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Even if I do not enjoy a particular food, I can almost always see why it would appeal to others. Larb though. It's like chewing gravel.
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Jan 31, 2014 01:37
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On the Taiwan note, my special lady friend travels all over for work and comes from a pretty strongly Chinese diaspora family (yesterday was oh so fun, urgh) and her take on Taiwan is that it's very Americanized. I found that interesting. She went to school in Chicago for several years, so she's got some experience in our country.Anarkii posted:I assume you guys are skipping Vietnam in the food comparison because it's so far above the rest  Tomato Soup posted:Oh god, I feel for you. I went to school in DC and most of the Asian places in the city were fusion crap (there were some decent ones way out in the burbs but too much effort). Generally speaking, though, I find most Thai food in America hosed up. Some of my Thai relatives live in LA in the Thai community and have restaurants and I got to chat them up about it. I was like, "Why do you people stick bell peppers in ga pow if Thai basil is available?" and what not. There is one (supposedly two now) great Thai place in Houston run by the Thai Nazi, who, no matter what you order, just looks at you, says the name of a dish you'll like and writes it down. Guy does really authentic stuff. The place is in an industrial neighborhood in a rough part of town, but at lunch every weekday the parking lot is nothing but Mercedes and Land Rovers and so on. Everyone driving in from downtown for the food. Vogler posted:Even if I do not enjoy a particular food, I can almost always see why it would appeal to others. Larb though. It's like chewing gravel. Try larb tort.
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Jan 31, 2014 03:14
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CronoGamer and Finch!: awesome, thanks for the advice about Kinabalu. Did you do any diving around Borneo? Sipadan or anything?
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Jan 31, 2014 05:26
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ReindeerF posted:You miss all 5 of the Vietnamese dishes!? The soup, the sandwich, the grilled pork, the grilled chicken AND the spring rolls? The kho quet, man, the kho quet! And all the fishes! And the smorgasbord of sea food, crabs and edible shelled things. I'm getting misty-eyed, I'll stop here...
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Jan 31, 2014 06:19
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Vietnamese food is so light everything feels like an appetizer. I like the taste and all but where's the plate of fat and meat? 
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Jan 31, 2014 06:44
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Yeah, I actually do like a lot of things in Vietnamese cuisine. Pho is pretty obvious. Bo la lot is great, as are those gummy dumplings with minced pork filling and fried shallots on top. Kho quet (we have like 15 versions of this in Thailand neener) is excellent too. Oh and the lemongrass porkchops, oi, insanely good. In general, Khmer and Vietnamese cuisine is better at using lemongrass than Thai cuisine, in my opinion. Also, the spicy sauces there really are excellent. The way they use ginger in them is fantastic. I'm sort of with Ringo, though, on the unbearable lightness of eating in Vietnam. As well, you have to subtract "grilled meat/seafood item" and "fresh vegetable plate", because anyone can do those. Once you take those out, you get a better idea of what's available. Still, I was kidding, I do like Vietnamese food. I go at least a couple of times a month and just had some two days ago, actually.
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Jan 31, 2014 06:54
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Wait, no love for Cambodian cuisine? Why just the other day I spent a whole dollar on a half burnt corn on the cob and a styrofoam bowl of mashed rice in boiling water. I then went to a motherfucking candy floss stand and spent another dollar (this place is clearly for the tourists) on a bag of burnt sugar which I suspect was covered in MSG. Finally, still a bit peckish, I found an orange box lady who sold me a packet of cigarettes (fifty cents) and showed me the "food" she was selling, which was a bag of lollipops. I bought the lot, plus a couple of packets of ramen noodles but made a sharp exit when she started shouting at me in Khmer and rather worryingly waved her hands in the direction of her children. Finally, out of my mind on sugar, MSG and gutter water (and still starving), I gave up and went for a pizza. I mean if you can't compete with that kind of culinary experience then you're really not trying  edit: Oh and the pizza had MARIJUANA on it. Game over bitches 
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Jan 31, 2014 07:36
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My personal favorite are the whole-fried quail or whatever those birds are. They actually look good in terms of color and presentation, but I know they've got to be horrible.
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Jan 31, 2014 07:48
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duckmaster posted:Wait, no love for Cambodian cuisine? Why just the other day I spent a whole dollar on a half burnt corn on the cob and a styrofoam bowl of mashed rice in boiling water. I then went to a motherfucking candy floss stand and spent another dollar (this place is clearly for the tourists) on a bag of burnt sugar which I suspect was covered in MSG. Finally, still a bit peckish, I found an orange box lady who sold me a packet of cigarettes (fifty cents) and showed me the "food" she was selling, which was a bag of lollipops. I bought the lot, plus a couple of packets of ramen noodles but made a sharp exit when she started shouting at me in Khmer and rather worryingly waved her hands in the direction of her children. You need to stop blabbering and cram your pie hole with desserts because they're about the only thing cambodia does right. I'd loving murder someone out on the street for some an'som jaik/grilled bananas. The banana tapioca pudding is really good too. Also a bowl of numbeyn chok in a dirty marketplace in the morning is excellent.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:03
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ReindeerF posted:My personal favorite are the whole-fried quail or whatever those birds are. They actually look good in terms of color and presentation, but I know they've got to be horrible. There's a fairground just out of town on Route 60 which they have imaginatively named "Route 60". The tourists stay away from it, even more so since a Japanese woman fell out of the rollercoaster and died a few months ago. Incidentally, that has made it incredibly popular with us expat types, who now go up just to ride the DEATHCOASTER. They didn't really do anything to make the DEATHCOASTER safe, just kept it closed for a respectful three days and renamed it the DEATHCOASTER. Disclaimer: It's not actually called the DEATHCOASTER. Not officially, anyway. Anyway, Route 60 is a very Khmer place which means the foodstalls are just mad. You've got whole birds, snakes, frog, snails and the obligatory piles and piles of fried insects (eeeuuuggghhh). And lots and lots of unidentifiable stuff. Cambodian cuisine is basically:
In many cases, step 3 is completely optional, and even step 2 is not always strictly observed. It's fuel food. My friends and I speculate that it's partly due to the country always being completely agricultural, so people had to get their protein any way they could and that meant eating anything that moved. I also suspect there's a bit of a hangover from the Khmer Rouge era; if I had just spent five years living in a death camp on a handful of rice a day I wouldn't have a problem chowing down on a handful of snails and leeches, and I'd bring my children up to appreciate the fact that at least they've got food and they should be happy with it. Having said all that I could eat Amok all day every day for every meal and never get sick of it.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:07
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CronoGamer posted:You need to stop blabbering and cram your pie hole with desserts because they're about the only thing cambodia does right. I'd loving murder someone out on the street for some an'som jaik/grilled bananas. The banana tapioca pudding is really good too. Also a bowl of numbeyn chok in a dirty marketplace in the morning is excellent. Oh my god those little dough balls they have in coconut milk or something. Yes. And the rice balls with flavoured sugar in the middle. Yes. I don't like bananas though 
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Jan 31, 2014 08:13
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If you're in Cambodia and not eating multiple different species per day, you're doing something wrong. Incidentally, my Christmas dinner was a whole roasted pig that we picked up from the market, and it was drat tasty.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:20
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Taiwan is very Americanized compared to any other actual Chinese zone BUT it's also more Japanified, very indigenous in areas (not Taipei) and in a strange way more truly Chinese. Hong Kong is definitely more Rich Bitch but just like Taiwan has more than its fair share of Chinese art objects it also has more than its fair share of artists and performers and thinkers who fled Mao's forces as well. In the mainland there was a weird feeling of "this is where it went down all right but at some point they blew up those bridges and are now only making a glancing effort to reconnect" whereas Taiwan was obviously a tea producing island of yokels but has a thick feel of being fluidly connected to the high culture of the past. I mean, how much of "real China" is real and how much of it is a fiction or a fantasy or economic fallout? Does jar headed nationalism, a disregard for nature and the arts, and filthy public habits really define Chineseness? Unfortunately this is a debate I could only ever make in two places: the internet and Taiwan. I'm not saying the Mainland is fake but it (by it I suppose I mostly mean Beijing and the big coastal cities) is kind of manufactured. In another light you hear people say that New York isn't the real America because it mostly lacks fine natural vistas and over-sharing heartfelt simpletons (though Brooklyn is making a concerted effort to fix the latter these days). And yeah, you have to admit that it's not the median or the mean. But it's also quintessentially American in certain aspects that really do matter. In a similar way looking for the Real China is better done in Taiwan; the real Thailand in Bangkok.
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Jan 31, 2014 11:26
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And if you don't like larb GET OUT 
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Jan 31, 2014 11:30
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Hate to break it to you but Houston Thai Nazi is no longer of this earth. Speaking of food, had some ethnic Karen for lunch which was basically rice, jungle veggies and a "goat" curry that tasted like beef and probably stood a ten percent chance of being "forest dog."
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Jan 31, 2014 12:33
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Nooooooo.... At least tell me the Isaan place up around FM1960 is still there. I forget the name. Isaan Village or something? It was the other contender for authentic. EDIT: Also, since you're a fellow Houstonian, UA just cut all free booze from (Y) economy class on international flights to Asia. I avoid UA like the plague anyway, but yet another reason to do so.
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Jan 31, 2014 12:47
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Chair: I'm going to your Scandinavian resort town over the weekend. PM for beer.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:09
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ReindeerF posted:EDIT: Also, since you're a fellow Houstonian, UA just cut all free booze from (Y) economy class on international flights to Asia. I avoid UA like the plague anyway, but yet another reason to do so. What in the flying gently caress, America. If a European airline did this, there'd be rioting.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:25
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Sheep-Goats posted:Taiwan is very Americanized compared to any other actual Chinese zone BUT it's also more Japanified, very indigenous in areas (not Taipei) and in a strange way more truly Chinese. Hong Kong is definitely more Rich Bitch but just like Taiwan has more than its fair share of Chinese art objects it also has more than its fair share of artists and performers and thinkers who fled Mao's forces as well. In the mainland there was a weird feeling of "this is where it went down all right but at some point they blew up those bridges and are now only making a glancing effort to reconnect" whereas Taiwan was obviously a tea producing island of yokels but has a thick feel of being fluidly connected to the high culture of the past. I'm reminded of a thread a while back, where a goon described a small mainland Chinese town where they were born and extended family still lives. It's pretty much dying, since the only people there are elderly or kids, with all the working age people headed off to a nearby city for jobs, the whole economy is people sending money home. They used to have a Buddhist temple that was hundreds of years old and survived WWII only to be destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and there hasn't been any effort to rebuild it. I have to say a lot of that history and culture is pretty much gone and not coming back, since Mao burned a lot of books and buildings, and there has been an extremely fast shift from a primarily agricultural economy to an industrial one.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:29
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Ringo R posted:Chair: I'm going to your Scandinavian resort town over the weekend. PM for beer. I don't have PMs, but you can email me at medeapoison @ hotmail dot com and I'll give you my phone number. I have friends in from Bangkok, so there will be a little bit of a party. Edit: Alternately, you could go to Sam Sam tonight or tomorrow night at about eleven and look for someone with an American accent screaming the word "gently caress!" a lot. Then walk up and ask if they have stairs. But the first way sounds better to me. Edited again because I am an English teacher who cannot speak English. Chair Huxtable fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 13:47
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Chair Huxtable posted:I don't have PMs, but you can email me at medeapoison @ hotmail dot com and I'll give you my phone number. I have friends in from Bangkok, so you there will be a little bit of a party. Flying into Bangkok tommorrow. Any BKK goons know he status of the protests? Its hard to get an idea for how bad traffic and getting around is going to be from twitter feeds and such. How do you think my trip will be affected? Looking at doing some sightseeing and should be staying around Saladeng station for a few days.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:55
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duckmaster posted:Oh my god those little dough balls they have in coconut milk or something. Yes. And the rice balls with flavoured sugar in the middle. Yes. Have you actually tried them in Cambodia? I don't like bananas at all at home/in the west, but Cambodian ones are (quite literally) a different breed and so much better
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Jan 31, 2014 14:16
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B rad you are going to be fine. If I'm wrong I will be in Beijing and buy you a beer. China goon invasion represent! Street making GBS threads never forget! Happy lunar year everyone.
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Jan 31, 2014 14:29
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Asoke and Victory Monument are problematic in terms of street traffic, but shouldn't affect you any other way. The wild card is that the elections are scheduled for Monday and yet another of the 10,000 DAYS OF RECKONING declared by Suthep and his braintrust is set for Sunday. So far they've amounted to nothing, but who knows.
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Jan 31, 2014 14:34
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About Vietnamese food, Bun Cha near Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi is just divine. That and Bun Bo Hue (in Hue or Saigon) beat the crap of out of all noodle broths including pho. I had Korean ramen a couple of days after my Saigon food tour and it was a pale shadow. Not everyone likes bo la lot outside Vietnam bit I am very fond of betel leaves and the combination of that is beef is something to savour. Highway 5 in Hanoi was the only proper restaurant meal I had in Vietnam and the catfish spring rolls were great. In fact that entire block has numerous places with fried catfish which is really good. Also in Saigon I went to this seafood place in district 8 that did scallops with peanuts, chile , ginger and lime which was fabulous. I don't know how Vietnamese it was though. The fact that Vietnamese food is kinda light is why I love it so much. I can walk around and keep eating.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:31
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ReindeerF posted:Asoke and Victory Monument are problematic in terms of street traffic, but shouldn't affect you any other way. The wild card is that the elections are scheduled for Monday and yet another of the 10,000 DAYS OF RECKONING declared by Suthep and his braintrust is set for Sunday. So far they've amounted to nothing, but who knows. I think the pre-election alcohol ban will be more problematic than the protesters.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:48
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Anarkii posted:About Vietnamese food, Bun Cha near Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi is just divine. That and Bun Bo Hue (in Hue or Saigon) beat the crap of out of all noodle broths including pho. Ever tried hu tieu? Even better than bun bo hue (which is a very close second). My absolute favorite fish is cá hú (never found the English name, but it's in the catfish/basa family), not many restaurants cook it because it smells terrible when fresh but it's so loving good.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:57
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CronoGamer posted:Have you actually tried them in Cambodia? I don't like bananas at all at home/in the west, but Cambodian ones are (quite literally) a different breed and so much better No they still taste like sticks of grit. However, for the threads benefit I will re-try them tomorrow and report back accordingly.
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Jan 31, 2014 20:23
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Get one of the ones packed in sticky rice and grilled inside a banana leaf, ansom jaik. Make sure its not one of the pork ones though.
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Jan 31, 2014 21:12
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Ooh, foodchat! Filipino food has its fair share of detractors (and rightfully so), but there are a few highlights. Too bad they're all what we'd call 'cardiac's delights' here: - As mentioned before, the longganiza/sausages here are far better than what you'd get in most of the rest of Southeast Asia. - Bourdain has raved about both sisig ('If you’ve never had this divine mosaic of pig parts, chopped and served sizzling and crisp on one side on a screaming hot platter, then you’ve yet to have one of the world’s best beer drinking dishes.”) and lechon ('Of all the whole roasted pigs I’ve had all over the world, the slow roasted lechon I had on Cebu was the best.') - Other signature dishes here are pork-based as well: deep-fried pork belly (lechon kawali) and deep-fried pork hocks (crispy pata) And here's a thread by fellow goon Gravity84 on Filipino food that got included in the GWS wiki. My favorite quote from that thread: quote:I love filipino food...but it can be the Paula Deen of Asian cuisine. VV Yeah, the beef dishes did slip my mind. Want to add Bulalo to the list as well. Thanks for reminding me. anakha fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 02:11
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I can't agree on sisig. I've had it once or twice out drinking in Manila with Pinoy friends, so they prepare it all up right with the sauces and everything. It's just a chewy, gristly mess of awful (offal? lol) to me. The rest I agree on and I'd add beef tapa, beef caldereta and inihaw na liempo (had to look up spelling there, I always mis-remember inihaw lumpia). You guys have a much better beef cooking culture thanks to the remnants of Spanish influence. EDIT: Oops, it's not spelled "beef calderta" heh. Turns out I can't spell any Pinoy food over five letters without google.
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Feb 1, 2014 02:18
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Sisig reminds me of Babi Guling, which Bourdain also raved about. I think the dude loves his pigmeat. It's hard to find here because this region is 99% Muslim, but it's definitely worth looking for. Indonesian food is pretty rad, but I wish they wouldn't put sugar in loving everything. I stopped trusting things that don't look sweet the day I bit into a cheese-and-chicken roll and hit whipped cream. It's entirely unsurprising that they have a huge diabetes problem here.
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Feb 1, 2014 02:43
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I don't eat a lot of filipino food, but beef tapa is so good. My big issue with the cuisine down here is the lack of sauce. I hate soy sauce with a passion, so every dry dish with rice(most of them) just makeme sad 
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Feb 1, 2014 02:46
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There's a Russian guy staying in the same community in Bangkok as me and he absolutely refuses to eat anything other than ramen. He describes all the meat in the dishes here as "jam from meat" meaning that everything is way, way too sweet. This has made me wonder just how awful the food in Russia must be to snub your nose to everything prepared in Thailand.
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Feb 1, 2014 04:29
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Yeah, Russians don't do flavor or spice, basically. Actually, they just don't do stuff that's non-Russian. I mean of course some do, but they're one of my target markets now and I've been working with a marketing specialist and interacting with the market now for a few months and it's very culturally insular. Nice folks once they get to know you and trust you, but before that happens everything needs to be Russian - language, people they interact with, food, everything. Sounds like this guy is at least interacting outside of cultural norms, which is great. EDIT: My special lady friend has a fun story about a business delegation she was on to Moscow a while back. She was enjoying all the cheese and bread and things they have in Moscow and every night there would be an arranged dinner. She described the food as typical bland Russian fare, but one night the chef brought out a plate of ga pow gai (chicken with basil), which she described as the most bland ga pow imaginable - like you get at many crappy places in the US or wherever. The Russians, apparently, poked at it, took a bite and then started gulping water before pushing the plate away and commiserating about it. The report was that it was way too spicy for human consumption  . I enjoyed the mental image. Must be like feeding people from North Dakota or something.
ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 06:08
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An rear end destroying six pepper som tam has about as much a place in a grey Soviet winter as a steaming bowl of beefy borscht does being flung on a passing motorcyclist in Songkran. I'm not going to put Russian food into a cage match with Thai because poor Russia would get stomped, but until I get a salad with a tangy dill dressing, a fatty lamb dumpling and some smoked fish in Bangkok I'll have to continue to play devil's advocate. Anyway, I will give the Russians this: they are among the world's best ambulance patients. They suffer well, they follow instructions, they know about their own maladies, and they pull together appropriately so as to give genuine aid without sending the ill person into a (stereotypically Hispanic) panic/worry spiral.
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Feb 1, 2014 06:46
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Yeah, the stoic thing is very real, just cuts both ways. Once they put their trust in you, unless you screw them they're fantastic people. However, because there's so much mistrust and scamming going on in Russia, getting from point A to point B is no small task. I would imagine someone in pain in need of medical care is a little easier sell on, "Okay, trust me" than in other situations, heh. EDIT: I'm happy to bash on the food, though, heh. I'm from a place with tons of great food and I live in a place with tons of great food. I'm happy to have dumplings and cabbage and all that from time to time, but as a regular diet, man, boorrriinngg. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 07:20
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So what day is the actual election? Tomorrow or Monday? I noticed the alcohol ban has gone into effect already, but I'm curious how universally enforced that is. I can't imagine Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza turning off the taps tonight. How is this all going to go down?
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Feb 1, 2014 14:17
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Tomorrow. Soi 4 is allegedly serving but lots of places will be shut.
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Feb 1, 2014 14:37
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All the clubs are shut down here, but the restaurants are still serving booze and the mom and pop shops are still selling.
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Feb 1, 2014 14:45
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