KennethT
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Posts posted by KennethT
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The next day, we had an appointment about an hour outside of Bangkok. Afterwards, they arranged for us to have lunch at a local restaurant near the river, Lomtalay. All I can say is, wow. The place is pretty big, and very pretty being right on the river. It was packed with what looked like families going there for lunch.
Whole fried fish covered in fried garlic
pak boong
tod mun goong, which were different than I'd seen elsewhere - very light as if they were made froma shrimp mousse, then covered in what looked to be Panko then deep fried. Excellent.
Grilled tiger prawns.... The prawns were ridiculous. Each the size of my fist, with head on so you could suck the head fat. Perfectly cooked with great charring from the grill... Google this place - it's worth it going out of your way!
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For dinner that night, we had a pad thai showdown!
In one corner, the venerable stalwart, Thip Samai. In the other, almost next door neighbor, Leung Pha Pad Thai. First, the ground rules - as all good experiments mut have controls. The PT should have fresh shrimp, shrimp head fat, and not be contained in an egg bag.
Here's an interior shot of Thip Samai:
Notice the tons of staff out front... this place was packed!
Part of their menu:
The pad thai:
The noodle's orange color comes from the shrimp head fat.
Here's an interior shot of their neighbor, Leung Pha:
It's a much smaller place...
And the pad thai:
So without further ado, the breakdown of the results in no particular order:
Fresh shrimp cookedness - winner: Leung Pha. Their shrimp were cooked perfectly, while TS's were slightly overcooked.
Egg cookedness - Winner: Leung Pha. Their eggs were just barely set, and almost mixed themselves into the noodles, whereas TS's were slightly overcooked, bordering on hard/rubbery.
Misc components/ general flavor - winner: Leung Pha. LP uses larger pieces of shallot which retain a very slight crunchiness providing good textural contrast, whereas TS's shallots are smaller and basically melt into the noodles. Obviously, this whole thing is subjective, but this is more subjective than the rest. We also thought the overall flavor was slightly better at LP.
Noodle cookedness - winner: Thip Samai. Their noodle texture was just perfect. Soft, but retaining a little bite. LP's noodles were a little mushy.
So this is a David and Goliath moment... Thip Samai, the giant PT factory and institution versus the tiny neighbor.
Overall winner: Thip Samai. Their noodle texture was crazy good and heads and shoulders better than LP. To us, at the end of the day, PT is a noodle dish, and the noodle texture is key. The overall flavor of both were excellent, but even if LP edged out TS in almost every category, the differences there were subtle and relatively minor compared to the textural issue.
As an aside, how come no one in NY can make a PT with shrimp head fat?? It lends such a great flavor that is so distinctive, and turns the noodles a bright orange color.-
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The next day, we went out to Polo Fried Chicken in Lumphini. This place is a thai fried chicken (and Isaan food) institution, having been around for practically ever. First, we made the mistake of trying to walk there from the Jim Thompson store - it didn't look that far on the map.... Until we found ourselves walking down the side of the main road next to Lumphini park for what seemed like forever and then had no idea where it was! Finally, we jumped in a taxi - the driver was extremely helpful - and even though he had no idea where 'Soi Polo' was, he called the place with his cell phone and took us there with no problems... Turned out we were not far at all - the fare on the meter was only like 41B, so I very happily overpaid the driver who was especially thankful. I know he was only doing his job, but I felt like he really went out of his way to help us, plus he turned on the meter right way without me even having to ask (no less a small argument) so I liked to reward that.
So about Polo Fried Chicken.... When we arrived, they very kindly ushered us into their air conditioned dining room a few doors down. Great. Until once seated, and there was that unmistakable smell that I'm sure some people are aware of... The smell that only exists when you have a bathroom that when you use it, you're not allowed to flush the toilet paper, but instead need to use a small garbage can next to the toilet. So, that smell permeated the entire dining room and we were seated on the opposite side of the room by the doorway! I was praying that we wouldn't smell it once the food arrived... Which turned out to be true. We got a half fried chicken, som tum Thai (papaya salad), sticky rice and fried morning glory. Som tum is a very common Isaan accompaniment to fried or rotisserie chicken.
(Sorry, the picture was taken after we started eating) The fried chicken came, as described, covered in a pile of slightly spicy fried garlic. Awesome. The chicken itself, however, was quite dry, and while the skin was paper thin, was just on the cusp of starting to get a little leathery. I don't know if it was supposed to be like that, or if ours was sitting around for a while.... In any case, the two dipping sauces on the table were really good - one was a sweet chili sauce, the other a more savory chile sauce that tasted like it had a bit of tamarind. Morning glory was very good... The som tum was ok... Not as sweet as some can be, which is a good thing, but didn't really have the balance and explosion of flavors that a great version has.... All in all, we were underwhelmed. But please don't take this as a review, which wouldn't be fair after only one visit. We may have had an off table or something since it was getting late by the time we got there (about 2PM).
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That night, we went to a very famous thai-chinese place called Jay Fai. She is known for using super high quality seafood in her stir fries, and ridiculously high heat on her woks.
This is her at work:
This is one of the dishes she's famous for: Rard Na Talay, which is noodles and seafood in a oyster sauce based gravy:
We also got an awesome version of Pad Kee Mao Talay (talay means seafood, and pad kee mao is also known as drunken noodles, or drunk man noodles) which shows the high heat of the wok:
For a no-frills shophouse type restaurant, Jai Fay is very expensive, but locals come from all around BKK to go there...
At like 31-33 Thai Baht, per dollar, that means each plate is over $10!!!! But for the quality of the seafood and the preparation, it was certainly worth it.
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OK, so now we'll fast forward to July 2013 - our second trip to Thailand, mostly Bangkok. For this trip, we decided not to use a guide because there was now a lot more information about local food available online, plus we had already seen many of the major sights.
We arrived in the afternoon after spending a couple of days in Koh Samui, mostly to relax and spend some time at the Mo Ang Ko National underwater marine park for snorkeling.
I had read about a vendor who made supposedly best pork satay in BKK, located in the Hualampong neighborhood, called Chongki, but as we exited the skytrain station and walked around, we couldn't find it. Of course, we were approached by a couple of well dressed people who immediately spotted tourists and "offered" to help us look around or take us somewhere else, but we were able to escape them. But some other 'non-professional' people did help us, one even took us into a 7-Eleven to ask the clerk if she knew where it was.. turns out, it was closed that day.... So we went next door to Sri Morokot who is well known for barbecued pork over rice. A great first meal in BKK!
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OK, so this part isn't Bangkok, but after a couple days in BKK, we went to Chiang Mai - there, we took a cooking class which the first part was a local market tour... I figured people might want to see that...
Prepared curries to take home
My wife demonstrating how to drink thai coffee served in a plastic bag
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After the klong tour, we made our way to Wat Po, a buddhist temple known for being one of the earliest medical colleges in the world. It also has a HUGE reclining Buddha statue.
Mother of pearl inlays in the feet
There are lots of these types of diagrams. Wat Po also has a very famous thai massage school.
This is a snack we had in the airport, on the way to another destination... one of the best airport food I've ever had!
Small fried crabs with sriracha!
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After breakfast, we toured the Grand Palace, which to say the least, is quite grand... It is a giant complex of many buildings - it's like a small city... very hard to capture in photos...
All of the different colors are actually very small tiles... it's unbelievable how much work this must have been to construct.
Frescoes depicting history on the walls..
After the touring of the Grand Palace, we looked for some snacks to bring with us on our next activity, a klong tour - which is a riverboat touring the neighborhoods full of people who live on the river that runs through Bangkok:
A Water taxi landing area
A river view of the Marble Wat
Houses on the river
We "made merit" by feeding a bunch of fish in the river. Making merit is a buddhist custom where you do something good for someone else which will make your karma better.
Our snack - green mango with two different dips - one is sugar/chili, the other is shrimp paste. This has turned out to be one of my favorite snacks when in SE Asia!
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Recently, there was a thread about stir frying over charcoal, which immediately brought to mind memories of eating in Bangkok in July 2013. At that time, I hadn't gotten into the habit of writing food blogs, and considering that I had some spare time this weekend (a rarity) I figured I would put some of those memories down on paper, so to speak. Back then, neither my wife nor I were in the habit of taking tons of photos like we do nowadays, but I think I can cobble something together that would be interesting to folks reading it.
In the spirit of memories, I'll first go back to 2006 when my wife and I took our honeymoon to Thailand (Krabi, Bangkok and Chiang Mai), Singapore and Hanoi. That was our first time to Asia, and to be honest, I was a little nervous about it. I was worried the language barrier would be too difficult to transcend, or that we'd have no idea where we were going. So, to help mitigate my slight anxiety, I decided to book some guides for a few of the locations. Our guides were great, but we realized that they really aren't necessary, and nowadays with internet access so much more prevalent, even less necessary.
Prior to the trip, when emailing with our guide in Bangkok to finalize plans, I mentioned that we wanted to be continuously eating (local food, I thought was implied!) When we got there, I realized the misunderstanding when she opened her trunk to show us many bags of chips and other snack foods.. whoops... Anyway, once the misconception was cleared up, she took us to a noodle soup vendor:
On the right is our guide, Tong, who is now a very famous and highly sought after guide in BKK.... at the time, we were among here first customers. I had a chicken broth based noodle soup with fish ball, fish cake and pork meatball, and my wife had yen ta fo, which is odd because it is bright pink with seafood. I have a lime juice, and my wife had a longan juice.
This is what a lot of local food places look like:
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Bangkok
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I've seen charcoal powered woks for stir frying in SE Asia - they typically have some kind of fan contraption that makes the charcoal grill turn into a jet engine... I'll post some pics in a bit.
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@liuzhou wow... that doesn't look bad at all, especially for such a short flight!
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Don't feel bad @Anna N, I've never had Rice-A-Roni either... but I remember seeing the advertisements for it about 30 years ago... they had a very catchy jingle...
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@Kim Shook This dish, among many others, is very easily customizable. In fact, many times, when you order this in a local food place, it won't have any chili in the dish at all, but will have a dish of chili on the table for you to add as much as you want. I've found that Viet food is not usually very spicy - there are a lot of flavors, but tongue-tingling, make-you-sweat heat is not usually one of them, unless you add tons of chili yourself.
ETA: There are actually no chili flakes in my version either... when I marinated the chicken, I used a bit of chili paste, but that paste isn't that hot, but has a good chili flavor. And I put a bunch of thinly sliced "spur" chilis - long hot red chilis (that aren't that hot) in the dressing, but I defanged them so their mild heat was even milder - my wife is not a huge fan of very spicy food. But they have great flavor other than heat, which is why I put them in.
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Inspired by @liuzhou's trip to Vietnam, I made a dish found all over Vietnam, although originating in the Central part of the country:
Bun ga... you can't see the noodles in there - they're buried under the lettuce.... but there were plenty..
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I'm guessing their larger size is what makes the second ones their "professional" series? Is that what they mean by PRO?
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Somtum Der in the EV makes a raw shrimp dish that is awesome... On the less spicy side, I also really enjoy getting sweet shrimp (raw) in sushi form too....
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@Pan Ha! I joked with the owner about the lack of babi guling! What we had was very well prepared... we will definitely be going back.
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1 hour ago, DiggingDogFarm said:
Spanish Arbequina Olive Oil
"The main feature of the arbequina olive oil is that it is a sweet oil, i.e. it does not have any bitter aftertaste. Some Arbequina Olive Oils may sting in throat, stating simply that it is fresh.
Another characteristic of arbequina olive oil is that it tends to be quite aromatic, giving fruity aromas, like banana and apple. Mature arbequina olive oils tend to remind to the porridge of fruits of babies. This smell is due to the high percentage of polyunsaturated acids that often contain. As these acids are more volatile than the oleic acid (monounsaturated), arbequina olive oil has the disadvantage that it is less stable compared to other olive oil varieties.
Nevertheless, Arbequina olive oil, like the rest of the olive oils, has a high percentage of oleic acid, which helps to reduce the bad cholesterol (LDL) increasing the good one (HDL).
It should also be noted that Arbequina olive oil has slightly lower values of polyphenols than the rest of the varieties, so people who consume olive oil with the intention of improving their cardiovascular health, should consume other varieties such as the picual or manzanilla. Arbequina Olive Oil due to its soft and sweet aroma and taste has a wider use than other stronger olive oils."
What are fruits of babies?
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@DiggingDogFarm I like the emulsifier idea if the OP doesn't want to change the recipe or change the flavor by using a roux. A little bit of lecithin will go a long way and keep it from separating.
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I've bought frozen fish that said that on the vacuum pack. The reason the company gave is that the fish is first flash frozen without the packaging, and then sealed under a hard vacuum once frozen solid. The company said to remove from the packaging first because they thought that the pressure would damage the fish once the fish was soft and have a bad texture when cooked.
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Ha!! Here's a pic looking at the bottom of the machine...
It can only go one way!
Here's it in action
You can't see the motor but the bottom of the spit looks like a flathead screwdriver and the motors shaft has a slot to accept it. Notice the chicjen grease on the spit - I expected it to run off onto the drip pan, but some just ran along the underside and down the shaft into the motor... unbeknownst to me at the time!
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It can also be supremely frustrating - a couple months ago, I got a vertical rotisserie... after 2 uses, it died... the autopsy revealed that the design was really stupid - the spit motor is located directly under the spit, so as you're roasting away, some grease or juices runs down the shaft and gets into the motor. Just as I discovered this issue, the 30 day Amazon return expired... I've been trying to find replacement motors - I've looked everywhere - I can find many similar motors with the similar speed, the same mounting, but the end of the shaft shape (where the spit plugs in) is wrong so I'd either have to remachine the spit or the motor shaft...
It's a shame because the heating elements and reflector work great. Making a new spit myself, or redesigning how the motor interfaces with it may wind up costing more than the rotisserie did!
Memories of a brief trip to Bangkok and environs
in Elsewhere in Asia/Pacific: Dining
Posted
@heidih Tamarind is brown, so I don't think that's what's coloring your pad thai... maybe turmeric?