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Fried Flowers Salad at Pun Pun

Chiang Mai, Thailand – On a quick trip to Chiang Mai, I ended up bumping into two friends from Bangkok in the cafe of the guesthouse I’d recommended to them (Elliebum).  Since half of the couple is vegetarian, the whole couple leans heavily that way. So I’ll call them the V’s.  Luckily they both eat fish, which makes eating out in Thailand a whole lot easier than full on jay, as vegetarianism or practically veganism is known of in Thailand.

Vegetarian restaurants seem to have proliferated around Chiang Mai, much more so than Bangkok, so I got a few recommendations for the V’s from my Chiang Mai friends.  The general consensus on vegetarian-friendly restaurants was on four places – Blue Diamond, a small, homey Thai and western restaurant and vegan bakery off of Moon Muang; Pun Pun, an organic Thai restaurant behind Wat Suan Dok; Khun Churn, a charming vegetarian Thai restaurant set in a garden in Nimanhaemin, and Whole Earth, an atmospheric Thai and Indian restaurant located in a teak house surrounded by a quiet garden near the night bazaar.

The V’s tried Khun Churn the night before I arrived and found it good, but lacking the characteristic intensity they’d come to expect from Thai food and it sounded like they were slightly disappointed by the place.  So for lunch we stopped in Pun Pun, after a rambling wander around Wat Suan Dok, one of Chiang Mai’s lovelier temples.

Pun Pun turned out to be a vegetarian dream.  It had a good-sized menu of interesting choices, including some originals and traditionally meat-based dishes, like massaman curry and khao soi, as well as a full list of refreshing herbal juices and shakes, like banana-sesame and passion-fruit and papaya with lime andhoney.   Our meal was composed of an unusually thick khao soi, a delightful fried flowers salad with fresh corn kernels, bits of herbs and a sesame dressing, a tasty green curry with roti and a banana blossom salad.   Stuffed and satisfied, I think the V’s forgot about their previous night’s dinner.

We had wanted to try Blue Diamond for our next dinner, but their early closing time meant that we would have to rush from our massage so we opted for Whole Earth, the only restaurant my Chiang Mai friends hadn’t tried.  Located near the Chiang Mai Plaza Hotel near the night market, we had little trouble finding it before pulling up a to a beautiful, quiet garden.   The restaurant was housed on the glowing upper floor of a teak house.  Unfortunately, after a pleasant walk up to the balcony and a nice exchange with the staff, things took a turn for the worse.

We were handed three menus – one had pictures of the food, a second had prices and a third had drinks.   It was an annoying and unwieldy affair and to top it off the menu selection was rather uninspiring.  We pored over the menu, reviewing green curry, green curry, phad thai, phad thai before Miss V made the brilliant suggestion that we stop struggling to find something, pay for our beer and go elsewhere.

We hopped in a tuk tuk and headed off for the only nice restaurant I could think of off the top of my head – Hong Tauw Inn – decidedly not vegetarian, but it would certainly have good options.  Hong Tauw is a charming little place specializing in northern Thai cuisine on Nimanhaemin near soi 1.  The wooden wall are mint-green and decorated with an array of old-time clocks and other antiques.  As soon as we sat down, we all breathed a sigh of relief to be out of Whole Earth’s tourist trap clutches and in a more sincere setting.  As it turned out, Hong Tauw offers any of their set menus vegetarian, but we had plenty to choose from a la carte and even trouble narrowing down our choices to a final order.

We ordered a pomelo salad (yum som-o), a standard dish, but theirs was sublime, perfectly balanced acid and sweetness with juicier than normal pomelo segments.  I insisted on the chu chi pla, two fried whole fish dressed with a “dry” red curry.  The tender fish had crispy skin was covered in a sweet-spicy red curry enlivened with heady julienned kaffir lime leaves.   Hong Tauw has a whole section on nahm phrig, the spicy chile relishes, and we opted for nahm phrig num, the roasted eggplant relish, served with an array of northern appetizers – blanched cabbage, long beans, and greens, crispy pork skin and lanna sausage (small rewards for my going vegetarian for half a day).   We also got another spicy chile relish with ginger and served with tiny blanched mushrooms.  Each dish was truly, simply delicious.   It would be easy to compose a fully vegetarian meal at Hong Tauw if one was so inclined.  In the end, our last meal didn’t test out the best of Chiang Mai’s vegetarian restaurants, but our semi-vegetarian affair had something for everyone and we were happy enough to enjoy each other’s company and share good food in a lovely little restaurant.

Pun Pun Restaurant
Wat Suan Dok Temple, Suthep Road (between the Suan Dok Gate and Chiang Mai University)
+66-081-470-1461
Open 8am – 7pm, closed Wednesday

Khun Churn
Nimmanhemin Soi 15
+66-081-881-3032
Open daily 9:30am-2:30pm, 5pm-8pm

Blue Diamond
Moom Muang Soi 9
+66-053-217120
Open 7.30am-10.30pm, closed Sunday

The Whole Earth
88 Sri Don Chai Road (at Changklan Road)
+66-053-282-463
Open daily 11am-10pm

A more comprehensive listing of vegetarian-friendly restaurants can be found here.

Pad Pak Muu Grob (Crispy Pork and Vegetables)

Bangkok, Thailand – Every time I ask someone where their favorite street stand is, I get “oh there’s the best noodle place down the street from my apartment” or “the best crispy pork in Bangkok is right by my work.”  Of course, there are a some places that are famous citywide and a few devoted food fanatics who have pinpointed outstanding spots, but in this sprawling city with legions of food vendors checkering the vast maze of streets, it’s the local cart that rules our hearts and stomachs.

Where I am staying on Rama III, there is a vendor right outside my building.  I can’t get enough of her pad krapow muu (stir-fried pork with holy basil) for breakfast.  I’m devastated if she’s out of sen yai (wide rice noodles) for pad see ew muu (noodles stir fried with soy sauce) when I’m hungover and under the impression that her noodles are the key to my recovery.  Her khao pad (fried rice) never fails for the days when I’m feeling like a lighter meal.  She’s kind of like my street food mama.  She is always there for me when I need a hot meal (well, Monday-Saturday anyway) or friendly smile and her version of a dish has come to be my ideal.

It’s no surprise that when I moved to Sukhumvit Soi 20 to dogsit for a month, the vendor outside of my new building, recommended by the driver for the owners of the dogs I was watching, disappointed a little.  Her pad see ew was a touch too salty and soft.  She never gave me the little bags of fish sauce and chili with my khao pad takeaway.  And her pad krapow muu was too wet for my taste.  It was time to change it up.

It’s often a good idea to order what other people are ordering at a stall.  Sometimes it doesn’t work out for your palate, but worse comes to worst, you’re down 25 baht (~$0.75) and you get something else.  I noticed a few plates of pad pak moo grob (crispy prok with vegetables) and in this case my lunchbox envy worked out.  Each vendor has their own mix of vegetables and my new local vendor wok fried small mushrooms, baby asparagus, baby corn and cauliflower florets until they were crisp tender and tossed them with crispy, fatty pork slices and a good helping of chilies.  I think I’ve found my street food stepmama.

Pad See Ew Muu (Stir Fried Rice Noodles With Pork)

Breakfast Offerings at Cantonese Noodle House

Trang, Thailand – My last morning in Trang, I returned to Cantonese Noodle House for kopii and salapao creme.  The sweet owner bid me “bon voyage” and then remembering I was half-Japanese “sayonara.”  I was off to Satun.

Gaeng Som, Muu Yang, Gaeng Mala Ko Or Go

Trang, Thailand – Traveling alone can be difficult when you want to eat in restaurants, especially when you want to try a range of things, because the portions (and prices) are scaled for large groups.  Not so at the evening markets where manageable individual portions abound and you can even ask for a scoop of several dishes on top of your one plate of rice.  Knowing my time in Trang was limited, I went to the evening market with the plan to try as much as I could.  At the first stall, I had gaeng som (orange curry), muu yang (the special Trang roast pork) and gaeng mala ko or go (southern curry with innards and vegetables).  The muu yang stewed with onions tasted like a sweet mixture of, well, bacon and onions and the gaeng mala ko or go was somewhat forgettable, but the gaeng som, enlivened by vegetal orange flowers and mildly bitter apple eggplant, was tangy, bright and totally unforgettable.

The rest of the market was something of a blur of styrofoam dinners to go – fried fish, fermented fish, roast pork, thai omelettes and khao yam, a messy mix of herbs, lemongrass, rice, chili flakes and a pungent fermented fish sauce sold by a couple of shy Muslim girls. There were trays on top of trays of fried chicken.  There were roasted discs of sticky rice.  There were fantastically spicy and pungent bowls of rice noodles with fish curry.  There were trays of thinly sliced bamboo in a fishy coconut sauce and trays of greens in an even more fishy sauce.  There were fresh spring rolls.  There were ostentatiously decorated doughnuts.  There were roti.  And on and on.

Khao Yam

Khao Niao Toht

Fish and Rice

Muu Yang

Khao Jiao

Traditional Thai Doughnuts

Gai Toht

Milky Bamboo and Stewed Greens

Khanom Jean Num Ya

Trang, Thailand – Snacks!

Muu Yang

Trang, Thailand – I was told to check out Trang’s muu yang, a special roast pork, which wasn’t that hard since it was pretty ubiquitous throughout town. Charred and crispy, I found it in noodle soups, wok fried with sweet onions and exposed in long strips in the morning market.   Also in the morning market, I saw more pigs heads than I probably will for the rest of my time on earth and from the looks of it these pigs seemed to have enjoyed their time on earth.  Just look at those delicious grins.

Trang, Thailand – Nearly every time I sat down in southern Thailand, I was served a plate of nahm phrik alongside my meal (kind of like chips and salsa at a Mexican American restaurant).  You can find nahm phrik, a spicy dipping sauce, all over Thailand, though outside the south I usually have to order it.  Pounded in a mortar and pestle, the simplest nahm phriks are just a few ingredients.  Garlic, chilies, lime juice, fish sauce and shrimp paste (gapi) are common.  Some of the more complex ones require a little time in the wok, like my favorite the northern pork and tomato relish (nahm phrik ong), and others highlight ingredients like fish, tamarind and prawns among long, complex ingredient lists.

Just as you probably wouldn’t eat salsa alone (though I like to on occasion standing in front of the refrigerator spoon in hand), nahm phrik is always served as an accompaniment, typically to raw or blanched vegetables, and often in tandem with other dishes.  The first time I had nahm phrik, at a restaurant in Chiang Mai, I found it overwhelmingly fishy, presumably from the shrimp paste, and the appeal of raw vegetables with a bowl of the stuff perplexing.  Since then though, I’ve found nahm phriks that I really love and have even come to crave that spicy, sour and pungent sauce with some fresh vegetables.  So to those who say I’ll try everything once, I say if at first you don’t like it, try, try again.

Trang, Thailand – Arriving in Trang, the first thing I did was grab a plate of muu paa (spicy curry with pork) at a little mom and pop shop on Rama 6 near the clock tower.  Literally I got off the bus, walked about a block to an open-front restaurant serving about six different curries, in addition to some steamed buns (salapao) and snacks, ordered and sat down.  Like many of my meals in the south, it was served with a plate of raw vegetables and bowl of nahm phrik (chili sauce) on the side.  The curry was thick and spicy with a black pepper punch and bitter pea eggplant.  Bite after bite of curry and then chile sauce, I ended up downing my cola in full and my mouth was still burning when I requested the check.  Time to find a hotel.

Trang, Thailand – After leaving Had Yai, I found myself in Trang on the kind recommendation of Austin Bush.  Now there’s not a whole lot to do in Trang proper, but there are a lot of coffee shops, which I found myself sitting in quite often.  Trang coffee, or kopii, is thick and viscous, often ordered with a layer of condensed milk on the bottom and sometimes served with a pot of tea on the side.  Most, but not all, of the coffeeshops serve snacks as well and my favorite was the Chinese steamed bun (salapao) filled with a luscious, lightly sweetened eggy custard.

Khao Mok Gai (Curried Chicken and Rice)

Had Yai, Thailand – Curried rice and chicken, streets, night market and more.  A few last images from Had Yai.

Had Yai

Condiments

Fried Birdies

Curry and Khanom Jean (Fermented Rice Noodles)

A Woman Eating Khanom Jean and a Wine Glass of Iced Tea at the Dinner Market