Amber and I recently hit the 8 year mark of being together! What started as a Tinder date (my first) in a Colorado brewery has turned into the greatest relationship history has ever known (don’t question me.) Turns out that Red Wings fans AKA hockey royalty and Avalanche fans AKA hillpeople can coexist and even fall in love! Seriously, I am so thankful for all the time we’ve spent together. Amber is a woman like I’ve never known and I have grown so much in my time with her. She rules!
Usually on our anniversary we’ll go out to do a sushi tasting or some sort of chef’s menu. Let someone else handle making the dining decisions and deliver their best to us, often with commentary. This year we did it a little different since this year is a very different year than the past, we’re in Bangkok. So we signed up for a 15 course food tour with achefstour.com. It focused primarily on Chinatown, so you’re gonna have to forgive me when I cannot supply all the names of the stops. Some of them were just carts, some of them didn’t even have signs. Thai has its own alphabet, Chinese has its own alphabet. I don’t know either of them. That being said, here’s a recap and photo rundown of some highlights of 4 hours and 15 courses of eating (and one swill ass shot of brown liquor in a gambling parlor masquerading as a laundromat.)
Course 1: Chinese Fried Chive Pancake from Jae Noi Yaowarat
We kick off the tour with a delightful little pancake. Chives with 3 types of flour. She steam cooks them earlier in the day, then fries them before serving. Served with sweetened soy sauce. One of the flour types was tapioca, so there’s a nice chewy/gooeyness to the pancake in addition to the crispiness from frying. Probably could have just eaten 6 of these and called it a night.
Course 2: Coconut milk marinated, charcoal grilled chicken satay with peanut sauce from a stand near Sun Wukong Shrine
These were probably the best chicken satay I’ve ever had. High quality chicken, marinated for an hour in coconut milk, then brushed with coconut milk while being turned on the charcoal grill. The dudes working were wearing plastic face masks and full balaclavas; they do some real work here. Again, could have eaten 6 of these and called it but I stopped myself at 3.
Course 3: Chicken Suki Soup in a Pork Broth from a stand next to the satay stand near Sun Wukong Shrine
That giant bowl of soup is only 60 baht; less than 2 dollars. Street food pricing is mind-blowing. The soup had some egg, Chinese lettuce, glass noodles, and giant chunks of radish. Guest appearances by the satay sauce, chive pancake, pancake sauce, and the veggies they recommended you chomp into after having a bite of satay.
Course 4: Pennywort leaf juice from a stall on the corner of Plaeng Nam rd and Thanon Charoen Krung
This “babyface” juice did not taste great. You can tell from the color; it’s not filled with passionfruit or . They allege this beverage will make you look immensely younger, hence calling it babyface juice. The food tour guide awkwardly made us guess the vendor’s age. Everyone looked at each other uncomfortably and said a random number. Turns out she was 65; she looked about 60 so…mission accomplished? Would not return.
Course 5: Shrimp and Pork Dumplings at JOK One Table
These were probably P1, they were the best food we ate. Had to walk through a few very smelly back alleys to get there, but damn was it worth it. Simple fare; pork and shrimp inside a dumpling, sprinkle fried garlic on top with some soy sauce. Our group easily finished all the dumplings they served. Apparently this is one of those “show up at 2 pm cuz if you come at dinner time he’ll be sold out” type joints. The tour company managed to work out an arrangement so they’ve always got some dumplings available for the tour. The guide was talking about how the actual “restaurant”, which was basically the chef’s living room, only has 1 table and he refuses to add more. The chef will only serve what he wants. He knows enough about seafood to be able to tell if a particular day’s shrimp or crab market haul is better for steaming or grilling and then adjusts his menu accordingly.
Intermission: A Few Photos from the Stroll
Courses 6 and 7: Green Curry and “Curry” Curry from Jek Pui Curry
Our guide could not stop raving about this place. Another “show up early or it’s gone” type spot. It also may have been on Netflix; I’m not certain. Frankly, it wasn’t mind-blowing but she may have hyped it up too much. The Chinese sausage was probably the best part of each dish.
Course 8: Hot Chinese Pepper Soup with Crispy Pork at Guay Jub Ouan Pochana
From here on out the photos get a bit spotty; my stomach was filling up and the amount of people in the streets on a Saturday night in Chinatown was suffocating. I can take crowds for a while, but this was a level above. Turns out it was also a vegetarian festival. This restaurant was a former movie theater; compared to the theaters in the malls I can see why they pivoted. The only photo I got was of the Chinese decor, these lanterns flashed with jellyfish like LEDs. The movie posters on the wall were for classics like RIPD (Metacritic score of 25) and the horror version of Hansel and Gretel (Metacritic score of 23.) Soup was decent, but it’s hard to keep crispy pork crispy when it sits in broth.
Course 9: Black Tiger Whiskey and Fried Insects
No pics of the godawful whiskey. I think a small bottle only cost like $1.50 USD. I understand why after tasting it. Everyone in the group (me plus 7 women) took a shot and 1 was enough. Amber partook in the bugs, I did not. The place that housed us for this disgusting stop had windows completely papered over. It purported to be a laundromat, but it contained 2 machines and about 20 stools. The guide then informed us that it’s more Muay Thai illegal gambling parlor and less laundromat; hence the window coverings. It felt like a jail cell…with 2 washing machines.
Course 10: Soy Sauce Soft Serve Ice Cream with Sweetened Soy Sauce Topping at Dek Som Boon
Yes, this sounds insane. Who puts soy sauce on ice cream?! Amber swears by it; her favorite dish of the tour. Turns out, it’s actually pretty good. This isn’t the same soy sauce you dip your sushi in. They’ve sweetened and thickened it, almost to the point of a molasses, balsamic vinegar, or caramel. It adds a nice little touch of saltiness that helps to balance the ice cream well. We ended up with a bottle of it to bring home. We don’t have soft serve at home, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.
Course 11-13: Grilled River Prawns, Tom Yum Soup, Clams at T & K Seafood Restaurant
This place was a tiny maze jam packed with people. The stairs were about 2 feet wide and each step about 2 feet tall. The second floor of the building had a ceiling that was only like 4 feet off the ground. I was suffering from claustrophobia like crazy. And we ascended all the way to the fourth floor where we had no space to maneuver. So no photos, sorry. We ate the tails of the giant river prawns (shrimp if you’re American) but the heads were just too weird to try and our stomachs were pretty full at this point. The soup came to the table on a giant metal ring with a flame shooting out the middle; it cooks/keeps warm via the flame. Grouper, prawn, squid all in there. By the time the clams showed up, I was full and ready for patonggo so I opted out. This place is worth revisiting and ordering our own preferences.
Course 14: Mango Sticky Rice by a cart in front of Shanghai Mansion
No pics here either because the cart was so swamped with people I couldn’t get close enough to take anything resembling a decent photo. You know mango sticky rice; this came with a regular rice and also a butterfly pea bloom rice AKA neon purple rice. Some of the freshest mango we’ve ever had here and that’s saying a lot.
Course 15: Patonggo (Chinese donuts) with Pandan Cream Sauce by a different cart in front of Shanghai Mansion
I think we’ve ate these donuts before. It looked familiar to a food tour we did during my first trip to Bangkok (different guide.) They are excellent! Pandan cream comes from a pandan leaf; you would think a leaf would not make a good dipping sauce but you would be wrong. This is by far the best pandan cream we’ve had in the city. Sometimes they end up a neon green color, this was a solid deep green. So good we grabbed another bag to bring home for the day after!
All in all, a very successful food tour. Having done 2 in Chinatown, I’m excited to venture out on tours in other parts of the city so we can get an even greater appreciation of all of BKK’s cuisines. We will close with a few random walking around photos from the tour. Stay tuned for a recap of our time in Vietnam!
