ThaiTable.com: Travel

Eating Like a Local

Often as I would walk through my neighborhood, I'd catch a whiff of delicious aroma coming from my neighbors kitchens. When it gets dark, as I'd glimpse people eating inside, I'd wonder what they’re eating, what are they talking about, who are these people and what kind of lives do they have.

When coworkers or friends bring delicious food from home that’s been cooked by their mothers or spouses, I want to invite myself to their houses to enjoy more food. When I go to the restaurants, I wonder what the kitchen staff is really eating.

In Thai restaurants outside of Thailand that cater to both Thais and locals, if you know Thai, you ask for a hidden Thai menu. That’s when you get the gems reserved for those who truly appreciate the food.

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Pa Ord Noodle Restaurant Review

With over 80,000 Thais living in Los Angeles, ThaiTown and its vicinity are crowded with Thai restaurants. How do you spot a good one? By a good one, for me, it means that the food is either as good or better than what I can cook at home.

When I run down to LA, trying a new Thai restaurant is something I look forward to. It’s often a hit or miss. The misses are usually restaurants that cater to most American palates’. These, I try to avoid. The hits are worth my trip. The trick is knowing how to spot winners.

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Sticky Rice with Banana

Kow Tom Hua Ngawk ( ข้าวต้มหัวหงอก, ข้าวต้มจิ้ม )

This sticky rice snack has an interesting literal translation: grey haired boiled rice. The term boiled rice is not unusual because the sticky rice with the whole banana filling is wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled until it's cooked. However, the grey hair part is an unlikely description, it must have come from how the sprinkled shredded coconut resembles grey hair.

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Suan Pak Nam Restaurant Review

My sister said, ‘it’s noon, let’s get something to eat at a hydroponic place’. Just the word hydroponic garden got me going. Growing food without soil, just water and without pesticide sounds ideal. The gardener inside of me wanted to see and taste the hydroponic greens.

Suan Pak Nam Restaurant’s seating is indoors as well as outdoors, in the midst of a garden of trees and plants. The indoor seating is in an open space, cooled by hanging plants and potted plants. Towards the back of the property are rows and rows of lettuces in hydroponic tubes. There are 4 types of lettuces, green oak leaf, red oak leaf, butter and iceberg. The greens were grown in solution without soil. They take 6 weeks to harvest. The produce is sold at the restaurant or directly to other restaurants and buyers, no shelf space in supermarkets. They also have a larger hydroponic farm in Kanjanaburi Province.

As I was flipping the menu, I thought to myself, ‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here in Thailand and about to order a western meal.” I avoid western food in Thailand, not that I don’t believe that you can get great western dishes in Thailand, but that I have to satiate my desire for Thai food before going back to the US.

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Khao Cooking School Review

Khaosan Road has made its name as the refuge for foreign backpackers and travellers on a budget. When I learned Khao Cooking School was in the middle of the road, I was skeptical because it is difficult to relate Khaosan Road with ‘authentic Thai’ anything. What I found though was a culinarily deep, personally connecting and very Thai experience.

Khao Cooking School is run by a mother and daughter team, Ajarn Kobkaew and Khun Ning. Ajarn Kobkaew was a professor at the Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, a school known for its hospitality and culinary departments. Khun Ning started out in hotel management but lured into Thai cooking. Now she runs the school with her mother.

Restaurateurs and Cooks as Students

Several of Khao Cooking School students went on to open restaurants. While we’re there, one of the students was planning to open a restaurant with his family. Bo of Bo.lan Restaurant took classes with Professor Kobkaew prior to open Bo.lan.

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Lers Ros Thai Restaurant in San Francisco Review

Lers Ros, a popular hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant in San Francisco, is so hot that the chef-owner, Tom Silarorn recently opened a new location, after just 3 years. The fact that the new restaurant is in the hip Hayes Valley, and only 5 minutes away from its original location, piqued my interest.

Lers Ros’s website is full of raving reviews. A number of restaurant critics, including Michael Bauer, the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, were impressed with Ler Ros.

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Thai Cooking Class with Chef Kent at InterContinental Hua Hin

On 20th of August 2011, 250 chefs from around the world, over 45 countries, participated in World Chefs Tour Against Hunger. The proceed would feed African children via Bidvest World Chefs Tour Against Hunger Trust Fund. One of the chefs representing Thailand was Chef Kent (Arnon Masanglong) of InterContinental Hua Hin. We dropped by to check out his cooking class.

Going to Markets with Chef Kent

Believing in cooking only fresh and natural ingredients, Chef Kent took us hunting for the best ingredients at 2 markets, roadside fishermen's market and Chatchai Market.

The first market was in a fishing village, just north of Hua Hin, where the fishermen dropped off their catch of the day at a few seafood stands by the beach. The highlight was that the class was going to the fish market in a boat! We were very excited. Unfortunately, when we set out, there was some rain and light wind and the Intercontinental didn’t want to risk having the boat out at sea. When we got to the fishing village, it was pouring. I was so glad that we didn’t take the boat.

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Should I go to Thailand Now?

Visiting Thailand is always an adventure, but sometimes, due to rain, politics or economic crashes, you get opportunities to see situations that you might not have planned. If the event happens between when you buy your ticket and you arrive, or while you are there, there are ways to make it a rich experience.

Show up

Don’t just cancel your trip or go straight home. While you need to keep yourself safe, normally adverse events are very localized to where the event is happening. Thailand is a huge country with lots of great places to go and things to do.

Stay Current

Unfortunately, western media accounts of events in Thailand are generally extremely biased toward the sensationally wrong (CNN Headline News crawl: “Bangkok opened the flood gates.”) and often don't clearly explain what is actually happening in an actionable way. Whether it is a poor grasp of Thai politics, biased or overly "balanced" editing or a belief that the reality is too complicated for 500 words, western papers have never seemed apt to report the real machinations of Thai events or politics. The end result is simply that you need to go elsewhere for news.

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Anantara Hua Hin Cooking Class

Cooking classes in paradise: play, cook, eat and play some more...

Many hotels in Thailand offer a Thai cooking class on the premises which effectively consists of a chef demonstrating 3-4 dishes. Priding itself on providing “an authentic, indigenous experience,” with Thai food central to the experience, The Anantara Hua Hin presents their deep and strong commitment to the cuisine. The Anantara Hua Hin provides a beautiful dedicated gazebo with cooking stations and an experienced cooking instructor to teach you one-on-one as you learn through doing.

The Welcome

As soon as our car pulls into Anantara, Hua Hin, a popular coastal town 3 hours outside of Bangkok, I know I am in for a treat. Lush trees, bushes and flowers cover the ground. 20 foot high stone walls, massive bas-relief elephants and huge posts originally for holding elephants, line the drive. The drive opens to a combination of modern and traditional Thai style buildings, packed with Thai art and antiques. As we get out of the car, serenity pervades.

Chef Bongkosh picks us up and introduces herself as one of the chefs and the cooking instructor. Easy going, soft spoken and cheerful, the chef has taught over 2000 people, beginners to experienced chefs, to cook Thai food over 4 years. Prior to joining Anantara, she was a cooking instructor at Sofitel Centara, Hua Hin.

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Thai Puppet Dance

Soon to be on a well worn path or a lost art?

Bann Silapin, Klong Bang Luang (aka Artists' House -บ้านศิลปิน) is not yet on the tourist map, but their Thai puppet dance can very well pin this little sleepy community as a 'must visit'. In the middle of cosmopolitan Bangkok, the old way of life and art are finding its place in the community. The Thai puppet dance deserves more than just a new life but a center stage. Without support and recoginition, this dance team can disappear like another before them.

Hoon Lakorn Lek or Thai puppet dance is a combination of Khone (Thai masked dance) and puppet show. Three puppeteers are on full scale stage control a 3-foot tall puppet. The front puppeteer controls the head movement and puppet’s left hand. The person in the middle controls the feet. The back puppeteer controls the right arm. The puppeteers perform right along with the puppets. They dance and jump gracefully in unison with the character. Wearing black outfits and black masks, the puppeteers disappear into the background, only the characters float around playing an episode of Ramaya, a popular Indian epic. At The Artists’ House, this classic good-against-evil story glued me and the rest of the audience to their seats.

Artists' House

Along the original narrow Chao Praya River, which is currently called Klong Bang Luang (คลองบางหลวง), a 100-year-old house sits at the end of a narrow walkway along the water. The house serves as a refuge to artists, especially the Thai puppet dance performers. The Thai puppet dance was popularized by a well-known, international award recipient puppet company, Joe Louis.

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