Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: Lung Long

 Lung Long, Mork Jampae, Mae Hong Son

Lung Long is one of the few remaining people in Mae Hong Son who is skilled in the Shan art of doing metal fretwork.  Such fretwork decorates the rooflines of the province's largely Burmese-style Buddhist temples and was previously made by hand from zinc, but now stainless steel or aluminum is used. Lung Long is mostly retired these days, but will occasionally do work to order, such as the peacocks above that I commissioned. If you want a special souvenir from Mae Hong Son and are willing to go to Mork Jampae (a Thai Yai village about 12km from Mae Hong Son), give him a call at 084 367 3618.

Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: Breakfast

 Locals eating breakfast at Mae Hong Son's morning market

The breakfast choices offered at Mae Hong Song's morning market are truly unlike anywhere else in Thailand. Although most tourists from Bangkok head directly for the jok (rice porridge) stall, there are some very cool local dishes including delicious deep-fried goodies called khang pong, the local version of khanom jeen nam ngiaw, a watery pork- and tomato-based soup served over rice noodles, and thua oon, a weird but tasty Burmese noodle dish in a thick gram bean gravy.

Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: The Walk

A rice field outside Mae Lana, Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand

A few pics of my walk from Ban Mae Lana to Ban Tham Lot.

Eating breakfast at a hill tribe village outside Mae Lana

Piglets at a hill tribe village outside Mae Lana

Limestone mountains outside Ban Tham Lot

The walk followed, more or less, this route:

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Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: Khao Kan Jin

  I've previously blogged on khao kan jin, rice steamed with blood and bits of meat -- a Shan/Thai Yai dish that's popular here in Mae Hong Son. After eating at the previously mentioned stall for years, I finally found another vendor, hidden in a side street and located roughly across from the TOT (Telephone Organization of Thailand) office. Drizzled with garlic oil and served with sprigs of cilantro, raw garlic cloves and deep-fried dried chilies, there isn't much to distinguish the khao kan jin (pictured above) here from my old standby. Both stalls are open at roughly the same time (3-6pm) and both serve khanom jeen nam ngiaw and deep-fried pork rinds. If anything, I'd say that the khao kan jin here is slightly less rich, and the stall also does a variation of the dish that has not been steamed and thus contains raw blood -- the result being a rather intimidating bright pink ball of rice.

Khao kan jin Located roughly across from TOT office, Mae Hong Son 3-6pm

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Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: Mae Lana

I told you it was pretty.

The above is Mae Lana, the Shan village mentioned in my previous post. Mae Lana is located about 50km northeast of Mae Hong Son in a steep picturesque valley and is famous for Tham Mae Lana, a 12km-long cave.

Taking a break from the hectic metropolis that is Mae Hong Son, I decided to drive up to Mae Lana and stayed a night at Garden Home, the village's only guest house. Waking up early the next morning, I went on a 20km walk that wound through mountain scenery:

and the occasional hilltribe village before terminating at Ban Tham Lot, another village near a cave.

Snapshots from Mae Hong Son: Chicken

To regular readers, it will come as no surprise that, yet again, I find myself up in Mae Hong Son, northern Thailand. This time I'm only up here for 10 days, and am already doing a fair bit of writing, so I'd prefer to keep my blogging to mostly image-based, marginally food-related posts. A caveat: I'm shooting with my old D100, a single 35mm f/2 and am editing the images on a laptop, so the images won't be amazing, but to be honest, I find that the 400ISO JPEGs from this camera have an attractive old-school film-like quality.

I came across the guy above just outside Ban Mae Lana, possibly the most attractive rural village anywhere in the country. He made for a nice portrait, but initially I was drawn to his 'luggage':

a chicken container carved out of a length of bamboo, complete with a window and airholes! He explained that he takes the rooster into the woods, ties it to something and encourages it to call. This  apparently attracts any 'wild chickens' (kai paa), which he then shoots. Unfortunately this particular chicken wasn't yet ready. "He's still scared of the forest," explained the man, "He needs to be trained."

The Fridge

Somehow I'd only consumed one pie, hastily and in the front seat of a car, during my stay in New Zealand, a situation I was determined to remedy. So on my last day in the country Hock did a bit of online research and we headed over to Kingsland to sample what the Internet told us were Auckland's best pies.

Arriving at The Fridge I followed Hock's strict instructions and avoided the Thai Red Curry Chicken and Moroccan Lamb pies and instead grabbed a Mince, a Steak and Guinness and something having to do with cheese and potato. The pies were $6, which apparently makes them somewhat spendy by Auckland pie standards.

We stopped at One Tree Hill Park and dug in:

The mince was a classic, with a buttery flaky crust and a rich filling that, coupled with liberal squirts of tomato sauce, made a huge mess. The Steak and Guinness boasted a decent but somewhat bland stew-like filling with carrots and potatoes. And the cheese and potato pie was predominately gloopy and heavy.

I'm not qualified to say whether or not these are Auckland's best pies, but I thoroughly enjoyed the mince in particular, and Hock, a native and pie enthusiast, seemed to agree. And if I'm being totally honest, I even enjoyed the half of the cheese and potato pie, as it ensured that I had absolutely no reason to eat airline food -- even if I wouldn't eat for another four hours.

The Fridge 507 New North Road Kingsland, Auckland New Zealand +64 (0)9 845 5321 730am-4pm Mon-Fri, 8am-4pm Sat & Sun

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The most exotic meal of all

  Because I've lived nearly my entire adult life in Thailand, a place where eating things such as raw blood is relatively commonplace, and because some people mistakenly consider me an authority on such bizarre foods, I'm more than a bit embarrassed to reveal what I'd consider my first exotic meal.

It was almost certainly a meal I ate when I was about 12, just before I made my first trip abroad. I had been invited to have dinner at the home of an ice hockey teammate, an Australian, and was served roast lamb. It was my first time ever eating the meat (I believe this was also the same day when I first tasted Vegemite -- you can imagine the cumulative culinary shock to my system), and I remember wondering beforehand if I'd be able to get it down. Even the dinner table, topped with exotic-sounding condiments such as mint sauce and chutney, a gravy boat, cloth napkins and the family's special plates, not to mention the family's somewhat formal table manners, were intimidating and foreign and a world away from my family's informal and very American concept of dinner.

In the end I had no problem eating the lamb, and even enjoyed the meal, but had largely forgotten about the whole experience until recently, when on my recent trip to New Zealand, I was invited to have roast lamb with my buddy Hock's family.

We began, naturally, with a leg of lamb:

which we seasoned and studded with garlic and rosemary.

Hock made mint sauce according to his grandmother's recipe:

which involved grinding fresh mint, sugar, salt and malt vinegar to a paste in a mortar and pestle.

He also made his grandmother's fish pie:

a delicious mixture of smoked fish, scallops and shrimp held together by a thick roux.

While all this was baking, the kids came by with chocolate slice that they had made:

and Grandma Chris topped her famous and delicious eclairs:

After nearly two hours in the oven, the lamb was done:

the home-grown onions, potatoes and kumara (a type of local sweet potato) roasted:

and the fish pie baked:

and we sat down to a roast lamb dinner, my second in 20 years:

This time around the meal didn't feel nearly as exotic, and was even somewhat homey and familiar, confirming for me that all these years in Thailand have conditioned me to eat anything, even roast lamb.

Hunting and gathering in New Zealand

Frankly, I wasn't blown away by my restaurant meals during my recent stay in Auckland. We had some genuinely fun and tasty dinners, but what I'll continue to remember are the meals based around ingredients that we were able to pick, scavenge and hunt ourselves.

Our hunting and gathering started close to home, at G and G's beautiful garden just outside Auckland:

which had everything from fresh herbs to potatoes:

Maytel had the brilliant idea to take some of the abundant Swiss chard (known locally as silverbeet) and combine it with a blue cheese studded béchamel, which Hock topped with crispy breadcrumbs:

Twice we were given rabbit, an invasive menace in New Zealand, whose hunting is encouraged:

One lot we braised with red wine and served over homemade gnocchi:

and with another two I made two vast pots of rabbit and oyster gumbo, easily the tastiest gumbo I've ever assembled.

After a few days in Auckland we headed over to nearby Waiheke Island:

where within minutes of arriving, we were on our knees looking for pipis, a type of local shellfish:

We found none, but instead came upon heaps of deliciously salty cockles, half of which we grilled:

accompanied, courtesy of G and G, by a 2000 vintage Moët (it wasn't all hard work):

and the other half Maytel stir-fried Chinese-style.

The next day we took off on G and G's boat, The Beaver, for some fishing, and returned 12 hours later with this catch of snapper:

Hock filleted the entire lot, some of which we gave to the neighbours, some of which I made into a ceviche (following this simple recipe from memory), and the remainder of which he made into some truly memorable fish and chips:

Amazingly, it wasn't until virtually my last day in New Zealand that I set foot in a grocery store.

The best Thai dish you've never heard of...

Khao khluk kapi at Ratana, a curry stall in Bangkok's Nang Loeng Market

is a series of food-related posts I'll be contributing to CNNGo's Bangkok pages. My first post is about khao khluk kapi, rice-based salad with origins in central Thailand.

Where in the World am I?

Hint: I'm in a remote and exotic land where, for almost two decades, the above was the epitome of prime-time television entertainment. Where am I?

Amirra

In my previous post I mentioned that I was on a hunt for obscure ethnic restaurants in Bangkok. Well, after a bit of research, I think it's safe to say that it doesn't get much more obscure than my most recent discovery. Amirra is a minuscule, family-run restaurant that serves the food of the African nation of Cameroon.

I was introduced to the restaurant-- in reality more an open dining room -- by Stanley, a Cameroonian football teammate of my buddy Newley. Arriving in the Nana area one recent afternoon, Stanley led us down a narrow alley, up four flights of stairs and past a very domestic living room to a tiny dining room with three tables. We were greeted by the friendly eponymous owner, and Stanley, speaking rapid French, proceeded to order a virtual West African feast. There was haricots:

a beef and kidney bean stew traditionally eaten with deep-fried or steamed plantains. He explained that this is one of the more common street dishes in Cameroun and apologized for the fact it isn't possible to get "real" plantains in Bangkok, claiming that what we were eating were simply bananas.

There was also gumbo:

stewed okra with chicken, as well as a bowl of légumes, stewed greens with beef, a dish not unlike the US soul food staple collard greens. In fact, Newley, who is from South Carolina, noticed several similarities between these dishes and traditional food of America's south. All the vegetable-based dishes were meant to be taken with couscous de Cameroun, a dish not like the Moroccan-style couscous most of us are familiar with, but rather a variant of fufu, the starchy West African staple. Stanley explained that in Cameroon couscous can be made from any available starch, in particular cassava, but here in Bangkok Amirra has to make do with the next best substitute: cornmeal. Everything was accompanied by a deliciously spicy chili sauce called peppée.

Amirra is not the most sophisticated dining experience in Bangkok, and is a bit of a struggle to find, but for hearty eats and mad street cred, there's no comparison. To get to Amirra from Soi 3, enter the street side street that connects to Soi 3/1, and turn right into the sub-Soi that leads to Masjid Nana. Enter the red door on the right and proceed to the 4th floor.

Amirra 4th fl, directly above the 7-Eleven at the intersection of Soi 3 and Thanon Sukhumvit 089 824 7204 Noon-midnight

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New Mabuhay

  I'm currently at work on a piece about obscure ethnic restaurants for the Bangkok pages of CNNGo.  You wouldn't think that other Southeast Asian cuisines would fit in this category, but for some reason, there are remarkably few here in Bangkok, and New Mabuhay is the only place my friend, a Filipina and nearly 30-year resident of Bangkok, knew of that served Filipino food.

Arriving on a lazy Saturday, we ordered adobo, one of the most famous Filipino dishes:

And justifiably so -- this was my first adobo, and I loved the combination of vinegar sourness and black pepper bite. In fact, the dish, with its use of fatty pork and copious shallots, reminded me a lot of Mae Hong Son-style kaeng hang lay.

There was pinakbet:

mixed vegetables fried with shrimp paste. This dish reminded me of a kaeng som without the broth and sourness, or even kaeng paa without the soup and spice.

We meant to order sinigang na pusit, which I was told is a soup of squid in its own ink, but due to a communication error (my own fault; I was speaking Thai when I should have just used English), we got a rather bland dish of veggies fried with squid:

We also forgot to order sinigang na Bangus (fish with sour broth), and that day the restaurant wasn't making relyenong bangus (deep fried stuffed fish), but this is just all the more reason to return.

Continuing my research for the piece, on Wednesday I'll be heading to a Cameroonian restaurant (cheers, Newley!). If anybody has any tips for other obscure cuisines in Bangkok, drop me a comment or an email.

New Mabuhay 1/31 Soi 19, Thanon Phetchaburi, Bangkok 02 255 2689 8.30am-10pm

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Sam Chuk Market

After lunch at Mae Buay, we headed north to Suphanburi's Sam Chuk Market. The market, which was recently recognised by UNESCO for its efforts in conservation and preservation, is today a popular tourist destination among Thais, despite apparently nearly having died a decade ago. It's located along the banks of Tha Jeen River, and is comprised of several well-preserved wooden buildings, some of which are over 100 years-old. It's touristy, but in the Thai sense, which means that the emphasis is on food. You'll find lots of central Thai-style curries, salted eggs, chili dips, sweets, noodles and old-skool coffee shops. To view a slideshow of images from Sam Chuk Market, click on the image above and use keyboard arrows or hold your mouse above the images to navigate through them. (On the nerd front, these images have been edited using Adobe Lightroom on my new iMac. This is my first time using the programme, so you can expect to see some variation in quality among images until I get the hang of it.)

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Mae Buay

When I find myself in an unfamiliar province somewhere in Thailand and am in need of something to eat, my first course of action is typically to call Suthon Sukphisit. Khun Suthon writes the Cornucopia column that runs every Sunday in the Bangkok Post and is a wealth of knowledge about regional Thai food and interesting restaurants. In fact, I think Khun Suthon has been so many restaurants around Thailand that he's beginning to get them mixed up. On a recent trip to Suphanburi, a province about two hours north of Bangkok, I called Khun Suthon to ask if he had any recommendations and without hesitation he replied, "You should go to Paa Muay, it's in Pang Plaa Maa District, just outside Suphanburi." I made a mental note and headed off to Bang Plaa Maa, only to find that there was no Paa Muay, but rather the almost identically-named restaurants Phii Muay, Paa Muay (different tone) and Mae Buay. Not wanting to bother Khun Suthon any more, we placed our bets on Mae Buay, grandest of the lot. And although I haven't yet confirmed it with Khun Suthon, I'm pretty sure we made the right choice.

If you can read Thai, the best thing you can do in provincial restaurants is to order straight from the list of recommended dishes, usually the first page of the menu. Mae Buay's recommended dishes included mee krob, shown above. Unusually, the dish included egg and was garnished with crispy pork rinds. The slightly sweet noodles were great tamed by the crispy/sour/sweet sides of pickled garlic and Chinese chives.

There was hor mok plaa chon:

a 'steamed curry', as David Thompson likes to call it, of snakehead fish. Slightly spicier than most, creamy from coconut milk and revolving around freshwater fish, the dish exemplified central Thai flavours and ingredients.

There was phat chaa plaa maa:

a central Thai-style spicy stir-fry using the somewhat coarse freshwater fish that is the district's namesake. Although oily, I love this dish particularly for its typically generous amount of garlic and green peppercorns, ingredients typically used in an effort to mask 'strong' tasting meat or fish.

And finally there was the sour soup, tom som plaa khang:

Unlike the more popular sour Thai soup tom yam, tom som is made tart by the addition of dried/salted plum and young ginger. The plum provides the soup's sourness with a salty undertone, and coupled with the very fresh freshwater fish, the dish was the perfect bookend to a delicious, balanced central Thai meal.

Thanks, Khun Suthon.

Mae Buay 44 Moo 5, Bang Plaa Maa District, Suphanburi 035 587 077

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Café Ou Mun

I was originally drawn to Café Ou Mun, a tiny café in central Macau, for little more than an early morning galão (the Portuguese equivalent of a café au lait) and a pastry. But the quality of the food led me to make a few more visits, including one proper meal.

At first glance, the emphasis at Café Ou Mun is on sweets:

And not only do they look great, but they were some of the tastiest desserts I've encountered in a long time. My hands-down favourite was the sweet pictured at the top of this post, tijelada. Translated as Portuguese egg pudding, tijelada is a wonderfully eggy and barely-sweet pastry that I later tried to recreate at home with disastrous results (go here for an interesting video, narrated in Portuguese, about making tijeladas the traditional way).

However in addition to sweets, Café Ou Mun also serves a few prepared savoury snacks, including pastéis de bacalhau, the famous Portuguese salt cod croquettes:

not to mention an à la carte menu of traditional Portuguese dishes. Stopping by for dinner one night, we started with a salad-like appetizer of octopus:

served with olive oil and pickled minced onion. I ordered bacalhau à brás:

salt cod (bacalhau) sauteed with shoestring potatoes, onions and egg. Café Ou Mun's version was a bit gloopy and heavy, but I've enjoyed the dish on previous occasions, and while in Macau picked up some bacalhau and plan to make the dish myself, following this recipe. And finally there was porco à Alentejana:

the famous dish of cubes of pork marinated in white wine before being braised with clams and served with deep-fried potatoes and parsley.

The main courses perhaps weren't as impressive as the phenomenal pastries, but Café Ou Mun is a great place for a snack or a simple meal. Wish we had a branch here in Bangkok...

Café Ou Mun 12 Travessa de São Domingos, Macau +853 2837 2207 8am-11pm Tues-Sun

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Another stab at dim sum

Despite my previous tirade, I was still willing to subject myself to more dim sum.  This was partly for nostalgic reasons, as I wanted to revisit a dim sum restaurant in Macau that I remembered from a previous visit.

Beginning at the Ruínas de São Paulo and wandering along hilly lanes until we reached the beautiful Jardim de Luís de Camões, I spotted the restaurant and we stepped in. The choices appeared a bit more diverse than those at restaurants I'd encountered in Hong Kong:

and actually included some vegetables. Beginning at 1 o'clock and moving clockwise, there was steamed fish balls, deep-fried wontons, eggplant with a fish paste filling, steamed pork-filled buns, firm tofu stuffed with pork, and in the middle, fish head with black beans. Unfortunately it was a bit of a cold morning and most dishes chilled upon arrival, but we kept warm with hot tea:

Unfortunately the food was not quite as tasty as I remembered, and as a frustrating but appropriate footnote to my dim sum experience,  I suspect that the red fish balls gave me one of the worst cases of upset stomach I've had in years.

Regardless, if you're willing to risk it, the restaurant is located near the entrance to Jardim de Luís de Camões:

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Riquexó

Those wishing to taste the true flavours of old Macau can do no better than stop by Riquexó, a restaurant serving Macanese cuisine, a blend of Portuguese, Chinese, and on occasion, Southeast Asian ingredients and cooking styles.

The restaurant is still run by its original owner, Aida Jesus:

who despite being in her mid-90s, continues to look after Riquexó on a daily basis and, on occasion, even contributes dishes herself, such as xarope de figo, a sweet drink made from fig leaves. Besides being one of the few interested in preserving the culinary heritage of Macau, Dona Aida is also apparently one of the only remaining native speakers of Pátua, an old dialect of Portuguese that was previously spoken in the former Portuguese colony.

As the sign (above) suggests, Riquexó is self-service, and in fact is more like a cafeteria. You queue up, point to whatever looks good, and a tray will be brought to you.

Scanning the day’s offerings I immediately ordered capela:

I’d read about this traditional Macanese meat loaf, but had never previously tried it. The dish was rich and well seasoned, and the steamed greens were a perfect accompaniment. The cheesy crust and minced olives were signs of the dish’s Portuguese origins, and accompanied by rice and a cold Sagres, it was my favourite part of the meal.

We also ordered a dish of feijoada:

the bean stew that is also the unofficial national dish of Brazil, another former Portuguese colony. Riquexó’s feijoada featured a thick broth, the result of using a pig foot, and was supplemented with cubes of pork, carrots and cabbage.

And finally we ordered what is probably the most beloved Macanese dish of all, minchi:

Paradoxically, the dish has little resemblance to anything Portuguese or Chinese, and the name is most likely a corruption of the English word “minced”, but according to Célia Jorge, author of À Mesa da Diáspora, a book on Macanese cuisine, minchi single handedly embodies comfort food for people of mixed Portuguese and Chinese heritage. The dish combines minced beef (or pork, or a blend of the two) wok-fried with little more than onions and two types of soy sauce, and is served over rice or cubes of deep-fried potatoes with, on occasion, a fried egg. I’ve made it at home on a couple occasions and was particularly excited to try the ‘real’ version, which to be honest, wasn't quite as tasty when served at room temperature.

Additional information about Riquexó and Aida Jesus is available in this article, which also has a recipe for capela.

Riquexó 69 Avenida Sidónio Pais, Macau +853 2856 5655 Noon-10pm

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A Bangkok soup vendor's working day

  Art critic and mate Steven Pettifor has put together this photo essay for the BBC on a day in the life of a Bangkok soup vendor.

Margaret's Café e Nata

Despite having owned the place for five centuries, the Portuguese influence on Macau is actually quite superficial. The Macau of today is essentially a very Chinese city with a few Portuguese-style buildings, a very small minority of people of Portuguese descent, a handful of Portuguese restaurants and an abundance of azulejos (Portuguese blue tiles). Fortunately Macau is rather compact, so for those interested, seeking out the remnants of Portuguese culture, particularly those that are edible, is not difficult. And perhaps the most ubiquitous and tastiest remnant of the Portuguese colonial legacy are pastéis de nata, or more commonly in Macau, Portuguese egg tarts.

Having been denied the gene that grants one the ability to bake, I would never even dream of attempting making them at home, and am thus limited to eating them when I'm in Macau (although there is a decent vendor of the sweet here in Bangkok that I'll blog about soon). And although they're available just about everywhere nowadays, I'm partial to Margaret's:

The shop appears to be one of the more popular vendors, particularly among tourists, and I spend a few minutes here virtually every day I'm in Macau. If you're willing to put up with the mediocre coffee, they do an excellent egg tart (pictured above): flaky, buttery (I've read that the original version was made with lard), expertly scorched and not overtly sweet.

Margaret's Café e Nata Gum Loi Building, off Avenida do Infante Dom Henrique, Macau +853 710 032

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