eG Foodblog: Peter Green - Bringing Bangkok back home

[Peter Green]

Peter: I am so enjoying this, and finally found the time to pester you with questions and comments.

If you get a chance, could you do a close-up of pea eggplants next to some sort of standard-sized object? I don’t think they are available here, but it is always possible that I have seen them without recognition (kinda like long-leaf coriander, until quite recently).

Fresh green peppercorns are another ingredient that I cannot find. How would you compare the taste of fresh vs. pickled, and do you think that pickled would significantly detract from the flavor of a typically complex Thai curry or salad?

Your collection of curry pastes jumped out at me during the kitchen tour. Do you make your own, bring back from Thailand, or have a particular brand that you like?

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Bruce,

Here's a shot of the pea eggplants in comparison to a small, regular eggplant, and with an egg ("why an egg?" says Yoonhi). I didn't want to open up and take one individual one out, as they'll oxidize pretty quick.

For curry, I'm fond of Mae Ploy's sachets, and Nam Jai's little wet bundles. I bring thes back from Thailand, as I'm not happy with the selection here. I'm lazy, so I don't make my own curries that often, as I don't have all the right ingredients. I'll break down and work up the odd stuff for jungle curries, or if Yoonhi's out I'll get enthusiastic and make a complete mess of things (what fun we can have with mortars and pestles!).

The brined peppercorns don't work for Thai foods very well. I've experimented in salads. But they're interesting in stews and other things.

Cheers,

Peter

[Margo]

For curry, I'm fond of Mae Ploy's sachets, and Nam Jai's little wet bundles.  I bring thes back from Thailand, as I'm not happy with the selection here.  I'm lazy, so I don't make my own curries that often, as I don't have all the right ingredients.  I'll break down and work up the odd stuff for jungle curries, or if Yoonhi's out I'll get enthusiastic and make a complete mess of things (what fun we can have with mortars and pestles!).

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Please, Peter, you've shown us your fridge and pantry: what ingredients could you be missing?!

Thanks for blogging, you have such an engaging "voice" and it's a great tour of your corner of Thailand.

[Peter Green]

It’s Saturday evening. I’m running out of time.

We had a mutiny. The family wants something other than Thai food for dinner tonight.

Back from vacation, we’ve fallen into our “schedules”. Today, Serena had swimming right after school, then Yoonhi and I have karate, then Serena has ballet and jazz. It’s a little light, as baseball hasn’t started for her yet.

Intermediate snacking consisted of the French oven treatment for some of the cha siaobao we keep in the freezer (you saw them in there).

It’s not as good as when we first pull them off the steamers, but they fill the gap.

For the main course tonight, I figured risotto. This way I could stealth in some of the flavours I like.

I chopped the onions up, pulled out some brown chicken stock to thaw, and cleaned the tobiko mushrooms I’d brought back from Thailand. I toyed with the idea of using some Chinese sausage and coriander, too.

To me, the tobiko mushroom is sort of the Hello Kitty of the fungus world.

I changed my mind on the sausage for the risotto, and put off some sticky rice to steam with it as a later-on snack. The coriander went back in the fridge.

I’ve dropped in the excess black Thai fungus from last night, and some dried scallops I found in the pantry (did we talk about those?), and the tobikos are in at this point

The risotto itself went okay, although I missed having Serena around to do the stirring. It’s a good dish for the obsessive amongst us. Just all that time stirring, and stirring, and ladling in stock, and stirring…..

and, in that Tardis I call a pantry, I remembered these. Sweet Chinese dried tomatoes to fill in around the tomato paste base in the brown chicken stock I used. They dried the tomatos and then set them aside in sugar syrup to sweeten. These are great, and I think they’ve only got an 8% lead content (just joking!). We’d picked these up in Xi’an, I believe. I’d have to go look at the China thread.

Here’s my salt of choice for the table. I know it’s been tangential in a lot of shots, but I’ve never really introduced it to you properly. Darned if I can actually taste a difference in pink salt, but I feel so Steingartenerish using it (Note: Jeffrey Steingarten, along with P.J. O’Rourke, is one of my heroes).

This is the finished product. I blessed it with butter (but I’d prefer mascarpone) and some truffle oil to complement the mushrooms in there. No parmesan, as it just didn’t feel right.

A good flavour, lots of mushrooms, fungus, and earth, with those tomatos lurking around, ready to come out and bat playfully at you (I’m back on Hello Kitty similes).

And for dessert, I couldn’t stand seeing those leprous looking bananas in the fridge anymore, so…..

Which of you was it that mentioned banana bread?

[insomniac]

Fresh green peppercorns are another ingredient that I cannot find. How would you compare the taste of fresh vs. pickled,

Bruce, the fresh green peppercorns taste hot like black peppercorns but, funnily enough, greener and sort of pop in your mouth releasing the heat in a clean burst, without the crunchy dry flavour of the balck ones; comparing fresh with pickled, the same difference as fresh vs green chilis....hope that makes sense

[Peter Green]

Fresh green peppercorns are another ingredient that I cannot find. How would you compare the taste of fresh vs. pickled,

Bruce, the fresh green peppercorns taste hot like black peppercorns but, funnily enough, greener and sort of pop in your mouth releasing the heat in a clean burst, without the crunchy dry flavour of the balck ones; comparing fresh with pickled, the same difference as fresh vs green chilis....hope that makes sense

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Most women say I'm a lot fresher when I'm pickled......

Along with the drool icon, we need a Groucho Marx icon!

[insomniac]

Coming back, I almost made it past the mob when I suddenly went bolt upright. Someone had given me a grope. You’d think I was in Wales

no, Peter,if you were in Wales the grope would have been followed by a smack in the mouth from the B/F and then projectile vomiting on your shoes by the groper.........ducks and runs

(I love Wales but am happy that Fiji just beat them in the rugby )

Edited September 29, 2007 by insomniac (log)

[Peter Green]

How to show a girl a good time

After several days of being on the run, hanging out with my friends, and generally being the social Mr. Hyde to my solity Dr. Jekyll when I’m at home, I decided Yoonhi and I needed a night on our own.

So I took her to the Londoner. (“Shades of Sean of the Dead and the Winchester!” you say)

Okay, we only went there for pre-dinner beers and a chance to drop off children’s books for Father Joe. That’s another story, and unfortunately not food related, but I will say, if anyone wants to support a good charity, Father Joe’s Mercy Centre is one of them. Besides the hospice to look after the kids with AIDS, they also run upwards of 34 schools for the kids in the slums of Bangkok. Read his book – Welcome To The Bangkok Slaughterhouse by Fr Joe H. Maier – there, I’ve strayed off the food topic. Take me away!

Nope, no jackboots at the door, I think I got away with that.

Anyways, we had a pleasant couple of beers (their Cream Bitter for me, and the Pils for Yoonhi), I got some fried camembert into Yoonhi to tide her over, and we made some new friends, this an ex-Thud jock who’d taken a SAM in the belly tank and disappeared from his formation over Hanoi. He was going to be doing an interview with The Big Chili magazine, so look for it there.

As usual, Yoonhi had to drag me from the pub, but it was in a good cause.

We were expected at Le Vendome.

I’d chatted briefly with Nicolas at Romain Fornell’s dinner the week before (see the WGF thread for Romain’s cooking), and had promised I’d call.

I like to keep my promises.

I hate complications when it comes to dining. I’d just told Nicolas to cook what he felt like.

We go back a littlle ways (and he’s very tolerant of me). I remember when he’d first come up from Singapore, and had started at the Four Seasons. Then he cooked that wonderful Riviera Dinner in Madison’s as part of the next WGF. Then, in one of my finer moments of inebriation, I had tumbled into an auction that saw me with his services for a dinner of 8 in a very large suite atop the Four Seasons. After, he opened Le Vendome, which is one of the top French restaurants in a town that worships French cooking (okay, they’re polytheists – the Thai worship a lot of cooking, but French cuisine is something they do admire a lot – somebody remind me to write a brief bit on the Cordon Bleu school in Bangkok! I did a brief walk through.).

Anyways, I’m wandering. Nicolas, last year, had moved from his spot at the Conrad to a place on Soi 31 (beside the Eugenia Hotel). We were there for lunch at the tail end of the Laos trip, and I covered that meal here ). Go through my other threads, and you’ll find Le Vendome as a recurring item. I am fond of the food.

So, we dropped down from our cab to find Nicolas waiting for us at the gate. The yard with the pool looks wonderful in the evening gloom. I love the way water plays with light.

Nicolas sent over the carte to our hotel the next day (I forgot to pick it up), but let me post it here as a roadmap.

We were early, especially by Thai hours, so we had the place more or less to ourselves. The private rooms were booked out, and families were to-and-fro from there, but the main dining area was ours for the short term.

We’d brought a bottle of Moet & Chandon 2000 vintage, and they gracefully put this on ice. I always figure that champagne is a safe bet for any meal.

While that chilled, we started with a glass of Pinot Gris each.

The ham was still there, taunting me, but I turned my steely gaze elsewhere.

The opener took me back to the dinner in the Rachadamri Suite. An egg,with the most elusive of tastes hiding in there. It reminds me of the pods in the first Alien movie, but with a much better palate. The carte describes this as a steamed hen egg, but there was the flavour of truffles in there, lurking on my tongue.

The ravioli that came next was as good as Fornell’s class' macaroni. Foie gras raviolis topped of with a slab of pan roasted foie, with a beautifully emulsified sauce of mushrooms and foie gras. Thick, solid, very frontal.

I like foie gras.

The champagne was appropriately chilled at this point, down around 8 centigrade. It had the right feel, like a baby’s skin, rich with milk.

The slow cooked turbot had a wonderful texture. I believe it had been sous vide’d. But the piece of crispy lard really took my attention. With a good champagne, this was just fun…and then the langoustine jus in the bottom…..with the taste of artichokes and leeks….

As you know from tonight’s dinner, we like risotto, and this was perfect. Just the right texture on the carnoli, truffle oil in there to bring the fats forward in your mouth. And the pigeon came away with that carnivore’s pull….

I had some more champagne.

After the solid fats of the confit, Nicolas sent around a sorbet to cleanse. Again, “red” is my favourite flavour.

And then the main came out. A wonderfully blackened pot with the pigeon, the beans, roast garlic – as attractive as jewels to us, and onions. The potatos, infused with thyme and a hint of truffles, were served in cups on the side. This was like a good wine, I couldn’t help but lean over and put my nose in the pot (luckily, I have a very large nose).

It seemed such a shame to take the food out of the pot, but I suppose it was for the greater good.

Dessert was very, very good. Remember I said that I wasn’t a dessert guy? I take that back. As long as there are truffles in the dessert. This chocolate soup beat the truffle ice cream at T8 in Shanghai hands down. The picture below is all we could shoot.

sorry!

And we, and the champagne, finished up on the little gem of a dessert.

I'll write more about this, as I chatted with Nicolas after dinner. But it's late now, and I actually do have a day job to get to.

[Peter Green]

Nicolas stopped by the table after dinner, and we chatted a bit, comparing notes on the Fornell dinner at the WGF, and discussing the state of things.

For business, the private rooms were the right choice, and a good reason for moving to the new space. It's become very popular now to entertain in these settings, both for business purposes (it's good to have a little privacy when clinching that deal) but also for social reasons. In Bangkok, it's not that common to have dinner parties at home. Excellent food has been available close at hand for so long that the tradition of formal dining at home has not flourished. A private room, however, provides that sense of intimacy for a gathering of friends that may not be accomplished in an open dining area in a restaurant.

Plus, you can smoke, if that's your pleasure.

Perhaps the only concern with the new place is that the kitchen is a little removed from the dining area, which doesn't allow Nicolas to interact as much with his guests. This hasn't affected the quality of the food, however, so I'm not as concerned as he.

We strolled out to the soi, and a taxi was hailed. Yoonhi was happy (champagne does that), we had had something a little different, and now we were ready for something even more different.

It was time for shochu.

[snowangel]

Peter, where does Serena go to school? What does she have for lunch when she's in school?

[C. sapidus]

Here's a shot of the pea eggplants in comparison to a small, regular eggplant, and with an egg ("why an egg?" says Yoonhi).  I didn't want to open up and take one individual one out, as they'll oxidize pretty quick.

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Peter, thanks for the shot of the pea eggplants - they are a bit larger than I had pictured, so I'll have a better chance of recognizing them should they turn up nearby. To find the ultimate reasonably efficient homemade red/green/jungle/panang/etc. curry pastes, I have had great fun recently with mortars and blenders and such. I do need to try the Mae Ploy sachets for comparison.

I will be quite sad to see this foodblog end.

Fresh green peppercorns are another ingredient that I cannot find. How would you compare the taste of fresh vs. pickled,

Bruce, the fresh green peppercorns taste hot like black peppercorns but, funnily enough, greener and sort of pop in your mouth releasing the heat in a clean burst, without the crunchy dry flavour of the balck ones; comparing fresh with pickled, the same difference as fresh vs green chilis....hope that makes sense

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Insomniac, thanks, that's a very clear description and analogy. Ah, well, we will make do with what we have. We did enjoy a somewhat modified Victor Sodsook recipe for red curry with beef and (pickled) green peppercorns.

[prasantrin]

What happened with Yoonhi's birthday? Fancy schmancy dinner? Flowers of the non-wheat variety?

I thought that ham looked familiar! And it looks as good as ever!

[Peter Green]

I thought that ham looked familiar!  And it looks as good as ever!

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I know it's a new one, as the kids and I did considerable damage to the last one when we passed through in January.

What happened with Yoonhi's birthday?  Fancy schmancy dinner?  Flowers of the non-wheat variety?

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Unfortunately, Yoonhi had the misfortune to spend her birthday here and not in Bangkok, so no good restaurants. I cooked for her, and did a simple pan roasted tenderloin with foie gras and mushrooms finished off in the excess foie juice to soak it up.

I thought the whole-wheat was a nice touch, myself........

Edited September 30, 2007 by Peter Green (log)

[Peter Green]

Shochu

You’ve probably cottoned on that I like Bangkok. But there are a lot of places I like. Why always Bangkok.

Well, a big part of it is self-fulfilling. Bangkok has an initial attraction for a lot of people. It’s exotic. It’s stylish. The food is excellent. But that goes for other places, too. These all act as the hooks to draw people in, but a lot of fish get close, and are never completely landed.

My thesis is that Thailand lands just a few more fish than the others. And these fish attract other fish. I enjoy Bangkok as much for who’s there, as for what it isThe more interesting people (like chefs and writers) who settle here, the more people like them come, and so forth, and so forth. It’s like living in Gurdjieff’s Meetings With Remarkable Men.

Except that the women here are just as remarkable.

After Le Vendome we were off to visit one of my friends. Let’s call her Y (as I still have to write and ask if I can use her name). I’d met her at the Club a couple of years back. An attractive Japanese lady, single, and working in Bangkok for the last dozen or more years as an entrepreneur.

She’s a lot of fun. Passionate about North African cuisine, and continually moving. Always looking for something different to work at.

So, she opened a bar. This in addition to her regular business. Busy, like I said.

It’s a neat place. Down soi 33 (once known as the Dead Artists Street, but that’s been changing), and then down the first sub soi on the right. You go down the street, past the usual signs for Japanese clubs, and there, on your right is a very chic looking place, very brown, with an inviting wooden bar visible through the window, and no apparent sign.

Inside I was just about to ask the Japanese speaking staff if my friend was there, when she popped right up in front of me. How come she looks the same after a couple of years, and I keep on getting older?

She’d set this place up as a home away from home for the salarymen in the area, and she’s become very popular, especially with the Kyushu crowd, as she’s catering her bar to shochu rather than sake.

Now me, I’m relatively ignorant. I’ve had plenty of the Korean soju (and lived to talk about it), and I’ve had shochu with soda and lime over horse sashimi at Uemasa last year, but I wasn’t really clear on the distinctions.

Three glasses were laid out for us. One distilled from potato, another from barley, and the last from wheat. Being a complet heretic, I broke open the small bottle of Russian Standard Imperia that I was carting around, and asked her to have it put on ice so I could compare.

The potato came through like some of the vodkas I’ve had, thick on the palate. The barley was a bit lighter, and the wheat was, to me, the cleanest of the three, pulling the feel into the front of the mouth.

Y and Yoonhi and I tried the vodka, which had chilled. Very, very clean, but with far more fire (as it has far more alcohol) than the shochu, which runs around 25% in contrast to the vodka’s 40%.

The bar filled as we drank, and Y had to leave us to see to her customers. She would great each couple (the came in twos and threes) and chat with them for awhile, before having to greet more people as they arrived.

Her grace is part of the secret of the popularity of the place, but also her attention to detail. The glasses, the serving pieces, all have that slight touch of personality that is so important in a place like this.

Also, she spends a fair amount of time flitting back and forth to Japan, sourcing shochu, and, just as important in Asian drinking, familiar snacks to go with the drinks. She sent out a pretty little thing of squid for us; grilled with the internals still there, a dollop of mayonaisse to set it off.

Many of the Japanese places in Bangkok are fairly insular, and not particularly welcoming to Westerners, but Y made it clear she was happy to see anybody, as long as they were pleasant, so I don’t worry about recommending the place.

Things were getting more and more crowded, and I hated to impose any further, so we bid farewell, and made room for those waiting to get in.

It’s good to see people succeeding.

[Peter Green]

Some folks have been asking about the mechanics of posting, especially given how much we all love working in Image Gullet.

Typically, when I’m on the road, I work with my trusty 12” G4. It’s the size of a magazine, and light enough to take on the streets. The new Macs are pretty, and the screens are better, but that extra size bothers me. Some of you may recall that the old boy looked like he was down for the count a little while ago (“made a sound like a dog being skewered on a red hot poker” where the words I think I used), but I was able to resurrect him with a new hard drive and more memory.

This is a shot from the Dusit, where I spent my time catching up on the WGF. Right now, I use this machine for posting the images that I’ve stored in the hard drive.

The wine, by the way, is the Terrazas de los Andes that was being served with Douglas Rodriguez’ dinner. I’d missed this one, but I’m a big fan of Argentinian Malbecs, so a bottle found its way to me from the Four Seasons. It’s a good wine for sipping, which I did quite avidly, but would be a fantastic wine with a good piece of meat, which is obviously why the Argentinians export so little of it. They’re too busy enjoying it. Solid tannins, and a very well distributed mouth. If I’d been thinking, I would’ve found an excuse to take it over to the Roadhouse and share it with Dana. Life is full of missed opportunities…….

Anyways, ror scanning, we use an older G4 tower with a flatbed. I hate throwing away computers, and there’s always a use for them (like allowing the rest of the family internet access while I’m doing this)

And for the real work, which includes writing, posting, and my videos that I’ve been neglecting, I run off of a G5. I’m still reluctant to sully my hands with those Intel chips, but the day is coming, I can tell (Scud did get a new 24” iMac for school).

So, the way things work, I run through the photos, drop the image size to 640x480, then upload them from the laptop under the appropriate ID. Then I can view them in Image Gullet on the main machine under this ID and get the http path to drop into these Word documents which I can in turn dump into the blog.

Is that geeky enough for now?

[Peter Green]

Time is running out for us, and there's still a lot to talk about. One more dinner here at home, and then the wrap up at dawn for me tomorrow (or evening in North America).

One topic I'll get to later in one of the venues, I did get a walk through of the new Cordon Blue school that's been opened up in conjunction with the Dusit Thani. I'm going to see if I can get a similar tour through their facility in Korea next week, and that should make for an interesting discussion.

And we've hardly touched upon the great philosophical questions of food culture!

But maybe I should stick to putting up more pictures of food for now?

[Peter Green]

Peter, where does Serena go to school?  What does she have for lunch when she's in school?

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Susan,

Serena goes to school here with us. The company provides schooling through Grade 9, and The Girl has many more years to go before we set her adrift like her brother.

For lunch she'll usually come home, and her babysitter will prepare things for her. Unfortunately, both Yoonhi and I are out, so I can't get shots.

Typical lunches for Serena are:

- kim bap

- ice cream (if we're not watching)

- shin ramyen

- rice and soup

- fried rice

actually, it could be just about anything. Leftovers....generally Asian food of some sort.

Cheers,

Peter

[Peter Green]

Here’s a little place in behind the Dusit. We were just wandering around, and decided to give it a try. Inside, it was pretty typical. A few metal tables, and the main stand for the food, almost as if they'd built the place around an outside hawker stand.

They really only had two dishes. I ordered the rice dish. This is a fairlly typical quick eat in Thailand. Mix up to your own specs, and get it in your tummy. Rice, Chinese sausage, egg, onions, papaya, and chilis and more.

Yoonhi ordered the Khao Soi. It was edible, but hardly what we were used to from our Chiang Mai time (Faa Ngam Khao Soi, I can still feel that crunch in the mouth and the pickles).

But this is just the prelude to getting back into the streets, which I’ll get to after a bit of cooking. (Mutiny’s in the offing again)

[Peter Green]

Yup, a Thai cooking streak couldn’t last. Last night it was the risotto, tonight it’s Szechuan.

This is part my doing. With all the rooting around, I’m getting a lot of smells. And the one that really twists me off is that of Szechuan peppercorn.

I’m an addict.

Tonight, two simple dishes that I’d picked up in Chengdu. You’ve probably read it, but you can see the directions in the Chengdu cooking school post.. Kung Pao Chicken and Fried Eggplant.

The only real trick to the eggplant is using a flower cut, a cross hatch on the upper side which allows the oil to pentrate deeply into the aubergine.

This penetration gives the eggplant a fantastic silkiness, and it also creates more surface area to hold the sauce and the peppercorns it carries.

Likewise, the chicken is a good delivery system for more face deadening sensation, as well as a good excuse to indulge in big chunks of good ginger. The eggplant (and mafu tofu) is also my primary excuse for pickling chilis, as all good Chengdu recipes call for oil, peppercorns, and pickled chili.

Yoonhi’s just come by and offered me some hot bori. This is a “tea” made from roasted barley, and (almost) as cleansing as beer. It’s not that exciting a colour that I need to take a shot of it…….I told Yoonhi that this was my last night of posting, and she’s bouncing off the walls with glee.

But that just means we need to get back to getting more pictures of food up. Give me a few minutes.

[Peter Green]

Getting back into the sois, we found a local market. More fruits than anything else.

But soon enough we bulled our way (well, maybe I was the one doing the bulling) into the “food court”. These places are great. Maybe not as hygienic as the malls, but cheap and cheerful.

Fish, chicken, suspicious bags of green stuff.

These people have obviously been getting their bananas from my freezer.

And here I am perspiring away a dozen or so kilos, and these young ladies are wearing body stockings and gloves while working over the oil. Mind you, they probably don’t have the napalm scars on their body that I do from polenta.

I wanted the rice noodles with the happy looking orange sauce. I should look up the proper name, but I’m on a flat out run here.

Good fish balls in this, too (hopefully the fish won’t miss them).

Like its khao soi brother, this comes with fixings to be added to the dish. The pickles in the middle are my favourite.

I probably go overboard with the chili dusting, but my taste buds need to be woken up from time to time.

Yoonhi switched the opposite direction, going here for a rice dish, but one that had benefitted from good pieces of stewed pork draped over. Lots of fat and skin, and a pull apart feel.

This had us more or less content. Typical market eating. We’d need to walk around a bit to wear it off so we could get in another meal.

“I want a massage,” says Yoonhi.

[Smithy]

Cookbooks are sort of like pets.  Some we go out looking for, and bring back home, others just appear on the beach one day and stick around. 

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That really should be someone's tag line. Maybe it will become mine.

The problem with turbo-lurking is that there's no way in this good earth to catch up enough to ask intelligent questions, or even many silly ones. The distant puffing you hear is me trying to catch my breath, mostly from laughter. Thank you for a very entertaining week! I look forward to the remainder, but I do not forward to the end.

And thank you for setting a new gold standard. The next time my husband whinges about how stuffed our fridges, freezers and pantries are, I'll direct him your way.

[Smithy]

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Now THAT looks like a mortar and pestle worth having. If I were to go looking for one like that, where would I be most likely to find it? Does it have a proper name? (I just know I'm feeding you a straight line. )

…….I told Yoonhi that this was my last night of posting, and she’s bouncing off the walls with glee.

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Tell her, on behalf of the assembled crowd, that she gets hero points for putting up with us.

Edited September 30, 2007 by Smithy (log)

[Peter Green]

One of the things I’d promised myself I would do would be to either get to Chinatown for some roast duck at Shangralila, or else do FoodImport’s walking tour of the eateries in Saochingcha

After a lot of dithering, I was tossed in the direction of Saochingcha, The Giant Swing. The new swing was just erected the week before, and blessed by His Majesty. Three years ago it was found to be rotted and decayed beyond repair, and so new pillars had to be found and consecrated.

You can read whatever political allegories into that you want.

I actually got a bit of both areas in this outing. We had to drive through Yaowarat in order to get past Sanam Luang to the swing, so I was able to admire what may be the world’s largest Chinatown (and the world’s largest concentration of bird’s nest and shark fin soup joints).

As we sat in traffic in the middle of Chinatown, I admired the cheerful posters everywhere that were telling me that today was Car Free Day in Bangkok.

I felt much better.

We did arrive, finally, at the Swing. Yoonhi admired it for all of about two minutes, read the plaque, and then asked “so what?”

“Well, it’s a Giant Swing.” I told her. “It’s got, like, Brahmin cultural heritage and stuff. Why look! There’s a man feeding pigeons!”

That bought me about a minute. She didn’t fall for the Elvis spotting, though.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“Um, well, I’ve got this guide to small restaurants in the area…..and, well……”

“Okay, okay”

The first spot went well enough. Shuan Shim was recommended for their beef broth, and it was quite good.

Good meatballs in there, too, with the fish balls and fish cake.

And the staff were all grins that I was there eating.

It’s good to be a source of amusement.

After this we didn’t do so well.

Some great views, and some interesting looking things,

(don't ask)

but it took me awhile to find the Khao Niao Korpanich. Okay, it took me ages to find it. And I finally worked it out after standing on a suspiciously familiar street corner in deafening traffic noise.

K. Niao Korpanich wasn’t open.

As a note to working with this guide: it’s a gem, it really is, and its something I’d like to do with some of my buddies later on. But you need to read Thai. Be prepared for some groping.

I hadn’t mentioned the “groping” part to Yoonhi.

Just past the khao niao place was another recommended restaurant. It wasn’t until I saw the sign in Thai and English that I realized I was back at Chote Chitr, where’ I’d been last October..

The mee krob is good, it’s what they’re known for, and Halliday had written them up in a famous article that’s attached to their wall, but I’d been here before. I was looking for "new".

We had the pork curry without coconut milk, which was actually quite painful

And the eggplant, which is wonderfully smokey. I’d had this last time, and figured that Yoonhi would like it.

At least they weren’t detailing the dogs nails on the dining tables this time.

And Yoonhi was not happy.

While I’m ecstatic at the chance to undertake a scavenger hunt, being tired, thirsty, and deafened was not quite how she wanted to spend her last day in Bangkok. I took the hint, we finished our meal, and headed for Tha Chang.

This was my one good idea for the day (or at least non-disastrous). By using the River Express, we’d bypass the traffic jams of the city. Sitting in a car for a couple of hours would not make Yoonhi more pleased with me.

And the area by the pier is pretty at night, as is the river.

Sure enough, someone tried to tell me that I’d have to wait a long time for the boat, but I could rent one of theirs right now. Very cheap.

Sure enough, I ignored her, and the boat was there in less than five minutes.

A pleasant ride down the river, a bounce up the skytrain, and we were home.

And Yoonhi was talking to me again.

[Peter Green]

Now THAT looks like a mortar and pestle worth having.  If I were to go looking for one like that, where would I be most likely to find it? Does it have a proper name?  (I just know I'm feeding you a straight line.  )

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I love my mortar and pestle. At least up to the point where it lands on my toes. I know that day is coming.

I'd wanted something like this for years, as Yoonhi won't let me near hers ("they're for sesame!"....you should hear what she says about her scissors). When I'd almost committed to a small fortune in excess luggage, I found this one in a small store I use here in the Gulf that brings in Thai ingredients. They only had this one. It weighs in at around 14 kg, so it has enough mass to stay still when I'm pounding. And it's all stone, so it doesn't take much to pulverize anything that goes in there (which is why I'm such a major consumer of peppercorns now).

Thanks,

Peter

[Peter Green]

While I've got a number of old hands on-line, can anyone fill me in on the story of the statue of the Golden Pig? This is close to the City Pillar, by the klong just behind.

I've asked Thai friends in Bangkok, and all I get is "it's a golden pig".

I was looking for more detail.

[Peter Green]

Okay, folks. It's almost 10p.m. here in the balmy Arabian Gulf, and I've work tomorrow.

I'll sneak in one last round of answers tomorrow at dawn (which'll still be Sunday in North America), and then that's it.

Let me just say "It's been fun"

"No it hasn't," yells Yoonhi."Stop taking pictures of everything!"