Underneath the Lid
December 30th, 2008
Finding Lunch
Chiang Mai, Thailand – As famous as Thailand’s street food is, ordering food in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and can’t identify any of the dishes can be intimidating. A close friend of mine has been living here for five months and I can probably count the number of times she’s had street food on one hand. At first I thought she had sanitary concerns, but one night when I brought armfuls of street food – nam tok muu (sliced pork with chilies, shallots and mint), gai toht (fried chicken), phad thai, som tom (papaya salad) and sticky rice – from Soi Ari (Phahoyotin Soi 7) for a girls night in, she was excited, much to my surprise. ”I just don’t know what to get,” she confessed when I asked her why she hadn’t been frequenting the stalls near her place. Of course, if you can’t read an all-Thai sign or communicate with a vendor, you can jump right in by pointing to someone else’s plate. Another option is stopping by one of the open-air restaurants or stalls that has a line of pots set up. It’s standard practice to walk down the line of pots and lifting each lid to see what’s inside (as you can see in the picture above). Once something has struck your fancy, or curiosity, you can mime your order to the vendor. That’s just what I did the other day in Chiang Mai while we were visiting a spot that sells mostly central Thai food.
After surveying the goods, we picked up spicy bamboo salad, a star anise soup with pork and a soup of bitter melon stuffed with pork and glass noodles. As it turns out, the spicy bamboo salad fell short of the one we usually get across the street and the star anise soup was much too sweet, but the bitter melon soup was delicious, light and savory with a slight edge of bitterness and tasty bits of pork floating around in the broth. The trick to this soup, my friend told me, was cooking the bitter melon long enough to get out the harshest bitter flavor. This soup also had just the right amount of pepper to it to sit in balance with the other flavors.
Now you don’t need a local guide to tell you what’s what or why something is or is not good. Just open and point. All you have to lose is a few minutes and a few baht.
Spicy Bamboo
Vendor Serving Up Soup
Pork and Eggs in Star Anise Broth
Bitter Melon Stuffed with Pork and Glass Noodles
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