Light Snacks Will Be Served

The Twilight of the Trishaw

There aren't that many trishaws left in Thailand, anymore. Motorbikes are simply too cheap and too convenient, and are widely used as taxis these days, forcing out the hard working pedicab drivers. But whenever I see one, if I'm not in a hurry, I flag it down. The slow ramble of a pedicab is probably the best way to see a small Southeast Asian city (not Bangkok... I wouldn't wish that on anyone). You have time to take in the scenery, make mental notes, take photos, and smell the flowers. Seriously. You can smell flowers when you ride in a trishaw. 

Some of my fondest memories of my time in Chengdu, Sichuan, were late nights spent wobbling across potholes with a Snow Beer and good friends, in the back of these three wheeled bikes (bet you don't remember, AGP).  They also remind me of Penang, and the south of India, and what is probably the most interesting trishaw town of all, Lhasa. High in the Himalaya, trishaw riders have their own language of whistles - one means 'I'm passing from behind', another 'turning left, or right.' In a trishaw, you have time to whistle where you're headed. 

Above is a photo of my latest trishaw driver, Pit, who pedaled us around Nakhorn Si Thammerat this week. He is 74-years-old. As we slowly rolled through the charming provincial city, dotted with temples and mosques, he waved and smiled to almost every person we passed. You also have time to make friends, when you drive a trishaw.   

Cause it's Friday - Poodle on a Motorbike

Surat Thani - a quiet Thai town most tourists race through on their way to noisier nearby islands -  has a wonderful night market serving all kinds of street snacks. Twice we've stopped for a night there, on our way south, to eat and stroll through the market. Last Sunday, in between bites, I spotted this poodle waiting for his foraging owners to return to their bike. It made me smile. Enjoy your weekend. 

 

A Snack Up Isaan Way

Over the NYE holidays, I traveled in Isaan, stopping to cook with families in Chiang Khan and Nong Khai (you'll hear about the cooking in Nong Khai - with some great recipes - a little later). While up in Thailand's northeast, we also got to eat some regional things that rarely make their way down to Bangkok. I was reminded of that today, when I passed a local vegetable seller on my street, who happened to be selling some of these remarkable tomatoes that we found in markets along the Mekong.

Thailand has many superior agricultural products, but tomatoes aren't one of them. While slightly better than, say, the grainy, pale pink specimens that were the only kind I could find in much of China, Bangkok's tomato selection ain't great. Asia is not a place for good tomatoes (though I hear the Japanese have an heirloom fetish - of course they do). 

But these little guys - crisp, juicy, sweet, sour and even citrusy - were very nice. Both thick and thin-skinned, the small tomatoes varied dramatically in taste. Some added a fruity note similar to tomatillos, others were bitter or sugar sweet. They complimented a dish we encountered several times in Loei, which I've been craving lately for its simplicity.

We ate it once on the way from touristy Chiang Khan to Nong Khai. My wife and I spent two hours in Pak Chom's dusty parking lot/bus station/food market, before boarding a wooded-floored Mercedes bus, that seemed to move as much laterally it did forward. During that time, we tried the local specialties.

These noodles were a nice change from Isaan's meat-heavy cuisine, where occasions to eat a vegetarian dish are fairly few. In Loei we ate this simple, fresh noodle dish, where strands of batter are squeezed into boiling water, and are then cooked with some Chinese cabbage.  

 

The noodles are topped with some of those tomatoes above, and dressed by the diner with fish sauce, sugar, and a sauce made of fire-roasted chilies and coriander. Locals mixed with their fingers, then ate with their hands in the beds of pickup trucks. We ordered a few plates, then admired the delicate texture of the dish. There was a subtle, green sweetness in that plain, boiled cabbage. And in it an opportunity to do something Thais rarely let you do - taste a single flavor or two.  

Then we boarded the bus, and the grinding commenced.

There was five hours of rattling, squeaking, shaking, rumbling and shuffling ahead.  

The Guy Who Sat Beside Me

 

On a recent flight from Singapore to Bangkok, I sat next to an older gentleman with the thick, tanned forearms and friendly smile of an American who golfs a lot. There was an empty seat between us, and he was watching something on his i-pod, so I just smiled and nodded and unsnapped my laptop and started working. My eye was drawn to his Rolex - the diamonds on which were flashing from the outside light. He closed the shade. I stared at his wedding ring - made of what looked like several ounces of chunky white gold. Then I looked at my thin, little band and kept typing.

About half way through the flight we struck up a conversation. I had already made my judgments - executive, import/export, midwest and probably Chicago, electronics or maybe petroleum. These guys are usually pretty nice when I meet them, and remind me of America in a strange, paternal sort of way.  Like if I happened to sit next to my own father, without recognizing him, while he was on a business trip.

Turns out the passenger was in the seafood business, and was from the Pacific Northwest, but by way of Chicago (one point). What was most fascinating about our conversation was how convoluted his work was, a curious characteristic of our food chain these days. He was based in Seattle, and the lion's share of fish caught for his particular company came from the waters off of Alaska and Russia. 

But that fish - 'Cod,' he told me, which could pretty much be anything white and swimming these days, I thought - is then gutted, frozen whole and shipped to factories in China. In China, it is then cut into precise portions and dusted with breadcrumbs and sometimes also deep fried and frozen. Then, the cut and breaded fish boards another boat, floats back across the Pacific, and makes its way to Denny's, TGIFridays, freezer cases and other outposts of factory produced food nationwide. A fresh, wild fish, paraded around the world and frozen to nothingness, all for a shower of fucking breadcrumbs.

"The problem is, the Chinese have now learned how to soak the fillets in a (insert chemical name) and water solution and increase the weight!" he said, a little dismayed. "But the Indonesians don't. And, they're great at processing the shrimp with the tails still on, too. We just can't do that in America anymore...." he said, now sounding almost wistful.

I nodded my head with genuine interest. And I thought that the problem wasn't in the chemical bath, or the labor costs in keeping a shiny tail poking out of golden breading, but the ridiculous system itself. Then I returned to my work.

As he bit into the factory-made chicken pie that JetStar serves on that flight, I admired his wedding ring again. It really was a magnificent piece of gold, like a vein cut right out of the earth.      

Sweetbreads, Fish Heads

 

Last night, in Singapore's Durian-inspired Esplanade Theatre, I saw Andrew Bird put on a show. Bird is one of those rare performers that sounds almost exactly the same live as he does on albums, which might have to do with the fact that he's playing all of the instruments both live and on his albums. 

So Bird's up there punching pedals with his feet, looping tumbleweed whistles with staccato violin plucketry and mournful pulls on his bow and guitar chords and all sorts of other noises into what finally evolves into something like a band's wall of sound. It's pretty fascinating to watch. 

And then he played a song called Gray Matter, which he originally wrote as a song called Sweetbreads, and he sang it as it was on the original. Which has chorus that goes like this: "They call them sweetbreads, I could taste what you were thinking, ooooh, sweetbreads, that's the taste of neurons blinking."  

But before the song, the shy and sort-of-awkward performer said something (I'm paraphrasing here) like this: "This song is about tasting the brain, and, well, I rewrote it because I thought it was kind of upsetting. But, you know, we eat animal's hearts, and brains, and places where the soul is said to reside, and don't really talk about the implications of that very much. But we probably should, you know?"

I love eating sweetbreads, which come from the thymus or the pancreas of hoofed mammals, but that's not why I kept turning Bird's words over in my head. It also wasn't because I was stoned, because I was in a concert hall in Singapore. 

As he plucked his violin strings and sang of sweetbreads I thought about all the hearts and brains and feet I've eaten, and how even when you're eating them you don't really consider what that thing was doing a few hours or days before. And I made a note to think about it the next time I ate something in which "the soul was said to reside." And I did, at lunch, the very next day. 

I'm not crazy about Singapore's food like some people are (I find much of it is greasy, one-dimensional,  and sort of overrated). But I'm hip to the fact that there's some great cooking going on here too. And when I come to Singapore, the first thing I want to eat is curry fish head. Today, at the famous Banana Leaf Apolo I got my fix, as Bird's words fluttered around in my head. Looks like Mel Gibson has too.

But I digress. The fish's flesh was firm and sweet, the sour tamarind curry was fiery and complex, and really I couldn't imagine a better lunch. And as i plucked off the fatty, tender cheek of the fish, I considered it swimming around in the deep, scarfing up so many small creatures. I felt great privilege to be eating such a formidable looking fish's head; a head that would probably go to waste in the West. It just might just be where that animal's soul resides, I thought, because it's definitely the most delicious part of the fish. 

So, anyways, that's the taste of my neurons blinking.

  

Leaving Shanghai Behind for Sydney

Happy Friday Everyone.

Your correspondent finds himself in a very familiar place this afternoon - Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport. For the mountains of bad press this airport has received, it remains one of my favorite airports in the world. I think that's mainly because it's staffed with Thais, who are very reluctant to shout at you, ala JFK. Check-in and customs are always fast and efficient, and you can get mango sticky rice to go. Pretty sweet.

I'm on my way to Australia (for the first time!) to dive headlong into the Sydney International Food Festival's delicious offerings. The organizers have done an incredible job assembling a line-up of chefs you're unlikely to find under one roof, anywhere else. They've paid particular attention to Asia instead of assembling a European-dominated line-up, and that seems appropriate. For details, click here.

I'm really looking forward to a week of forward-thinking food, much of which I'll share with you here. But before that, I'll drop some Mid-Autumn Shanghai shots on you, in another post.

If you've got any Sydney tips, hit me up at wrisley (at) gmail (dot) com. Cheers.

Seoul Kitchen (Warm my mind near your gentle stove)

Sorry, the pun was just too (ch)easy.

In this writing market, living in a place that has recently scared off many editors, I've found myself on the move a lot. This week it's off to Korea for a speedy weekend in Seoul. I've never been, I'm going in blind, and I've got 60 hours to burn. 

I plan on sleeping a little, eating a lot, and seeing what wonders a spendthrift food journalist might rustle up in one of the world's spendiest cities. This is all starting to sound poorly planned... because it is.

If you've got any tips, send them my way at wrisley (at) gmail (dot) com. As usual, I'll return the favor here. 

Pay it back, c'mon now.