Michael Ginor, Ian Chalermkittichai & Todd English

Bangkok, Thailand – I won’t jump into the snarkiness that is reverberating through the digital space.  However, this post couldn’t be more timely unless I had actually gotten it together for the period of time when the Food Trip with Todd English episode on Thailand (Big Mango: Three Nights in Bangkok) was airing.  The picture above of Michael Ginor, Ian Chalermkittichai and Todd English was taken during a taping at Thip Samai for the episode.

If you’ve ever wondered how Anthony Bourdain eats without reservations and Ruth Reichl finds herself making ant-egg salads…well I probably can’t speak for all travel shows.  What I do know is that most shows have a dedicated team of producers who do some research online, reach out to tourism boards and try to make local contacts through those resources.  Once they’ve set up their contacts and sketched out brief itineraries, they’re on the road (or in the sky) for consecutive tapings that are then edited and portioned out over the course of a season.

For this episode, I joined Ian and his wife Sarah as Ian gave Todd and Michael the background on phad thai.  Just so you know, the first place we tried, one of my and Ian’s sous chef’s favorites, was on the corner of soi Ari and completely gone by the time the camera crew arrived at 10:30 p.m.  We ended up at Thailand’s most famous phad thai place on Maha Chai road.  It’s not my favorite, but admittedly the theatrics up front probably made for the best clips.

Sarah and I actually tried to sneak some phad kee mao (drunken noodles) at Raan Jay Fai down the street.  As it turned out, they needed us to be in the taping so we followed orders as silent actors.  As they rolled the film, we had to walk down the street with the guys pretending to have a light-hearted pre-phad thai conversation…and then back up and walk down again.  But we couldn’t sit down to eat just yet, first we had to look on with pretend great interest as Ian explained each ingredient for the dish and once seated wait with pretend patience for everyone’s commentary on the dish before digging in for real.  It was all done in the name of travel television and my fifteen seconds of fame.

Beht Sam

Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand – Last night my father called to tell me that a box of notebooks and shoes arrived at my parents’ house in Massachusetts.  I sent it from Bangkok over two months and its arrival was a reminder of things past and things left undone.  So, I’m picking up where I left off on my last travels.

I spent my first day in Ubon biking all over the countryside and then circling and circling around town looking for a nonexistent restaurant.  My search unfruitful, I stopped off elsewhere and ordered tom yum goong and beht sam, roast duck bathed in soy with green chiles, coriander and a chile sauce on the side.  (That’s coagulated blood in the upper left.)  The soup was lackluster, but the duck was delicious and more than I could eat anyway.  I headed home sated.

Suang Sawad
64 Palochai Road
Ubon Ratchathani, 3400
045 24 2256

Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand – I wanted to return to Isaan (Northeast Thailand) for one last time before leaving the country so I chose Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand’s far east at the corner of Laos and Cambodia for a short trip.  I took an overnight bus on the wonderfully strange Nakhon Chai Air seemingly so named for the features that mimic an actual plane: meals and beverages, individual TVs, reclining seats with a massage function and attendants in uniform, perfect makeup and hair.  It was nicer than the last plane I took to the U.S.

After getting in and settling in, I stopped in at Choikee for breakfast on my way to rent a motorbike.  It was open-front restaurant where middle-aged men leaned over unclean tables smoking and drinking tea.  They had an assortment of Western and Thai dishes, but I opted for Bah Kut Teh, the stewed pork with Chinese herbs, which turned out to be a fabulous chance choice.  Aromatic of star anise, the soup was presented rather elegantly for plain surroundings.  Enoki mushrooms, dusted with ground white pepper, fanned out across the napa cabbage-wrapped stewed pork and the whole arrangement was surrounded by a clear brown broth.  The broth was soy salty, herbaceous and spiced, the pork tender and flavorful and the vegetables crisp tender.

Once finished with breakfast and sorted out on my motorbike rental, I set off for Ban Pa Ou, a small weaving village north of Ubon.  Many of the villages around Ubon specialize in a craft, like weaving cotton or bronze gongs.  Similarly, parts of the road seem to specialize in one food. You’ll see the same item at stall after stall for one whole stretch and then there’s nothing for miles and miles and miles.

At first I thought it was a bit peculiar that a whole strip of road would be peppered with stands all selling the same thing – salapao (the Chinese steamed buns) or the same exact assortment of fruit (green plums, dragon fruit, rambutans).  It seemed that it would be easier to sell something if your stand was either differentiated from the other stands closeby or far enough away that there wouldn’t be competition.  But given that many of the villages all sell similar products, perhaps these roadside vendors don’t see it this way.  They’ve grown up in communities where everyone has prospered together doing the same thing.  In any case, I ended up buying a young coconut with its refreshing liquid and tender meat from the coconut stretch near Ban Pa Ou.  After sipping my fill, I set the coconut in its plastic bag on my handlebar, from which it whipped, dripping and drizzling coconut juice all over my leg for the entire ride home.

Sai Oua (Northern Thai Sausage)

Chiang Rai, Thailand – Rising and eating breakfast at bustling morning markets, trolling night markets and seeking out the small, out-of-the-way mom and pop shops and independent stands is, it goes without saying, a good way to eat the everyday foods of a place, but sometimes it helps to have an entry point.  In restaurants, though more expensive and sometimes muted in flavor, you can often get the Thai name and ingredients of what you’re eating (sometimes difficult to extract over a language barrier), get dishes unavailable at the markets and, yes, enjoy some air conditioning.

My last day in Chiang Rai, after a morning of motorbiking around temples and mountain roads, I sat down in Phu Lae, a simple restaurant specializing in northern Thai food, including a wide range of curries featuring lettuce, jackfruit, banana blossom and so forth.  I really like the sour northern curries that omit coconut milk so I opted for gaeng som pla (an orange curry with fish).  This one was sour, herbaceous and blow-your-head-off spicy, but so good I kept spooning up the broth until I felt quite high and then kept going.  (Some say chilies activate the release of endorphins; I believe them.)

Also, since it would be my last time in northern Thailand for a while, I ordered the special northen Thai sausage, sai oua, which is flavored with chilies, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, garlic, ginger, etc.  One of the advantages of getting it in a restaurant is that instead of getting it in a plastic bag with the stick, mine came sliced on a plate with bits of fresh chilies and galangal, which I scooped up with every bite of sausage letting the hot, raw flavors play off the fatty cooked sausage. Certainly not a new dish for me, but a new experience all the same and I felt no guilt for getting off the street.

Phu Lae Restaurant
612/6 Pahoyothin Road
Tel. 053 600 500

Gaeng Som (Sour Tamarind Curry with Fish)

Fermented Fried Pork with Chilies and Kaffir Lime Leaves

Chiang Rai, Thailand – “You eat local foods?” the woman at the hotel said with surprise when I returned from Chiang Rai’s fun night market with fermented fried pork with chilies and kaffir lime leaves, nahm phrig num (chile eggplant relish), khao niao (sticky rice), khao hang gai (wok fried chicken with local greens) and yam gob (northern curry with frog).  I did that night.

Chiang Rai Night Market

Mr Cow Drinks

Yam Gob (Northern Curry with Frog)

Nahm Phrig (Chili Relishes)

Chiang Rai Clocktower