Welcome to Our Happy Place
November 26, 2009 | Location: Thailand | 5 Comments
We only meant to pass through for a couple of days. Helene yearned for the seaside, and I was keen on exploring the Thailand lying off the tourist trail. The train brought us to this town on a sunny afternoon, and two weeks later, we can’t bear the thought of leaving. You could say we’re in love.
We like this place so much, in fact, I’m not gonna divulge its name on this blog. (You’re welcome to ask me nicely in private, though.) Let’s just say it’s a couple hours away from Bangkok, on the coast by the seaside, and it lacks a bar scene and wide mastery of English, thus making it less desirable for tourists than Kho Samui or Phuket.
Welcome to our Happy Place.
Ocean with a View
In Happy Place, Thailand, the Ocean beats on the jetty to wake me up. On the first day, Helene and I felt endless wonder at this, but nowadays, Helene jokes that she’s getting fed up with the constant woosh-wooshing of the waves. It’s certainly inconvenient if you wake up and need to pee, but I can hardly complain.
By the terms of our trip, this represents a major splurge for us: at $25 USD/night, we enjoy a balcony on the sea, right off impeccably-clean rooms, with a fresh change of sheets and towels each day. (And yes, before you ask, my ecological conscience itches pretty hard.) Did I mention our toilets can flush, the sink doesn’t simply empty on your feet to a drain on the floor, and there’s hot water pressure in the shower? I know: mind-boggling.
Hill Tribe Beans
We make our first stop, usually around noon, in a tiny local café called Coco House. My mid-day jolt of caffeine consists of iced espresso: an espresso shot, mixed with condensed milk, and poured over a mountain of ice, Thai style. Helene, for her part, prefers the iced americano, whose only difference lies in the use of sugar instead of condensed milk. Both coffees are made with an espresso machine, and the beans are brought in from Chiang Mai in the north, where they’re grown by a Hmong hill tribe.
The Coco House became our favorite hangout spot in Happy Place due to its excellent coffee, and the warmth of its owner, Tchim, a gentle, smiling woman who just opened her café a week before we arrived. We also befriended the three year-old Nimoy, who insists on helping out whenever the adults prepare coffee for us. She’s easily the most adorable barista I’ve ever seen.
Bounty from the Sea
Right from our hotel balcony, we can spy the fishermen plying their trade at the bay’s mouth. A fishing vessel accosts the pier from time to time, and pick-up trucks rush to fill their backs with fresh catch, destined to local markets and restaurants. Two years of living in Alberta, and it’s the first time I can think of a reason to own a pick-up.
Fishing is a way of life in Happy Place. A walk along the seaside promenade will take you past various mackerels and shrimp left to dry in the sun. The sun-dried shrimp are ground into a paste, used enthusiastically in the local cuisine. The crabs you might see running along the beachfront below end up in som tam, Thailand’s spicy papaya salad.
When it comes to dinner, the few species caught by the fishing boats, or sometimes simply by a villager with a net, can be seen all over the beachfront restaurant menus. Crab, shrimp and squid constitute the staples, often complemented with a few larger catches: moonfish, grouper, butterfish, mackerel. No fish on the menu is garanteed, as its availability squarely depends on the boats’ luck in hauling them to shore. A few days of stormy weather, and your favorite fish is nowhere to be found.
Dinner on the Promenade
Once the sun sets on Happy Place, it’s time to enjoy all that the life in a small Thai seaside town has to offer. Although the night market and a few other restaurants offered us great memories, none made us return with such enthusiasm as restaurant Demer.
Demer, a small, family-run restaurant on the promenade, consists of a simple, rustic roof, separated from an open-air kitchen by a wall. Like its competitors, Demer offers mostly seafood dishes, ranging from $1 USD for the Thai staples such as crab som tam, to $7 for a fresh whole grouper, deep-fried and served with a handmade sweet and sour sauce. Add $5, and you’ve got yourself a bucket of ice, bottles of soda water, and a bottle of Sang Som Thai whiskey.
We spent leasurely hours at Demer, savoring the seafood and everything from tom ka (spicy coconut soup) to pad thai (Thai fried noodles). Helene has befriended the restaurant’s cat with offerings of shrimp tails. For my part, I exchanged smiles and raised glasses with East Asia’s friendliest group of bikers, whose Harley-Davidsons clash with their preference for Whitney Houston and Thai crooners.
The Call of Cuttlefish
Then, the sound of a squeaking wheel makes me drool with the eagerness of Pavlov’s dog. The sound comes from a street cart, which a white-capped, gentle-mannered Thai man pushes up and down the promenade. Hung to dry with color-coded clothing pins are magnificent dried cuttlefish, which the man grills over charcoal and presses repeatedly with the turn of a crank. Served hot and with a spicy, sweet, peanuty sauce, it’s a real steal at $0.80 per cuttlefish, easily the best I’ve ever had.
On calm evenings, green lights dot the horizon beyond the man’s pushcart: these belong to small boats fishing for cuttlefish, who are drawn to the colored spot. Straight from the ocean, they are sold in the market behind our hotel, dried in the sun that bakes my skin, and grilled on the curb by a man who sells it to me with a warm smile.
It’s easy to take roots in a place like this.
A Time and a Place
Time, alas, marches on, especially when you want it to stop.
Two weeks after arriving in Happy Place, we had to leave it again lest we overextend our Thai visas. We paid one last visit to Coco House, where we were treated to a poignant farewell by our new-found friends.
Tchim gave us two photographs as a souvenir. The first one depicts the King and Queen of Thailand, an auspicious and significant gift considering the love of the Thai for their sovereign. On the second, a younger Tchim smiles for the camera. Tchim took the time to write a long message in English, all the more heartfelt and poignant for the effort it must have taken her, expressing her friendship and fondness in a language she can barely speak.
Back in Bangkok, the thought of other Happy Places that keeps me sane. In Happy Place, we found the first reward of travelling slow: we stumbled upon a place where we can be content to while the night away, learning rudiments of Thai in small cafés and restaurants.
What defined this experience for us is both a place, but also a time. Things change fast the world over, including ourselves. Perhaps we will come back here, a few weeks or a few years from now. With luck, we will enjoy Coco House’s espresso again, or share some of our shrimp with Demer’s cat. But like many places before it in Thailand, the vanguard of foreign tourism has already begun its incursion: retired Europeans, led by their young Thai wives, have made their way here, and they’re hungry for fish and chips.
It’s, sadly, entirely possible that in a few years, we will barely recognize our favorite spot under the concrete of a beach resort. I can only hope these changes leave our favorite business owners and their employees rich, and content in their life.
Where to Go
“Secret” places are hard to find, especially in tourist-heavy countries like Thailand. I’ve discovered a few through my travels by looking for places described by guidebooks as ‘uninteresting’, which has led me to places without tourist trappings but with plenty of local character. You should determine what you really want out of a travel experience, and take a chance to step out of the guidebook: at the least, you’ll be treated to a slice of life you rarely get to experience in tourist-heavy areas.
As with food, the locals are usually a great source of information on travel destinations. They tend to go to places where fewer tourists go, and get to enjoy lower prices and more authentic food. The downside is a lack of tourist facilities, less English spoken, and poorer bar scenes: and if you’re like me, that’s actually all positives.
Bangkok at Street Level
November 11, 2009 | Location: Thailand | 2 Comments
You can tell Bangkok is a food city long before you take a single bite.
Food is everywhere in the Thai metropolis. It’s in malls and food courts, providing students with a place to hang out. It’s in fancy cafés, where the Thai elite enjoy a hip dining atmosphere. But it’s mostly in the streets, everywhere you look, at every hour of the day. Tiny kitchens spill out onto the sidewalk, and pushcarts offer quick meals that fill the roads with smells of roasted pork, boiling noodles, fresh lemongrass and eye-watering spices.
Yet despite its reputation as one of the finest cuisines in the world, very few travelers get to enjoy Thailand’s food at street level. It’s sad to witness the backpackers flooding the English-speaking stalls of Thanon Khao San, ordering toned down, unimaginative takes on Thai street food, seemingly afraid to venture beyond the tourist ghetto.
Good thing I’m not one of them!
The Beat of a Different Crowd
A mere five minutes outside the Khao San area, young Thais on the lookout for a decent meal quickly replace wandering tourists. Here, your dishes come with the omnipresent Thai condiments of roasted chilli flakes, spicy vinegar, sugar and fermented fish sauce. A hearty meal sets you back thirty bahts, less than one US dollar. Look out for packed open-air restaurants or street stalls, and they’ll reward you with fiery, delicious thrills.
Helene and I found such a place on our first foray outside the backpacker area, following the flow of young Thais celebrating Loi Krathong by setting off paper hot-air balloons into the Bangkok sky. Many of them packed a cramped open-air restaurant, whose tiny kitchen at the entrance was manned by four women whose hands blurred with the speed of experience. We inched our way in, and sat at the long table.
Navigating the menu couldn’t have been any easier: you got one dish and one dish only, and it came in either small or large. The dish in this case was a thick, peppery broth filled with fresh rice noodles and slices of pork and fish balls. It was better than good: it made my mind wander with awe, pondering how something so simple could be executed with such perfection and finesse.
When one of the girls put down a fresh pot of chilli flakes before me, the nutty, roasted smell overtook my reason; an instant later I was sweating profusely under the onslaught of Thai pepper.
We ate scanning the reviews – all in Thai – that hung on the walls. We had lucked out: this place was good enough for the locals to seek it out and rave about it in newspapers. We finished our soup, and the moment we left our plastic seats, they were filled by a new pair of customers.
Crossing the Bridge
The next evening, our quest for fresh food took us further from the backpacker ghetto, to Victory Monument, where a night market – an evening collection of small street stalls – lured us from the skytrain above.
Deciding where to eat in Thailand is a tortuous process. Food is everywhere, and very rarely does it smell anything but absolutely fresh. What’s more, the variety is staggering: what we call ‘Thai food’ in the West is but a small subset of the spectrum on offer, from Chinese-inspired noodles and curries, to the fermented pork sausage of Thailand’s Isan province. The only constants are freshness, and an execution that is beautiful in its simplicity. Stop and watch a street hawker as they prepare their signature dish: they have been plying their trade for so long, their technique would awe a five-star chef.
We found a street stall with tables sprawled over a bridge crossing one of the city’s many waterways. The place was packed, and we had to hustle to secure a spot. We gestured ‘two’, knowing what would come would be good, whatever it turned out to be. We were rewarded with noodles in a thick curry sauce, and a mountain of fresh herbs to go with it.
A City of Foodies
These are but two of the legion of small, efficient, delicious street kitchens and open-air restaurants that Bangkok has to offer. Even after living in China for three years, I am amazed at how much fresh food the Thais enjoy at every opportunity.
I could tell you how to find these two specific restaurants, but… that would miss the point. This is not about one spot, one vendor that is worth a visit; the entire city of Bangkok is worth it. If you find yourself in the capital of Thailand, resist the cheap lures of the backpacker district, or the illusory comfort of upscale, English-speaking restaurants. Head out deep into the alleyways and the side-streets.
Bangkok rewards a healthy appetite and a spirit of exploration.
Tips on Eating Street Food
Invariably, when I talk about street food, I get asked how I avoid an upset stomach. Some guides will tell you to only eat in five-star restaurants, but at that point you might as well stay home and order pizza. Truth is, I almost always eat at small restaurants or street stalls, and besides a very rare upset stomach, I never get sick from food.
Thailand is pretty safe in terms of food hygiene, so it’s a good place to start exploring the streets and work up an appetite. Here are some simple advice:
- Always favor restaurants that are packed with locals. They know good food in their own city much better than you. Pick a popular spot and you’ll never go wrong.
- Try and order what the majority of the patrons are eating. Don’t go for something exotic, such as a Western dish no one knows how to make.
- Don’t be afraid to step a little bit out of your comfort zone. Keep trusting your instincts, but make sure you stretch them gradually. Don’t push yourself too hard!
- Most upset stomachs are caused by unfamiliar ingredients or spices, such as particular chilli pepper. Work up a resistance gradually.
- Don’t be afraid to walk away from a restaurant if you feel it’s not clean or not particularly good. More often than not, you are probably right.
- At the same time, realize that your host country doesn’t have the same standards of cleanliness as yours does. Observe the kitchen, and pay attention to the ways they keep the food clean even if they’re not wearing a hairnet or hosing down the kitchen every hour.
- The best way to make yourself sick from food is by worrying about what you’re eating. Above all, enjoy the experience!
India Calling
November 6, 2009 | Location: Malaysia, Singapore | 4 Comments
Helene sets down her sweet and looks at me with purpose. “We’re going to India,” she declares.
I take another sip of my tea masala. The writing’s on the wall since three weeks ago, when we arrived in Singapore. Melaka is a strange place to fall in love with India, but here it is.
We’re going to India.
Little Indias
A city like Singapore might sound at odds with India’s vibrant, exhilarating chaos, but it’s actually part of its multicolored fabric. Tamil Indians form the backbone of Singapore’s manual workforce, and their language constitutes one of the city-state’s four official languages (alongside English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysian). Singapore’s Little India is a vibrant, chaotic district filled with restaurants and bargain malls, where incense and flowers blend smells with sweat and curry.
The scenario holds truth north of the Johor-Singapore Causeway, where Tamil immigrants have added their spices and ingenuity to Malaysia’s blend of cuisines. The Tamil’s Muslim minority, known as Mamaks, are credited with many dishes that are close to the hearts of Singaporeans and Malaysians alike. As a matter of fact, the sup tulang, about which I previously blogged, was invented in Singapore by Mamaks.
Yantra: Indian Refinement
Audran, artist extraordinaire and fellow epicurean, was my food guide in Singapore. Audran and I share an unbridled passion for food and distant lands. The Indian cuisine in Singapore has accomplished the impossible: convince my friend that there is a better cuisine than Japanese.
“Japanese cuisine is all about the impossible perfection of a single ingredient,” explained Audran when he saw my jaw drop at his revelation. “Indian cuisine is almost the opposite: it’s a near-infinite blend of spices and tastes, expertly blended together.” To prove his point, Audran took us to the cool confines of an Indian restaurant called Yantra.
To call Yantra’s service excellent is an understatement: I’m convinced their waiters are psychic. Our own waiter responded near-instantaneously to our desires, sometimes before we voiced them. “Do you speak French, by any chance?” asked Audran, puzzled at how the waiter kept responding to the comments we had spoken only in Quebecois.
The food itself was spectacular. I’ve had good Indian in Canada, the UK and China, but Yantra’s unique blend of spices and tastes was a new level of taste for me. The dishes I recognized where transcended by Yantra’s cuisine; the new ones were exquisite discoveries.
I commented that if this was the Indian food available in Singapore, I dreaded discovering how good the food could be in India.
Audran grinned. “I really hope India beats this,” he said. “If so, I’m jumping on a plane to check it out for myself.”
Simpler Treats in Melaka
A few days later in Melaka, on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the Little India we encounter is no less vibrant and seductive.
This time, we sit in a small, popular restaurant called Saravanna. Helene and I had spotted the place the day before, and having already eaten at the time, we vowed to come back. We were drawn to the sweets in the window, and had noticed the working class simplicity of the patrons. We came back with appetites intact.
As we considered the menu, I studied the men eating their meal, using the index, middle finger and thumb of their right hand. In India, only the right hand is used to eat, as the left is considered unclean. (You use it to wipe your rear, remove your shoes and – if I’m to judge by the man sitting across from me – talk on your cellphone while you eat.) This might not sound like much of a problem, until you tear a roti one-handed: this is definitely harder than it looks.
Helene and I ordered a thali, a mixed dish including a large roti, into which are folded various ingredients, and a variety of delicious dipping sauces. After a bite, we knew we had stumbled upon something special. We ordered masala tea, and sweets made from coconut and condensed milk. Over dessert, we vowed to go to India next.
The Road to India
Yantra’s elegance and Saravanna’s rough charm are but two of the culinary experiences we’ve had with Indian food during our stay in Singapore and Malaysia. I have fond memories of the spectacular fish head curry we had at Banana Leaf Apolo, or the Pakistani beef stew at Usman, an open-air Pakistani restaurant in Singapore’s Little India. We spent many days walking down that area, hunting down sweets and enjoying the crowds and lights of Deepavali.
In Melaka, we spent a long evening trapped in an open-air restaurant called Restoran Madinah, where we took refuge from the storm, and indulged in mutton curry and vegetable soup. Madinah was our breakfast joint of choice whenever we craved roti canai – a near-daily occurence.
As I write these lines, Helene and I are relaxing in Bangkok, planning to spend the remainder of the month exploring Thailand, before we make the jump to India’s southern provinces. We’ve dreamed of India long enough.
India’s calling, and it’s time we pick up.
Where to Go: Singapore
Yantra Restaurant is located at 163 Tanglin Road, in Tanglin Mall, not far from Orchard Road. It’s a fairly pricey outing (and one which I was honored to be treated to by our amazing hosts, Audran and Joëlle) but in my opinion, it is worth it at any price.
Banana Leaf Apolo is reknown for its fish head curry and generous portions served on a banana leaf. Their main branch is at 54 Race Course Road, within walking distance of the Little India MRT Station. Other branches can be found around the city.
Usman Restaurant is also found in Little India, at 238 Serangoon Road. They serve hearty Pakistani meals, including a fantastic beef stew.
Where to Go: Melaka
Restoran Saravanna has a few branches around Melaka, in and around Little India. The main branch can be found at No. 18, Jalan Bendahara.
Restoran Medinah is found on Jalan Melaka Raya 3, around the hostel district. You’ll find it on a street corner, packed with locals, whether Chinese, Malay or Indian.
