During a recent work trip to Southeast Asia, I partook on a quick weekend jaunt to Bangkok. It’s a fascinating city and a fascinating culture with a wonderful vibrancy. It also has an intimate relationship with food with more than 20,000 food-serving establishments in the city. So when I went to Bangkok I took not one but two food tours.
The tours I took were offered by Bangkok Food Tours. Aside from the food, it was a good opportunity to see parts of the city I would not have explored otherwise.
In the morning, I took the Historic Bangrak Tour. It began inauspiciously as I was late to the meeting point because I came out the wrong exit at the metro station. However, I found the group and soon thereafter we were heading through a sprinkle of rain to the first destination. There, we were served a simple but delicious plate of roasted duck on rice. That was followed by a more adventurous item: duck feet wrapped in pig intestine (looked like bacon) and stuffed with more pig product. The first dish was quite tasty, the second was just an experience.
After the duck, we went to see a Buddhist temple though I can’t remember what made it special enough for a detour. It was a nice temple I suppose, and it was interesting to hear about the juxtaposition of Buddhism and Hinduism (the temple had an icon of Vishnu at its entrance). But I was in a food type of mood, and soon we were at a restaurant whose sign said it served Muslim fare, which I found curious. I’d never thought of Muslim as a food category. We had a pastry filled with curried chicken, and served with cucumber and vinegar. I didn’t take a picture of the next dish but it was amazing: curry noodles. The meat in it was not very good but the broth was intensely flavorful.
On our way to the next stop, our guide picked up some sweet pork balls as a street snack, and we stopped by a fruit stand to try mangosteen and longan. A quick aside about the fruit: throughout my trip, not just in Thailand, I tried a great number of fruits uncommon in the US – jackfruit, guava, starfruit – though I regret I did not go through the full durian experience (I did have durian ice cream though). The fruits are quite different, meatier perhaps and definitely not as sweet as what we are used to in the US.
We then stopped at a restaurant that specialized in food from Isan, a region in northeastern Thailand. There, we had sticky rice with a papaya salad (my favorite dish of the tour), laab (also delicious), and some other meat dish (not very memorable). These dishes, which I forgot to take a picture of, continued a common theme of all the meals I had in Bangkok: intensity of flavor. You can take evocative phrases like bursting with flavor, or popping with flavor, and it would be an apt description of the experience. Just fantastic stuff.
Our next visit was to a cafe that seemed like a generic yuppie metropolitan coffeehouse but offered a green custard filled bun (devoured in moments) and Thai iced tea (finished even quicker). The Thai iced tea, called milk tea in Thailand, tastes pretty much the same as in the US but this one was just a bit creamier and, unsurprisingly, just a bit more intense in its flavor.
The last stop of the morning tour was a two-story restaurant that thankfully had air-conditioning. Southeast Asia is insufferably hot and humid for those of used to milder climates. Everyone says you eventually get used to it but there is no shortage of sweating. Anyway, at this restaurant, we were offered “roti” with curried chicken. This was different than the roti at US Indian restaurants. It was simply fried dough and so of course it was good but after so many meals difficult to eat. The curried chicken was good but, like the curry noodles above, the quality of the meat was so-so. The meal and the tour ended with tamarind ice.
Overall I enjoyed the meals. Nothing was truly mind-blowing but there were intense and unique flavors. More than anything I was amazed by how integral food is to Thai culture. This is something you could say of many cultures but it is no exaggeration to say that every street in Bangkok is lined with food vendors offering an astonishing variety of options. They are constantly preparing, and cooking, and eating, and that is a way of life that brings joy to my heart.