A few weeks ago, my friend Chow, a prolific food writer who publishes at BangkokGlutton.com, invited me to help her write some Thai food recipes to include in the updated version of her handy book, "Bangkok's Top 50 Street Food Stalls". One or two afternoons a week, we have gathered ingredients in her kitchen and tested and modified different recipes to try and make ones that are easily accessible to home cooks anywhere in the world.
While I can't share the recipes here, I will share some pictures of two of our recent dishes: pad thai and tom yum goong.
Pad thai is a common fried noodle dish that is notable for its distinct, sweet-sour sauce. Thai restaurants in the west sometimes try to make a tomato based sauce or use ketchup as a flavoring, but that isn't an acceptable substitute for the main ingredient: tamarind. These days, tamarind is increasingly common in many countries, thanks to its use in Latin American and Indian cuisines, cultures that have large diasporas. Not long ago, I was in suburban Seattle and was able to find fresh Mexcian tamarind, using the flesh to make a sweet and sour sauce for steak.
The pad thai also makes use of (moving left to right from the top row, down) pickled daikon radish, garlic, eggs, shrimp, the tamarind sauce, lime, toasted peanuts, bean sprouts, green onions, firm tofu, dried shrimp, and red chili flakes. Most of these ingredients are readily available. The pickled daikon can be replaced with well-rinsed sauerkraut in a pinch. Not shown are the dried rice noodles that form the base of the dish. These are available at any Asian market and at better-stocked supermarkets with an Asian foods section.
The end result is a stir-fry of all the ingredients with an engaging flavor that is tangy and sweet, slightly spicy, and a little bit sour. A perfect balance of flavors. Now, one thing about Thai cuisine that non-Thais don't always understand: noodle dishes (both soups and stir-fries) are generally a single-plate food. Most Thai food is served family style, with various curries and other dishes in the middle of the table to be shared and eaten along with rice. Noodle dishes, though, are usually ordered for lunch, a snack, or dinner and are consumed by a single person. So when you go to a Thai restaurant and, along with all your other dishes, order some pad thai to share, it is a little strange. I'm not saying you can't do it - by all means, order whatever you want - but it isn't the way the dish is eaten by Thais.
The next dish we made was a tom yum soup. This herbal soup is not only rich in flavor but has significant health benefits from all the different herbs. The main ingredients, from top left, are lime, peppercorns, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, chilies, galangal root, cilantro, and mushrooms. We also added prawns, called "goong" in Thai. You could also make it with chicken or tofu.
The soup is made by bruising the herbal ingredients (literally beating them with a cleaver, mallet, or other heavy object) to release the oils. These are then simmered in water or, cheating a little, some broth. The fish sauce is added to make the flavor more complex and many people also add fermented chili paste. The mushrooms are cooked and then prawns are added a minute or two before serving.
The end result is a clear broth with lots of herbal flavor, a delicately cooked prawn, and a bit of spice. An alternative version of this soup, tom kor gai, is made with chicken and is finished with some coconut milk to add richness. Usually served near the start of a Thai meal, the soup is like an appetizer, with the herbs whetting your appetite and preparing you for the complex flavors of the meal to follow.
I will share more photos as we continue to experiment with the recipes.
Our trip to San Francisco included visits to a number of bakeries and pastry shops. This time, we stopped by a new place, the interestingly named Craftsman and Wolves. Located on Valencia Street, they describe themselves as a "contemporary patisserie".
Compared to the homier looks of Tartine and Thorough Bread, Craftsman and Wolves is distinctly modern. The interior feels very large and a little cold. Nonetheless, the staff is welcoming and a large communal table at the front, next to a picture window, makes for a comfortable place to run into people unexpectedly over a cup of coffee and a pastry.
The selection of baked goods (this picture is just a sample) is wide, ranging from your standards (croissant) to something called The Rebel Within, which is akin to a baked Scotch egg. Again, comparing to some of the other bakeries that we visited in San Francisco, the display of goods here looks less bountiful and more austere.
We shared a gougere (baked cheese puff) and a croissant, both of which were well made and delicious. The croissant isn't cooked to as deep a brown as at Tartine, but some consider that very caramelized exterior to be an acquired taste.
Curious, I also ordered one of their muffins. I don't recall what variety it was but remember that I enjoyed it, although wasn't particularly overwhelmed. It was a good muffin, but not earth-shattering in its goodness.
For something more substantial, we ordred the frittata. Filled with vegetables, this frittata was remarkably underseasoned. We had to ask for some salt and having no salt shakers handy, they filled a small pinch bowl with some salt for us.
Overall, Craftsman and Wolves is another nice place to add on the list of bakeries and pastry shops to visit in SF. I think the minimalist interior, which would work well for a chocolate shop or somewhere selling fancy cakes, isn't as welcoming as I would enjoy. That said, the food is good and that's ultimately what matters.
NOPA stands for "North of the Panhandle," the neighborhood north of the pan-handle shaped easternmost stretch of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is also a restaurant located in that neighborhood. Focusing on California-Mediterranean cuisine, NOPA delivers a menu that isn't staggeringly original but it does deliver dishes made with great attention to quality and detail. They describe themselves as serving "urban rustic cuisine" with an emphasis on organic wood-fired food. We had dinner there with another couple and enjoyed the experience.
The atmosphere inside the restaurant is lively but not unbearably loud. Located on the corner of Divisadero and Hayes Streets, the large windows look out on the bustling city and let in lots of afternoon light. A large communal table is located near the entry and the bar, a comfortable place to have a drink and wait for your table.
The main dining room is a combination of booths and tables, again with lots of light. The open kitchen is at the back of the restaurant with the large wood burning oven visible to all. Service was friendly but not intrusive. I didn't feel like the server was constantly hovering over my shoulder.
An amuse bouche of asparagus tips and sea salt. Simple, right? Perfectly ripe asparagus, gently cooked to bring out what's best about them. Nice to see an amuse bouche that didn't look like a sculpture or piece of modernist art. Instead, the chef let the ingredient speak for itself.
An appetizer of warm goat's cheese with Asian pear and fuyu persimmon, with crostini on the side. Really nice combination of flavors, very rich, and much too satisfying.
A casserole of wood baked butter beans with feta cheese, tomato sauce, oregano pesto, and bread crumbs. Hearty and very flavorful.
The rotisserie chicken with bok choy rapini, quinoa, golden raisins and romesco sauce. Rotisserie chicken is present on so many menus and yet so often it fails to inspire, often having rubbery skin and bland, mushy flesh. Not the case at all with this flavorful chicken with crisp skin.
Grilled pork chop with Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, and maple-date butter. Just as with the chicken, the meat had a lot of flavor and remained nice and moist.
Flatbread of spicy fennel sausage, pickled onions, goat's cheese, and chicory. Good example of how on the one hand the menu offers nothing particularly new but manages to deliver some really wonderful food. Another observation: all of the dishes are nicely plated without being artistic and overbearing.
The first of the three desserts we shared was a chocolate mousse with praline cream, biscotti, and candied orange peel. It was a very nice version of a common dessert, rich chocolate flavor, not heavy, and complimented by the praline cream and orange peel.
The second dessert was a Meyer lemon curd tart with buttermilk ice cream and candied thyme. Again, a common, very simple that can be so-so or surprisingly good. This was the second sort of tart, bright and refreshing.
Final dessert: Sopaipillas (similar to beignets or doughnuts) served with a cinnamon vanilla caramel. Light, not the least bit oily, and very enjoyable to eat.
The overall experience was a positive one. NOPA does the basics very well and at a price that, for San Francisco, is pretty reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that NOPA is just as good as its spin-off restaurant, Nopalito, that I visited last year. While the menus are entirely different, the core commitment to quality, value, and attention to detail is consistent.
There was a fair amount of eating while we were in San Francisco, much of it good. Here are a trio of spots we visited.
Little Skillet
While still in Bangkok, Tawn and I had developed a hankering for fried chicken. Despite the preponderance of grilled chicken, there is very little fried chicken in Thailand outside of KFC (which isn't that bad, actually). Doing some research, I stumbled across an entry on public television and radio channel KQED's food blog about the best fried chicken in the Bay Area and planned on visiting Little Skillet.
This "restaurant" is just a walk-up window in an alley not far from the Caltrain station and AT&T Park. An offshoot of the "neo-soulfood" farmerbrown restaurant, Little Skillet is open only for extended lunchtime hours and keeps a short and simple menu. Fried chicken features prominently. You order at the window and wait for your name to be called. Eating options include sitting on the loading dock of a warehouse across the street or, if you buy some of their coffee, the java joint next door lets you use their tables.
The biscuits are tasty and buttery, although more crumbly and less flaky than the ones I make. Still, they were pretty good.
Tawn, who prefers his chicken drier than I do, opted for the fried chicken po'boy sandwich. Made with chicken breast, he exclaimed that it was the best fried chicken he had ever had.
Aiming to evaluate Little Skillet by its ability with the classics, I ordered a two-piece fried chicken with waffles. Tawn's exclamation was well-placed: this was amazing fried chicken. The meat was flavorful and extremely well-seasoned. The coating was crispy and adhered well to the skin. The homemade honey jalapeño hot sauce is a perfect foil for the juicy, crispy, deep-fried goodness of the chicken. While I've never understood the combination with chicken, the waffles were light with just the right amount of crispiness.
Little Skillet is on the must return to list!
Wise Sons Delicatessen
Speaking of the must return to list, we made a return visit to Wise Sons Deli, located on 24th Street just east of South Van Ness Avenue.
After our first visit last June to this relatively new entrant to the San Francisco deli scene, we were eager to return. Exiled New Yorkers have long bemoaned the lack of good deli food in San Francisco but that has recently started to change, not least of all by the entry of Wise Sons' proprietors Evan Bloom and Leo Beckerman. Their meats are cured in-house and the quality of food, homey atmosphere, and friendly service make the place feel like it has been on this corner for decades.
On my last visit, I enjoyed a tasty pastrami sandwich. This time, I tried their corned beef Reuben. I've had a lot of Reubens in my life, many of which were made by my mother. This was simply the best one I've ever had, the one that came closest to recapturing my childhood memories, except that this corned beef was much better than any my mother ever made. Wise Sons cooks the brisket until fork tender and cuts it relatively thick. To say it "melts in your mouth" is accurate. Unlike a lot of brisket, this beef isn't at all tough or chewy.
We also shared a plate of sinful pastrami cheese fries, minus the pastrami since Tawn isn't a beef eater. The fries are loaded with Swiss bechamel sauce, caramelized onions, pickled cucumbers and jalapeño peppers, with a side of Russian dressing. Couldn't eat this every day so that's why we ate it this day!
Humphrey Slocombe Ice Cream
While San Francisco isn't known for its pastrami, it does have a great reputation for ice cream. Swensen's, the global ice cream chain, was founded in San Francisco, and there are many small ice cream parlors that make interesting and innovative flavors from. One of the most prominent of these parlors is Humphrey Slocombe. Located just around the corner from Wise Sons, Humphrey Slocombe opened in 2008 and quickly gained notice for flavors like salted black licorice, hibiscus beet, and Jesus Juice.
We were pretty full from lunch but Tawn ordered a Tin Roof Sundae: three scoops of Tahitian vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, candied peanuts, and a sprinkle of sea salt. Oh, boy!
Enjoying calories I didn't really need. I also tried a taste of their salt and pepper ice cream, which tastes amazingly of... salt and pepper!
Well, hope that's enough food porn to get your weekend off to a good start. There's more to come!
One of the more interesting dining experiences on my trip to the United States was the StrEAT Food Park in San Francisco. The renaissance of street food trucks - no longer the "roach coaches" of my youth - has swept many major cities and San Francisco has been no exception to this foodie trend. In June 2012, a permanent street food truck park opened in the city's edgier South of Market district.
The park is located just beneath a freeway overpass across the street from the Costco warehouse store. Each day, up to ten different vendors park, following a rotating schedule. The range of options is overwhelming: from Spanish-Filipino fusion to Japanese sushi, gourmet Vietnamese sliders to Korean tacos, Italian word-fired pizzas to Indian curry. The website and twitter feed lists which vendors will be present and the park is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week.
The facility includes plenty of tables and chairs, restrooms and sanitary stations, and a 100-seat covered seating pavilion for those days when the weather is inclement. The crowd is varied but local high tech and bio tech firms are well-represented. Free bicycle parking is provided, encouraging environmentally friendly transportation.
Spoiled for choices, I finally settled on Roli Roti, a truck specializing in rotisserie chicken and porchetta, crispy roast pork. Open more than a decade, Roli Roti claims to be the country's first mobile rotisserie and their focus is on sustainably raised meats and organic produce. While the chicken looked and smelled amazing, I opted for the porchetta and arugula sandwich.
The sandwich offers a generous - hearty, even - serving of juicy pork with very crispy skin, an onion relish with a tanginess that cut through the richness of the pork, and huge mound of baby arugula that looked like it has climbed out of the field a few minutes earlier, it was so fresh.
The sandwich was served on a wonderful roll that sopped up all the juices. Sure, it was too big to eat like a real sandwich, and I had to take it apart and eat with a knife and fork. But it was a pretty tasty lunch, all for about $12 including a side of potatoes.
The roast fingerling potatoes sit underneath the rotisserie, where they are bathed in the drippings from the chicken and the porchetta. Sprinkled with rosemary sea salt, they are addictive.
No doubt, the StrEAT Food Park will be a destination to which I will return again and again on future visits. After all, there are so many different types of food to try and so little time. Many thanks to SF-based Xangan Jason for introducing me to this gem.
Our trip to Kansas City for my grandparents' 70th anniversary lasted just three days. Bright and early Monday morning (after an 80-minute mechanical delay), we were on our way to San Francisco for a few additional days of rest and relaxation before returning to Bangkok. Arriving late in the morning, we headed around the corner from our friend Anita's house (where we were staying) to a newer bakery we hadn't yet tried, the cleverly named Thorough Bread and Pastry.
The bakery is housed in the space formerly used by Just Desserts. It has a lovely brick wall and an open ceiling (which you can't see in this picture). Lots of light comes in from busy Church Street, making it an inviting and warm place to stop for a while.
The selection of baked goods is wide and all of them look tasty. We arrived late in the morning so some items were down to just a handful of remaining pieces.
In addition to pastries, Thorough Bread and Pastry lives up to the "bread" part of its name. The baguettes were beautiful and the olive and sourdough loaves had me want to go on a carbohydrate binge.
For snacks with our coffee, I selected a cinnamon roll. Upon request, the bakers will put you food into the oven for a few minutes to reheat it. Of course, that is a must with a cinnamon roll because you want the topping to be just a gooey and molten as possible.
Tawn opted for an almond croissant, which tasted plenty good even if it wasn't the most beautiful croissant in the world. That reminds me, I've been meaning to try my hand at croissant making again, just as soon as this crazy hot season eases off a bit and I can actually cool my kitchen to a workable temperature.
Feeling the need for something passing as healthful, Anita oped for the quiche, which was also very nice. With lots of fresh vegetables, you could almost forget the loads of fat.
In the past several years, there has been an explosion of artisinal, small-shop bakeries and patisseries. From Tartine to Craftsman & Wolves to Thorough Bread, San Franciscans are spoiled with many fine choices for baked goods. It is something we miss about living in the City and I am glad there is yet another place to visit when we are next in town.
While in Kansas City, we met a friend for lunch at Rye, a restaurant in Johnson County that is an offshoot of the well-regarded bluestem restaurant by award-winning husband and wife team Colby and Megan Garrelts. (My blog entry about a 2009 dinner there.)
Located in a newer retail/residential development near I-435, Rye has a welcoming atmosphere and a menu designed to celebrate Midwestern cuisine. It was busy when we arrived right in the middle of lunchtime, but we were seated after only a ten-minute wait. Service was friendly although, to my taste, a tad overfamiliar.
The restaurant has an extensive list of wines that are available in 6-ounce, 8-ounce, and 24-ounce servings, which translates into quarter, third, and whole bottles. (Which isn't quite right because a standard 750ml wine bottle is 25.4 ounces.) Confusingly, sometimes it is cheaper to buy a bottle and other times, it is cheaper to buy four 6-ounce servings of the same wine. When I pointed this out to the server, who then introduced me to the person who manages the restaurant's wine selection, I received a murky explanation that led me to suspect that nobody had ever noticed this pricing discrepancy.
That oddity aside, the wine list is a nice one and they deserve kudos for making more wines available by the glass, which encourages exploration and horizon-broadening.
The menu could be described as rustic but with a bit of panache. It celebrates Midwestern classics - chicken salad, pulled pork sandwich, and dumplings feature on the menu - but presented in a way that is a bit lighter, a bit more seasonal, and a bit more sophisticated than might come from your grandmother's kitchen.
I ordered a two-piece fried chicken plate with a side of mashed potatoes. The breading was crisp and well-seasoned. The chicken inside was juicy but, like a lot of American chicken, the meat wasn't very flavorful. American chicken (and pork, for that matter) is bred for blandness, much to my sorrow. The potatoes were nice and the mixed greens kept the dish reasonably light.
Curious, I also ordered a side of creamy mac and cheese. On one level, this serves as a good benchmark dish because so many restaurants serve it and it is so often the same-old, same-old. In this case, there wasn't anything to fault with this mac and cheese, but there also wasn't anything that raised it above similar dishes at other restaurants.
Tawn had a roasted salmon dish served on Indian rice with a lemon dressing and greens. This was a tad more elevated than the "fish and rice" dish you might find as the more healthful option on typical Midwestern menus. The fish tasted like it might be farmed - for the price, that wouldn't be a surprise - and was a bit drier than I like, although Tawn prefers his fish that way. The lemon dressing was refreshing and the Indian rice was toothsome, although I couldn't figure out if they were referencing Native American rice or South Asian rice!
Our friend had the house salad, grilled salmon added, with a sherry vinaigrette. While I didn't try it, she seemed pleased with the dish. The greens were a nice mixture of types, so it certainly was a step up from a plate of iceberg lettuce. Of course, if a James Beard award-winning chef served a plate of iceberg in anything other than a wedge salad with Maytag dressing, I would be disappointed.
Nearing fullness, we ordered a single slice of pie, banana cream, for dessert. While I love pie, banana isn't my favorite so I let Tawn do most of the eating. It was a nice enough pie although I found the crust a little tough. The pudding was nicely made, creamy and smooth.
All in all, Rye seems like a decent restaurant, providing familiar food with a slight twist at reasonable prices. While I don't return to KC very often, I would keep Rye on my list of places to stop for a meal.
When I moved to Bangkok more than seven years ago, I flew THAI Airways' nonstop flight from New York JFK Airport to Bangkok. In the years since, THAI has discontinued both the New York and Los Angeles to Bangkok nonstop flights. In their place is a one-stop flight via Seoul Incheon Airport to Los Angeles. When shopping for tickets for our recent flight to the United States, this Bangkok-Incheon-Los Angeles flight was the cheapest option offered by a Star Alliance carrier.
I've edited a nice video that overviews the flight, the cabin, the amenities, and meals served. If you would rather view the pictures and read the story, those follow here:
The flight departs Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport at 7:10 am, a bit earlier than ideal. Thankfully, we were packed the day before and made it to bed at a reasonable hour. Still, the 3:00 am alarm came much too early! The queue at the airport was short and the wait was less than fifteen minutes to check in. There were no lines at either the security screening or immigration counters.
Just past immigration is a large scale sculpture of one of the most famous episodes in Hindu mythology, the samudra manthan or "churning of the milk ocean". It is an impressive sculpture that illustrates that this mostly Buddhist culture has strong Hindu and Vedic Brahminist roots.
We made our way to one of the many THAI Airways Royal Silk lounges. These lounges offer a nice respite from the stresses of air travel: a quiet ambience, comfortable seating, and a selection of reading materials, food, and beverage.
Since we had departed home so early, I helped myself to a latte, some small pastries, and (something I never eat!) a box of chocolate breakfast cereal. Maybe this is because my mother would never allow us to have so sugary a cereal in the house when I was a child, now I enjoy having a bit every now and then as a special treat.
Our Boeing 777-300 was waiting at the gate as the sun slowly climbed above the hazy horizon. The windows of the terminal were not very clean, making for this poor-quality image. Boarding commenced a few minutes late but the passenger load was only about 60% so boarding did not take long.
The economy class product is comfortable and modern. The seat maps provided on THAI's website indicated that certain rows of this plane had 34" pitch. I brought a small tape measure and samples several rows and found a consistent 32" pitch. Comfortable enough and an inch more than most US-based carriers, but nothing special. Asiana, Korean, and All-Nippon offer 34" pitch and EVA offers 33" pitch as the standard in their long-haul economy class.
The morning breakfast option was pancakes and sausage or (my choice) stir-fried pork with ginger, rice, and pumpkin and egg. The food was tasty enough, although nothing very special.
About four-and-a-half hours later, we arrived at an overcast Incheon and were soon at the gate and off the plane. The same aircraft would take us to Los Angeles but all passengers were required to disembark so the plane could be serviced and a new crew could board.
This is my first time transitting Incheon since they opened the new mid-field concourse. It is a bright, sun-lit place with modern architecture. Within a few minutes, we had cleared the security screening and returned to the departure level.
Despite only having about 80 minutes on the ground, we took the time to stop by the Asiana Airlines lounge. As a holder of the United Club card, I have access to Star Alliance member lounges. This is a nice perk for long-haul travel and this new lounge in Incheon is very nice, with a faux library and a baby grand piano. I wonder what would happen if a guest decided to begin playing it?
The selection of food wasn't very interesting, but I did help myself to some salad and a glass of draft beer. Truth be told, the beef was very hoppy and as I'm not much of a beer drink, I had only a few sips. On our return trip from Los Angeles, we had a slightly longer layover in Incheon and I took the opportunity to use the individual shower rooms to freshen up.
Returning to the gate area in preparation for boarding, I admired the nice combination of steel, wood, and glass. Despite being very modern, the terminal does not feel cold and impersonal, probably because of the wood floors and many plants.
One sore point about flying through Incheon is that there is a pre-boarding security inspection. All liquids must be disposed of, including any bottled water purchased in the terminal. The claim is that this is for US TSA security reasons, but that makes no sense because at Taipei and Tokyo, passengers can bring liquids from inside the terminal aboard US-bound planes. I hope this restriction is lifted soon because not bringing your own water aboard is an inconvenience that does nothing to improve security.
The flight out of Incheon was only about 50% full, leaving lots of space including an empty seat between Tawn and me. There was only one person in the row ahead of us and she sat in the middle seat, so her recline did not affect our leg room. Once airborne for our 10.5-hour flight to Los Angeles, service began with cocktails. Unlike some airlines that have miniature liquor bottles, THAI carries full-size bottles and mixes drinks to order.
Drinks are served with a retro stir stick featuring THAI's original 1960s logo. I managed to collect several of these between our four flight segments, figuring they will make a nice collection in the future.
Menus were distributed out of Incheon. Interestingly, the menus include information for both the Bangkok-Incheon and Incheon-Los Angeles segments. I am not sure why menus were not handed out as we departed Bangkok. You could argue that there is really no point of menus but I think it is a nice touch that makes the service appear more sophisticated. Certainly, it is nicer to think of your meal as having four courses rather than just being a single tray of food, even if all four courses are in fact delivered on a single tray!
I opted for the Korean style beef bulgogi, which wasn't as interesting as I was hoping. It was tasty, though. Note that each tray comes with a package of kimchi! The dessert was a raspberry chocolate cream cake and the appetizer was smoked salmon.
The other selection, which Tawn chose, was a pork green curry served with Thai jasmine rice. Curry is an excellent choice for airplane food because at high, dry altitudes, your sense of taste is diminished. Curry has plenty of flavor and remains enjoyable. Notice, too, that the utensils are metal, even the knives. We can't bring water aboard but are given an admittedly dull metal knife.
Slightly less than halfway through the flight, we crossed the international date line and jumped back to the start of our day. I dozed only a bit on this flight, instead watching several movies and television programs on the on-demand video service. Gone are the days of sheer boredom on a plane. There are plenty of ways to distract yourself as the hours go by.
Mid-flight, snacks were available in the form of instant noodles and sandwiches. About two hours before landing, a second full meal service was provided. I opted for the boiled glass noodles (made from mung beans) with sauteed beef tenderloin. Actually, I didn't find any beef in my serving!
The other option, which Tawn chose, was sauteed yakisoba with chicken teriyaki. Neither of these dishes were that interesting and while quality was fine, the meals weren't as interesting on these flights as they have been on other recent THAI flights.
It was a beautiful day as we descended into Southern California. Because the passenger load was so light, I moved to a window seat to take in the view when we landed. Rain storms had passed through recently, so the sky was clear and visibility was better than normal.
After landing on runway 24-right on the north side of LAX airport, we taxied the long way around to our gate. This took us past the United Airlines hangar where one of their Boeing 787 aircraft sits, stranded by the FAA's grounding of these new composite jets in late January. Hopefully, the fleet will be released to fly again soon.
Pulling into our gate at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, we had neighbors from China and Japan. Had the price been right, I would have liked to fly All-Nippon on this trip.
All in all, the THAI flight was a pretty good experience. From departure in Bangkok to arrival in Los Angeles was less than 17 hours, one of the shortest routes between the two cities. Service was good and the flight was reasonably comfortable, given that we were traveling in economy class.
While I organize my photos and videos from the US trip, let me post these two tidbits to keep you entertained.
The first is a picture of what qualifies as a drive-up window here in Bangkok. A stretch of sidewalk (outside a 7-11, nonetheless!) is filled with vendors selling all manner of food. A man on a motorbike pulls up at the curb, orders something from a vendor, and she packages to go. Two minutes later, he speeds off with his dinner. Can you imagine In-N-Out burger working this quickly?
And in the "Thinglish Example of the Day" category, here was the stage backdrop at the recent first anniversary of the Terminal 21 shopping mall. Yes, they are celebrating "NO 1st". In all fairness, ordinal numbers are confusing and in Thai are no different from cardinal numbers, using only a simple prefix to distinguish them from cardinal numbers.
Sorry for being away from Xanga for almost two weeks. We just returned last night from a trip to the United States and I discovered that the Xanga mobile app isn't very convenient for uploading entries. In fact, after two entries disappeared into the ether, I gave up and decided to wait until we were back in Bangkok to try again.
Our flights over and back were smooth enough. I'll share more about them, including our trip on THAI Airaways' Bangkok-Seoul-Los Angeles flight, in the next few days.
The primary purpose of our trip was to attend a family reunion for our grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. They had expected that Tawn and I could not make the trip but when I learned that we would be the only grandchildren not attending, I booked our flight. Needless to say, they were pleasantly surprised when we showed up at their front door the day before the anniversary.
While on the trip, we had the opportunity to see several friends including a few Xangans. Left, Andy and Sugi drove down from Omaha to see us in Kansas City. Right, Jason met me for lunch at San Francisco's food truck parking lot. Also, Dr. Zakiah was so kind as to mail her book of poems to my sister's house, where it was waiting for me. Must make it to Quincy for a future visit!
The trip also had its share of good food, about which I will write more in the next few days. Highlights include a porchetta and baby arugula sandwich (left) from the San Francisco food truck parking lot and fried chicken and waffles (right) from Little Skillet restaurant in San Francisco's South of Market district. Stay Tuned!
The thing about Bangkok is, it isn't a very pretty city. Being in a tropical climate, I always expect that it will be a lush, verdant city. Even though I've lived here more than seven years, I still have that expectation somewhere in the back of my mind. The reality, though, looks a lot like this:
At least, that's how it looks from the street level. The buildings are built close to the roads, with only narrow footpaths that are only occasionally dotted with trees. Those trees are usually subject to harsh pruning by laborers armed with sharp saws and little horticultural knowledge.
Over time, my understanding of Bangkok's relative verdancy has evolved. What I have come to see is that the city has a lot of green space, but that most of that green space is not public. Sure, as you walk down the alleys and streets, you may see some trees and bushes. For the most part, though, they are on private property, peeking over high walls. As a result, you walk in the full heat of the tropical sun.
Compare this with Singapore (pictured above) or even Kuala Lumpur, cities with mature trees lining the public footpaths, providing shade, cleaning the air, and making the city more pleasant. Now, don't worry - I'm not about to turn this into a Bangkok-bashing, Singapore-loving entry. I just find the comparison to where our greenery lives interesting.
When you rise above the street level, as in this view from the Conrad hotel in the particularly lush Wireless Road neighborhood, you can see that there is quite a bit of greenery in Bangkok, although as mentioned before, much of it is not visible from the streets.
In fact, some of the grander houses live in a lush, tropical paradise. Except for the high rise buildings looming overhead, you would think you were in a jungle!
Sukhumbhand Paribatra, elected this past Sunday to a second term as governor of Bangkok, has promised to radically increase the amount of park land. By most estimates, Bangkok has less than one-tenth the amount of green space per resident compared with an average city. Let us hope that some of this green space can be expanded out of parks and into our everyday lives.
Thailand is a country of cat-nappers. Wherever I travel, I see plenty of people who, in their boredom, lethargy, or exhaustion, take every opportunity to shut their eyes and rest. Maybe it is the heat and humidity?
On the list of jobs I would not want to have is the motorcycle taxi driver or khon kap rotmotorsai. While the offices of Bangkok are filled with women, the men from the countryside find jobs like this one. For a fee paid to the mafia and a license paid to the government, they receive a colored vest and an assigned stand at the mouth to one of the city's many long soi or alleys.
Inhospitable to pedestrians, the soi are usually too narrow, too winding, and too sparsely populated to justify mass transit. Instead, we flag down a rotmotorsai, hop on the back, and whiz our way to the mouth of thesoi where we catch a taxi, bus, or train onward. Dangerous? Yes. I only ride the motorcycles on our soi, where the drivers recognize me as a regular and are familiar enough with the traffic on the street to know where caution must be paid.
Why are our streets laid out in a network of long, narrow soi? It is thanks to the rice-growing past of the central plains of Thailand.
As you can see in the picture above, rice paddies were laid out in long, narrow strips that connected to a main canal or road. As the paddies were drained, paved, and developed (the housing developments are the strips of mostly red roofs) the streets followed the long, narrow contours of the agricultural past. A map of Bangkok shows that legacy: thoroughfares a kilometer or more apart with long, narrow streets stretching out from them. Few of those streets, though, connect the larger thoroughfares.
The result is that many of us live some distance away from major streets and if we aren't driving, have to find our way out of the soi under an unforgiving sun. It's enough to make you cave in an ride on a motorcycle taxi or, perhaps, to want to take a nap.
Cleaning up my company laptop before returning it, I came across some orphan photos that I never shared. Interesting odds and ends like this one:
A toilet at Singapore Changi airport that offers urinal users an expansive view of the tarmac. One imagines that travels could end up standing there much longer than needed, fascinated watching the airplanes coming and going, resulting in long queues for the toilet. Much nicer than the usual airport toilet, no?
Last Friday we gathered at Chow's place to cook dinner. The menu: homemade pizzas and pasta. The pizzas were a variety of gourmet types based on the menu of Roberta's Pizza in Brooklyn, which Chow had tried on a recent visit. The pasta was a homemade chorizo and butternut squash ravioli. And to top it off, I made kaffir lime cheesecake.
Friends gather around the large island in the kitchen, helping to prepare ingredients and eat appetizers. The ravioli are already prepared and drying and we were waiting for the oven to preheat for the pizzas.
Every time I cook at a friend's house, it is a bit of a logistics ordeal. In this case, I needed my KitchenAid mixer so I could roll out the pasta. I was also bringing a case of Oregon beer.
The beer in question is from Rogue, an independent brewer. The most interest beer of the evening: Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale. Had a distinct smokiness with a subtle sweetness on the tail end of the flavor.
For the pasta, I made homemade fresh (not dried) chorizo. I bought pork belly and ground it, adding paprika, garlic, and chili powder.
Browned the sausage in a pan, drained it on paper towels to remove the considerable grease, and then blended it with a butternut squash puree made from locally produced organic squash.
Make the pasta from scratch using Thomas Keller's "Seven Yolk Pasta" with semolina flour. This is the best way to mix pasta dough, using your hands.
Using a creative technique I picked up watching Season 10 of Top Chef, I layered sage leaves between two sheets of pasta dough and then pressed them several more times. Then flattens the leaves, making the pasta pretty and adding some sage flavor.
Completed ravioli. I cut them relatively small so they didn't have a lot of filling. In hindsight, I would have added more butternut squash and less chorizo as the sausage overpowered the squash flavor. A few more sage leaves would have been nice, too.
After boiling the ravioli, we fried them in a pan with browned butter and sage leaves. Became a bit more crispy than intended but were tasty all the same.
While I made the pizza dough (with Type 00 flour, a finer texture than regular all-purpose flour), I let Chow coordinate the toppings for each pie.
Half mushroom and pepperoni and half Jerusalem artichoke and pesto.
Salame!
Sliced Brussels sprouts, Boursin cheese, and locally produced pastrami.
Tomato, fresh buffalo mozzarella, and rocket.
For dessert, I once again made the kaffir lime cheesecake that was such a hit on New Year's Day. It begins by steeping the lime leaves in heavy cream.
The crust is made of graham crackers, toasted pecans, sugar, and butter.
The main ingredients are cream cheese, eggs, the infused cream, kaffir lime zest, and a little lime juice. The juice comes from a regular lime as the kaffir lime juice is much to acidic.
The ingredients are blended together until smooth and light. Truth be told, I add two or three drops of green food coloring just to augment the color. The leaves alone give it only the most pale of greens.
Tap several times to release air bubbles and then cook in a water bath for 40-45 minutes. The key to a cheesecake with a smooth top (no cracks) is to turn the oven off when the edges are set but the center is still very shaky. Then let it complete cooking in the closed (but turned off) oven for another hour. This lets it cool down gradually and prevents the cracks.
The finished product has a mixture of sour cream, kaffir lime zest, and sugar poured over the top. I garnished with a chiffonade of kaffir lime leaves. This worked okay the first time but this time the leaves were a bit tough. I need to choose the smaller, more tender leaves and cut them more finely. The taste of the cake was good, though, and won rave reviews.
Most importantly, we had friends gathered together and shared good food, good wine, and good company. After all, that's what makes the best meals, right? The company with which they are shared.
Not only is "Let them eat cake" the phrase commonly misattributed to Marie Antoinette, it is also the name of a cute patisserie and dessert bar on Sukhumvit Soi 20 in Bangkok.
Dessert shops are plentiful in the City of Angels but most western style desserts are rarely worth the calories they contain. Let Them Eat Cake proves to be a delicious exception.
Located in one of the "community lifestyle malls" - smaller, open air shopping centers that have sprung up across Bangkok like mushrooms after the rain - Let Them Eat Cake is charmingly decorated but a little small. Waits can get long at key times so come early or be prepared to wait.
I am sorry to say that I don't remember the names of each of the desserts we tried. I do know that this is a chocolate St. Honoré, an elegant combination of puff pastry, creme filling, and caramel.
A tart of some sort with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Don't know if I ever tried this or just took a picture!
A tarte au citron - lemon tarte. Was tasty but I found the crust a bit tough.
I don't remember what this pink, rose-shaped dessert was. A gelatine and with something inside, I think.
All in all, Let Them Eat Cake offered better, more authentic French style pastries than a lot of shops here in Bangkok. I look forward to my next visit and I promise to take more careful notes - and to sample a wider variety of desserts!
My first week of unemployment has been a busy one, filled with all sorts of events. In addition to following up on some additional job leads, I have accepted a freelance project with a former vendor that will give me a few weeks' worth of work, and I am also providing pro bono organizational development consultation for a friend's family company. Who knew unemployment could keep you so busy?
Recently, I've been playing around with Instagram, a smart phone application that allows you to polish your pictures, applying interesting filters and effects. While I still carry my Lumix LX3 most places, there are times when carrying a bag and a camera is a hassle so I rely on my iPhone. It hasn't nearly the capability of my regular camera, but in many situations (especially with the help of Instagram) it does a passable enough job. Here are some of the photos I've snapped:
Near the office of our condo complex is a small pool with koi fish. It has a resident turtle who likes to sun himself on one particular rock. He was a bit jumpy as I approached to snap this picture so I had to move slowly and be patient.
Over the past week, we have had very humid air which has resulted in some spectacular sunsets. This one was taken while driving north from the Lad Phrao area to attend an evening performance of "Mulan Jr." by a bilingual primary and secondary school owned by a friend's family. This picture captures the common sight of power and telephone lines which blight our view.
Warmer temperatures after our very brief (and not very cool) cool season has led to an explosion of blossoms on the trees. Lasting a few short days, these pink blossoms are very pretty but a terrible mess to sweep up once they fall.
The humid weather has also produced some nice sunrises, although because of where our condo unit is situated, we can't see them this time of year. One morning I was out on an errand to a convenience store to pick up some milk for coffee, and caught this sight of the sun rising over one of our wealthier neighbor's Italian style home. Ostentatious, isn't it? I wonder what the rest of the house looks like.
I have been cooking a bit, although not taking many pictures. I roasted some butternut squash from a friend's organic farm to make a nice soup and also the filling for some ravioli. The squash had a lovely orange color and a sweet taste once roasted.
While crossing Sukhumvit Road, one of the main arteries in Bangkok, I caught this picture of a quarter of Bangkok Metropolitan Authority workers riding on top of a city truck. A warm day, I guess this was the best way to catch a breeze and stay cool!
Just hung up on my final conference call, the last thing I had to do for my job. That's it, after more than thirteen years with the company, it is over. It is hard not to be a bit sad. There's a lot I've invested in this company and definitely feel like many of the projects and people are my own children. Anyhow, it has come to an end and it is time to move on.
On another note, here's a nice picture taken just after a heavy rain of some of the Hawaiian Currant tomatoes growing on my balcony. There are about three dozen fruit on the plant. Of the two plants that are currently flowering, this one is the more productive. Another few weeks and they should be ripe - I hope!
It must be a cultural thing. Saturday morning Tawn and I went to a local branch of the Australian chain The Coffee Club for breakfast. Since I had been really good all week, working out and eating well, I decided to treat myself with an order of pancakes. Now, I will admit that pancakes are not the healthiest breakfast out there. But I was not expecting this:
The stack of pancakes was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some whipped cream. Add to that the syrup and it was a plate full of adult-onset diabetes as the way to start my day. Yikes!
I must say, though, that I like the little circle they cut in the top pancake of the stake, to better hold the scoop of ice cream. Thoughtful.
Half a world away, I have read, watched, and listened to the debate over gun control in the United States, dismayed by the rhetoric and disturbed at how two hyperbole-fueled extremes frame the discussion. That distance, I hope, has made it easier for me to step back and consider the subject.
As an attempt to add my two cents’ worth to the public discourse, I would like to share some conclusions I have reached. I do not expect everyone to agree with me and I welcome constructive comments. Just a forewarning: comments that are not constructive, that rely on name-calling or otherwise do not contribute to a civil discussion, will not be entertained.
Many of my friends and family members are gun owners and people who enjoy guns recreationally. While my first-hand gun experience ended with BB guns in late primary school, I recognize the appeal of guns and do not think that guns are inherently bad.
Our Rights
I think we need to look at this discussion through the lens of “gun safety.” Our individual right to bear arms must be balanced with the right of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Second Amendment clearly states that people have a right to bear arms. Our courts have already confirmed several abridgments to those rights, though, for example limiting the types of weapons you can own (no nuclear or chemical arms – too many innocent bystanders harmed when you use them to protect your life or property).
Legitimate limits are placed on our constitutional rights routinely. My First Amendment right to freedom of expression is tempered when the safety of the larger public is affected. I cannot incite a crowd to violence. I cannot expose state secrets. I cannot shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater.
The safety of the general public is a compelling reason to place some restrictions on our constitutional freedoms and I think this can be done in a way to balances those competing interests without unduly infringing gun owners’ rights.
Of the proposed Congressional actions, there are three I would like to see enacted:
Require criminal background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers that currently are exempt.
Increase criminal penalties for so-called "straw purchasers," people who pass the required background check to buy a gun on behalf of someone else.
Fund research by public health agencies into deaths and injuries caused by firearms.
The Effectiveness of Legislation
Some members of the gun-rights lobby make the claim that criminals do not follow laws, therefore any gun safety legislation we pass will harm only law-abiding citizens. This seems to imply that we should not bother setting any laws about anything, because criminals will break those laws.
The setting of speed limits and the passing of laws requiring seatbelt use do not ensure that nobody speeds and everybody wears a seatbelt. These laws have resulted in a reduction of deaths and injuries and provide a basis with which to prosecute those who break the law.
Universal background checks would work in much the same way. They will not prevent all gun violence – the Newtown shooting, for example, might still have happened. Currently, it is estimated that between thirty and forty percent of gun sales happen with no background check. (These would be private sales, gun show sales, etc.) Universal background checks will place an additional barrier in the way of people with criminal records or a history of mental instability, making it more difficult to get a weapon with which they can do great harm.
Conducting background checks on private gun sales and increasing criminal penalties for “straw purchasers” could help stem the flow of guns into the criminal underworld by closing potential loopholes. Many people purchase guns for personal protection. Making it more difficult for people who should not have guns, to obtain them, should help increase everyone’s safety.
Having a right to bear arms does not inherently give you the right to privacy when you purchase a weapon. Universal background checks would go a long way to ensuring that the people who purchase guns are law-abiding.
The Need for More Information
On the issue of funding research, there is much we do not know about the causes and effects of gun violence. Congress (at the urging of the National Rifle Association) has routinely cut funding to the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health when the results of studies they undertook demonstrated a need for gun legislation.
In fact, despite more than four million gun-related deaths and injuries in the United States over the last four decades, the NIH has awarded only three research grants on the subject. Compare that to diphtheria, which has caused only 1,337 deaths in those four decades but for which there has been more than 50 NIH-funded studies. Even influenza, which regularly kills fewer people each year than gun violence, receives much more research funding.
Effective legislation can increase public safety and it needs to be based on empirical evidence. Some things we should better understand, as outlined in a recent Atlantic Cities blog post, include whether magazine limits actually work, who should be excluded from owning a gun, and whether there is a relationship between levels of gun ownership and levels of crime.
What We Should Not Do
Among the proposed legislative actions that I do not think we need to take are reinstating the assault weapons ban. While I do not see a need for anyone to own an assault weapon, that’s the purview of an individual gun owner or collector. So long as he or she is law-abiding and undergoes a background check, it does not matter to me what kind of gun is purchased.
Without a doubt, this debate will continue. It is fueled by loud voices and, especially in the case of the National Rifle Association, a lot of money. However, I think it behooves each of us to try to move beyond the hyperbole, gather facts, consider our own values, and then add our voice to the discussion – especially by letting our legislators know what we think.
Well, that is my opinion on the matter. I welcome your comments and remind you that only constructive comments will be entertained. The First Amendment does not prevent me from squelching name-calling and uncivil discourse!
There is a small Japanese curry stand located on the basement level of the UBC II Building at the mouth of Soi Sukhumvit 33. Outdoors, directly across from the entrance to the Londoner Pub, the J Curry shop is impossible to see when you pass by on the street level. Nonetheless, its excellent homemade curry is worth seeking out.
Made from ground spices, apples, and other fresh ingredients, the curry is tangy and sweet and loaded with antioxidants and vitamins. Combined with your favorite vegetables, some protein (I love their breaded lean pork cutlet, or katsu), a scoop of Japanese rice, and a small portion of pickles, the curry makes for a healthy and satisfying lunch. How they manage to stay in business with such lack of visibility is a mystery, but I'm glad they do!
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