The Last Chinatown”, Kathmandu Photo Gallery, 2008/2009

Pa Jin/ป้าจิน

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DSC_9618-Edit For the last 30 years, Pa Jin has been selling cooked cockles and mussels from a stall on a busy street in the centre of Bangkok's Chinatown.

The relatively expensive price of 100B (about US$3) per plate belies the fact that you're sitting on a stool sucking car exhaust, but her unique cooking technique and good-quality raw ingredients make it worth it.

Rather than steam them, Pa Jin dips the cockles into a medium-sized pot of boiling water until they're just about to open - probably no more than 15 seconds. She then meticulously pries each one open by hand. The barely-cooked meat that emerges is tender and velvety, lacking the rubberiness of overcooked shellfish. The mussels, which have been pre-boiled, are also pretty good, and to order are briefly submerged in the same water.

Both are served with three kinds of dipping sauces (one order of dipping sauce is 'single', two is 'in love' and three is 'family') that run the gamut from tart/spicy to sweet.

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And of course, Pa Jin has a website and a 'Call Center', the latter ostensibly for urgent cockle-related issues and/or emergencies.

Pa Jin Th Phadung Dao, Bangkok 081 795 1839 6.30pm-midnight

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Tang Ngee Huat/ตั้งหงีฮวด

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DSC_9569-Edit Khao tom (ข้าวต้ม), rice soup, typically supplemented with some sort of fancy protein, is a dish that Chinese Thais take very seriously. Folks will pay the equivalent of US$9 for a bowl of the stuff, and vendors selling the dish are found just about everywhere in Bangkok's Chinatown. Despite its fame, there are a lot of mediocre bowls out there, but thanks to my friend Y (who also led me to Sisamorn), I was pointed in the direction of one of the better ones.

The entire kitchen at Tang Ngee Huat, a Chinatown shophouse restaurant, is little more than a small countertop:

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This is where they assemble two versions of the dish: khao tom pet, rice soup served with duck, and khao tom kaphoh muu, with pig stomach. The owners claim that the restaurant has been serving these dishes for 63 years, following a Teochew recipe brought to Thailand by the previous generation.

Unlike most versions of the dish, which set out to impress with generous portions of fresh seafood, the star here is the broth. It's pleasantly salty and slightly peppery, with just enough deep-fried garlic so you know it's there, and satisfyingly crunchy bits of preserved vegetable. The bowl shown above is khao tom ruam, which includes duck, duck blood and pig stomach. The meat is minimal but exceedingly tender, and the odd combination somehow works.

Tang Ngee Huat 49 Th Plaeng Nam, Bangkok 02 227 6457 10am-9pm

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Sisamorn Lert Rot/ศรีสมรเลิศรส

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IMG_1119-Edit Khao kai op (ข้าวไก่อบ; shown above) is a dish of slices of marinated chicken served over rice. Si Samorn Lert Rot, a restaurant just off Th Convent in Bangkok's Silom area, claim to have been serving the dish for 50 years - an allegation seemingly backed up by their cool old-school sign:

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"Op" literally means to bake, but when I asked about their oven, the woman preparing the dish at Si Samorn replied that the meat was in fact deep-fried. "I don't know why they call it that," she added. Regardless, the chicken is expertly "baked" in a wok of hot oil until tender and moist. It's then sliced and served over rice and topped with a rich, oily and extremely garlicky sauce. It's a simple, satisfying dish, and this is allegedly one of the more famous places in Bangkok to eat it.

The meat is also available over noodles. I had the pork - also deep-fried, and also well-seasoned and tender - with thin rice noodles and a dollop of the previously-mentioned sauce:

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Good, but it didn't quite come together as well as the rice version.

Highly recommended.

Si Samorn Lert Rot Soi Phiphat 2, Bangkok 6.30am-3pm Mon-Sat

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How to make: Kuaytiaw phat puu/ก๋วยเตี๋ยวผัดปู

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DSC_9507-Edit Kuaytiaw phat puu, rice noodles fried with a curry paste mixture and crab, is a signature dish of Chanthaburi. Despite this, it's only available at a couple places in the town, most of which are take-away only.

It took a bit of sleuthing, but I was eventually able to locate a lone stall in the city's market, and bought a bag:

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Eating the noodles at a roadside coffee stall, I found them rich and slightly sweet, trailed by a barely-there spiciness. I liked the dish, and thought it had the added benefit of being easy to make for those who don't have access to obscure Thai ingredients. In searching the internet, I found two alternate versions of the recipe: one in which the crabs and then the curry paste are fried in oil before adding the noodles, and another in which the curry paste and crabs are simmered in coconut cream. I decided to go with the latter. If you can read Thai, the recipe upon which this is based can be seen here (the Thai script can't be viewed in Firefox for some reason). If you want to keep it authentic, try to find the famous sen chan, rice noodles from Chanthaburi, otherwise any thin rice noodles will do.

Kuaytiaw Phat Puu (Chanthaburi-style fried noodles with crab)

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Large dried chilies, six, soaked in warm water until soft Shallots, 5, peeled Garlic, 6 large cloves, peeled Shrimp paste, about 2 Tbsp

Coconut cream, about 2 cups Dried thin rice noodles, 250g Tamarind paste, to taste Fish sauce and/or salt, to taste Palm sugar, to taste Ketchup, to taste Four swimmer crabs (about 750g), prepared and quartered Chinese chives, 1 small bunch, chopped into lengths of about 3cm

Lime, sliced Chinese chives, 2 small bunches Bean sprouts, about 1 cup Baby cucumber, four, sliced thinly

Make a curry paste by grinding chilies, shallots, garlic and shrimp paste in a mortar and pestle until fine. Set aside.

Bring coconut milk to a simmer a wok over med-low heat. Add curry paste, stirring to combine. Lower heat slightly, being careful not to allow coconut cream to boil, and simmer until liquid is reduced slightly and mixture is well-combined and fragrant, about 10 to 15 minutes.

While mixture is simmering, soak noodles in water until soft and flexible, about 10 minutes.

Season coconut cream mixture to taste with tamarind paste, fish sauce, sugar and ketchup; it should be somewhat sweet and sour, slightly less salty and spicy. Allow to simmer another 10 minutes or so until the flavours have combined. Add crab and simmer until cooked, another 5 minutes.

Pour mixture, including crab, into a large bowl. Return about 3/4 cup of the liquid back to the wok, followed by about 1/3 of the noodles. Fry, stirring to combine, adding water, if necessary, to prevent the noodles from sticking. The noodles can get pretty gloopy at this point; to avoid this, simply fry smaller portions. When noodles are soft and have absorbed the liquid, add 1/3 of chopped chives 1/3 of crab, stir to combine and serve, accompanied by a slice of lime, a couple stalks of Chinese chive, bean sprouts and sliced cucumber.

48 Hours in Chanthaburi

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Little-visited Chanthaburi, located about 250km east of Bangkok, is yet another seriously underrated Thai food destination. The province is seemingly blessed with just about everything that's great about Thai cuisine: amazing fruit (some of Thailand's most sought-after durian are grown here), fresh seafood (particularly crabs) and rice (much of which is made into sen jan, the province's famous rice noodles). I was particularly interested in the local dishes that take advantage of Chanthaburi's abundant fresh herbs - pepper, cardamom and roots such as lesser ginger and galangal. These ingredients are mashed into coarse pastes that provide the local-style phat phet (spicy stir-fried dishes often employing game; pictured below) with a truly unique spicy/warm/camphor/fragrant punch. In addition to food, Chanthaburi has an interesting old-school riverside area and a bi-weekly gem market, for which the town is also famous. This wasn't my first trip to Chan; I was last there almost exactly four years ago. For pics from my most recent trip, push play below. Click the button in the corner for full-screen mode and captions.