The elusive Chinatown curry
It smells amazing here. Almost everywhere, at almost all times of the day. That's because seemingly every 20 feet, there's a food stall where someone is cooking up delicious fresh food. Pad Thai and spring rolls in the touristy areas. Meat skewers, curries, stir fries, and more everywhere else. Chili peppers, sweet herbs, lemongrass, mango. I can't get enough.
The lady at the travel clinic advised me not to eat the street food here because it would make me sick. I obviously gave her a bit of an incredulous look because she quickly revised: "...okay, at least don't eat it for a little while." I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen either, and I was right. My compromise turned out to be to start with a pad thai, because I figured fried noodles would be one of the safer things I could eat. It was delicious, and I don't even really like pad thai that much. Since then, I've had a few different curries, some spring rolls, and an amazing crab stir fry that I didn't realize was 500 baht ($20, which I could have survived on for days here - oops).
When I'm spoiled for choice like this, I always have to look up where the best stuff is. The answer here is that it's mostly everywhere, and you can't go wrong with any street vendor you choose. However, I did happen upon an article that described two of the best food stalls in Bangkok's sprawling Chinatown: a noodle soup stall and a curry stall. I wanted to check out Chinatown, so I decided to find these two stalls for dinner. Chinatown is mostly along one main street, with a few offshoot markets on side streets. I saved the addresses of these stalls and set off, which would have worked pretty well in North America or Europe. The problem was, I forgot I was in Thailand.
I managed to get down to Chinatown pretty easily, but once I got there I quickly saw how insane it was (even more so because of the new year celebrations). I explored the markets for a bit before I got hungry and decided to try to find some dinner. The main street is the Yaowarat, but the curry place was on one of the offshoot sidestreets. Of course, the signs for some of the side streets are in Thai only, so I had no idea which sidestreet I was on, but it did seem like a main one so I walked on it for a few blocks. Turns out that it was the right street. However, all the information I had at my disposal to find the stall was a basic description, and in the chaos it was impossible. I walked all the way from one end to the other several times, but no obvious delicious curry to be found. I gave up and tried to find the noodle place, which was on the Yaowarat. I had the address, so I figured I could just look at the numbers on the buildings to figure out when I was nearby. Another dumb decision, as most of the buildings had no numbers that I could see, and I when I did see numbers, I wasn't sure if they were the address or something else because they were usually interspersed with Thai script. I needed to find WiFi and get the locations of these places on a map.
Finding WiFi in Chinatown proved to be a challenge as well, so I gave up and walked toward the train station, which was about 10 minutes away, because I had to go there to pick up my train ticket anyway. There were cafes and bars around the train station with free WiFi, so I sat down, had a beer, and marked my two destinations on my map. I set off again, really hungry at this point but not settling for defeat.
The noodle place was first on my way. It was a small cart with a red sign and a white dragon. I tried to dodge as many people as I could while scouring the Yaowarat for this place, and finally I found it. I ordered dumplings and noodle soup, and they ushered me to a small plastic table where a young Thai couple was already sitting. The dumplings came without a fork, probably because they wanted to see if I'd eat them with my hands. I almost did, but I guess I looked at them quizzically long enough that the couple felt bad and asked someone working there for a fork for me, then gave me a warm smile after I thanked them. I devoured the dumplings and the soup. Both delicious and exactly what I was hoping for. I was pretty full, but I set out to find the curry regardless.
But it was no use. I walked up and down that same sidestreet, stood where the Google maps pin was and looked around, smelled around, but there was no curry place to be found. It wasn't late so there was little chance that it has closed. It felt like a mirage. At that point I was exhausted, so I walked the 25 minutes back to my hostel. I was full and had a great time getting lost in Chinatown, so I called it a successful night. I guess that curry just wasn't meant to be.
UPDATE: I found it! On my way to the train station to get to Koh Tao, I walked through Chinatown and decided to take another look for the curry. To my surprise, as I rounded the corner onto the sidestreet, I saw a bunch of local people sitting on plastic chairs against a wall. There was a man with several bowls balancing precariously in his arms while shouting things in Thai, and the people in the chairs stood up in turn to each take a bowl off his hands. I figured this had to be it. I had plenty of time so I stopped, ordered, and got a beaming smile from a local as I sat in one of the plastic chairs with my pack on. The curry came a few minutes later, and it was totally worth the search (and only ~$1.50).
The lady at the travel clinic advised me not to eat the street food here because it would make me sick. I obviously gave her a bit of an incredulous look because she quickly revised: "...okay, at least don't eat it for a little while." I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen either, and I was right. My compromise turned out to be to start with a pad thai, because I figured fried noodles would be one of the safer things I could eat. It was delicious, and I don't even really like pad thai that much. Since then, I've had a few different curries, some spring rolls, and an amazing crab stir fry that I didn't realize was 500 baht ($20, which I could have survived on for days here - oops).
When I'm spoiled for choice like this, I always have to look up where the best stuff is. The answer here is that it's mostly everywhere, and you can't go wrong with any street vendor you choose. However, I did happen upon an article that described two of the best food stalls in Bangkok's sprawling Chinatown: a noodle soup stall and a curry stall. I wanted to check out Chinatown, so I decided to find these two stalls for dinner. Chinatown is mostly along one main street, with a few offshoot markets on side streets. I saved the addresses of these stalls and set off, which would have worked pretty well in North America or Europe. The problem was, I forgot I was in Thailand.
I managed to get down to Chinatown pretty easily, but once I got there I quickly saw how insane it was (even more so because of the new year celebrations). I explored the markets for a bit before I got hungry and decided to try to find some dinner. The main street is the Yaowarat, but the curry place was on one of the offshoot sidestreets. Of course, the signs for some of the side streets are in Thai only, so I had no idea which sidestreet I was on, but it did seem like a main one so I walked on it for a few blocks. Turns out that it was the right street. However, all the information I had at my disposal to find the stall was a basic description, and in the chaos it was impossible. I walked all the way from one end to the other several times, but no obvious delicious curry to be found. I gave up and tried to find the noodle place, which was on the Yaowarat. I had the address, so I figured I could just look at the numbers on the buildings to figure out when I was nearby. Another dumb decision, as most of the buildings had no numbers that I could see, and I when I did see numbers, I wasn't sure if they were the address or something else because they were usually interspersed with Thai script. I needed to find WiFi and get the locations of these places on a map.
Finding WiFi in Chinatown proved to be a challenge as well, so I gave up and walked toward the train station, which was about 10 minutes away, because I had to go there to pick up my train ticket anyway. There were cafes and bars around the train station with free WiFi, so I sat down, had a beer, and marked my two destinations on my map. I set off again, really hungry at this point but not settling for defeat.
The noodle place was first on my way. It was a small cart with a red sign and a white dragon. I tried to dodge as many people as I could while scouring the Yaowarat for this place, and finally I found it. I ordered dumplings and noodle soup, and they ushered me to a small plastic table where a young Thai couple was already sitting. The dumplings came without a fork, probably because they wanted to see if I'd eat them with my hands. I almost did, but I guess I looked at them quizzically long enough that the couple felt bad and asked someone working there for a fork for me, then gave me a warm smile after I thanked them. I devoured the dumplings and the soup. Both delicious and exactly what I was hoping for. I was pretty full, but I set out to find the curry regardless.
But it was no use. I walked up and down that same sidestreet, stood where the Google maps pin was and looked around, smelled around, but there was no curry place to be found. It wasn't late so there was little chance that it has closed. It felt like a mirage. At that point I was exhausted, so I walked the 25 minutes back to my hostel. I was full and had a great time getting lost in Chinatown, so I called it a successful night. I guess that curry just wasn't meant to be.
UPDATE: I found it! On my way to the train station to get to Koh Tao, I walked through Chinatown and decided to take another look for the curry. To my surprise, as I rounded the corner onto the sidestreet, I saw a bunch of local people sitting on plastic chairs against a wall. There was a man with several bowls balancing precariously in his arms while shouting things in Thai, and the people in the chairs stood up in turn to each take a bowl off his hands. I figured this had to be it. I had plenty of time so I stopped, ordered, and got a beaming smile from a local as I sat in one of the plastic chairs with my pack on. The curry came a few minutes later, and it was totally worth the search (and only ~$1.50).
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| Late afternoon Chinatown market |
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| It got more chaotic at night |
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| Success! Om nom nom. Not pictured: eventual fork. |
But what was the fork like?! (I promise all my comments won't be sarcastic.)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, cool entry - e.g the subtle lack of numbers on buildings is a great observation on how it can be tricky to get around in different countries. We take that for granted a bit in Western cities. WiFi still hilariously pervasive around the globe.
Can you figure out how to post smells of lemongrass, mango, etc. via blog? plzkthx Must go now as you've made me hungry.
Day 13: He still has not found the curry. His blog audience continues to hold its breath.
ReplyDelete