Bangkok brilliant

Bangkok, you are ceaselessly magical.  Wondrous combinations of oddities abound here, and I will always thank you for reminding me that the world should be that way. 

Coin Fairy

Once upon a time, a fairy with a seemingly endless supply of coins came to town…

For several years I have been involved in raising money for Operation Smile Thailand, an incredible organisation that raises money to provide free surgery to people with cleft lips and palates.  The doctors and nurses who perform the surgeries do so for free, but the cost of supplies, facilities, and medication still have to be paid for.  Operation Smile raises money to pay for these costs and then to organise the very complicated logistics of getting doctors together with patients.  The surgery is not a particularly complicated one as proven by the fact that most of us never see people who have a cleft lip or palate.  Only children born to very poor parents leave the hospital without it being corrected.

Several years ago, we came up with a truly simple but effective fundraiser in which students competed by class to earn the most 'points'.  Each teacher was given a jar; coins added to the jar were 'positive' numbers and bills 'negative' numbers.  If one of my students put two ten baht coins in my jar, we gained twenty points.  If a student from a competing class dropped a twenty baht bill in my jar, however, we lost twenty points and ended up back at zero.

The fundraiser usually ran for about a week and raised a lot of money.  At the end, we had students count coins by denomination and put them in ziplock bags of 100 coins.  Bills were counted as well.  The winning class - the one with the most points and not the most money - won a free lunch.

There was only one wrinkle in the plan - no one wants coins.  Our cashier's office, which usually handles and deposits all money raised - made it extremely difficult to deposit large amounts of coins.  They didn't do so out of spite but because banks simply do not want coins.  To discourage deposits of large amounts of money in coins, the banks charge a lot of money to handle the coins.  On top of that, the cashier's office asked that we sort and count the coins before handing them over to them (no problem) but then insisted on counting all the coins again while I was there.

When you're talking about thousands of coins, that is a lot of time from a teacher's day standing around waiting while coins are counted.  The times that I did do it usually resulted in most of my prep time spent counting and recounting piles of coins.  Oy.

Luckily the parents of a woman who works at our school own a pharmacy and frequently need coins to make change.  Several years ago, she and I made an arrangement in which I would make sure the coins were counted and sorted and she would buy them.  [No second count was necessary.]  I would then take the bank notes and simply deposit them with the cashier.  It was easier, and she was happy to get the coins.

The only problem?  She couldn't handle the volume of coins that came in, especially the one and two baht coins.  I ended up with a backlog of coins every year that I would tally and deposit cash for (bank notes) with the cashier's office.  I probably could have cleared the backlog by putting a little more time and effort into it, but somehow teaching full time got in the way of my banking duties.  Who knew?

Anyway, this year being my last at my school, I realised I really did have to get rid of all those coins.  When I went through my closets and cupboards at school, however, I knew that this was going to be a bit complicated; there were a lot of coins.  I worked hard get rid of them through the cashier and the woman with the pharmacy.  In addition, I started carrying bags of  5 and 10 baht coins with me wherever I went, paying for everything I could think of with coins.  I probably started tipping quite a bit more too, albeit using coins to make the difference.  Even after redoubling my efforts, in the end I probably had about 30 kilograms of coins to get rid of.

Again, I had already tallied the value of the coins and made out-of-pocket equivalent deposits in the Operation Smile account.  I decided that I would just consider these donations from me and started figuring out how to get rid of the coins.  This was easier said than done.  Thirty kilos of coins is a lot of coins.

By May, I realised that I would have to change tactics.  The value of the coins had already been donated, but my ideal was to donate the coins themselves.  The only thing stopping me was the practicality of getting rid of so many coins.  I could never carry them all in one go and didn't want to ask a friend to help me transport them.  Plus, I wasn't sure where I would transport them anyway.  The first thing to consider was the satang.

those darn satang

Satang are the 'cents' of Thailand.  Simply making them is a money losing venture for the Thai mint.  When 32 baht is more or less a dollar, one baht is about 3 cents.  That makes one satang 1/100th of 3 cents.  Only big stores like grocery stores give satang, and nobody wants them.  Banks have no interest in them, and stores won't receive them.  The only place I could think of that would be happy to take them was a wat, so I went through all the coins, separated out all the satang that weren't already bagged, and put them in a big shopping bag.  

Total weight?  About 6 kilos.

My wife and I had a day trip planned to visit a small river side neighbourhood that included a market, a good restaurant, and a really nice wat that had recently been restored.  We went in the late afternoon, me carrying a green bag full of satang.  We walked through the market to the temple.  I took off my shoes, entered the main part of the temple (which was empty), and went directly to the donation boxes.  My first thought was to dump all the coins out into the boxes, but I realised after the clanging of coins began that this was going to take a long time.  Plus, it was likely to attract attention since it sounded something like a slot machine payout at a Vegas casino.  I put the 6 ziplock bags full of coins on top of the box, quickly retreated to the centre of the floor in front of the very large Buddha, bowed a few times and exited.

For some reason I felt like I had to sneak out and breathed a huge sigh of relief that I had not been 'caught'.  As I was putting my shoes back on, a middle-aged couple arrived, and I urged my wife to hurry out of the wat grounds.

The question now was what to do with the remaining 24 kilos of coins.  A bunch of scenarios ran through my head.  Here are a few...

• Giving bags of coins to people on the street: Bangkok does not have a lot of people asking for change on the street, but there are some.  I thought about dropping off bags of coins but had read too many stories about how the people asking were often victims of human traffickers. Giving them money was essentially giving money to traffickers and, at the same time, encouraging trafficking.   OUT
• Cleaning staff: I figured people who work as cleaners were as deserving as anyone of an extra 100-300 baht.  It might not sound like a lot, but the minimum wage in Thailand is 300 baht per day (about USD 10).  An extra hundred baht (one of the smaller bags I had at that point) would be a 'bonus' of about 33%.  One of the bigger bags would be equivalent to more than a day's wage.  The problem was giving the money.  I didn't want to put someone in the position of having to say thank you to some stranger who just happened to have mountains of change lying around.  I also didn't want someone to be insulted.  OUT
• Public bathrooms: This seemed like the perfect solution to my problem.  I could give the money anonymously with no thanks necessary to a target audience that I felt was deserving (people who worked as cleaning staff).  I attempted to do this three times, approaching a urinal and reaching into my messenger bag to pull out coins.  Each time I did so, someone walked into the bathroom.  It's hard to explain to someone that you are leaving a bag of coins for the woman who cleans the bathroom (and I don't mean because of a language barrier).  I felt like I was committing some kind of lewd act, so each time I discreetly put the coins away and left. OUT

I was now at a loss - twenty-four kilos of coins, a few hundred dollars worth, but no outlet for them. I talked about it with my wife but we came up with nothing.  A couple of days later, they erected a giant scaffolding around our apartment building to begin repainting the exterior.  They also drained the pool.  They had begun the summer repair/upgrade projects.  Aside from us, there was only one other family still in the building as all the other teachers had already left for their summer holidays.  The only people around were going to be the security guards, the groundskeepers, and the special workers doing the different projects.

I had my plan.

Two days later on our way out to get lunch, my wife and I dropped a 300 baht bag of coins off by the pile of broken tiles the workers had pulled off the bottom of the freshly drained pool.  I scurried away without looking back, but when we returned later that day, the coins were gone.  Success!

That night, I went out for a walk, bent down to tie my shoes, and tossed a bag of coins into the corner where they kept all the paint cans.  Next morning?  Gone.

For the next two nights, I went down to the empty pool a dropped bags of coins into the bottom.  Each day, the coins disappeared.  

At that point, a couple of new conditions began to emerge.  I wanted to spread the wealth and make sure as many people as possible got coins, and I wanted to come up with a different place to leave the coins each time.  I began to shed bags of coins at every opportunity.

Over the next days and nights - up until our last day in the building - bags of 100-400 baht magically appeared:

• in the garbage room after a mad dash on my bicycle to beat the garbage truck pulling up the drive;
• on the paths and sidewalks at night;
• by the pile of raked leaves and trimmings;
• on the scaffolding where the painters would be working the next day;
• and, in the bushes.     

For the most part, my scheming went as planned.  Once, however, I had a minor freakout when the previous night's deposit was not discovered.  I had left a 250 baht bag in the centre of the steps leading up the elevator.  It was in plain view of anyone who walked by.  I was sure that one of the security guards would find it when he did his rounds at night, but when I woke up and went to take the recycling out, the coins were still there.

I panicked.  Should I pick up the coins?  Should I walk right past them?  If I walked past them and someone saw me, would they realise that I was the one leaving the coins?  If I picked them up, would I look like I was 'finding' and keeping something that did not belong to me.  I ran back up to tell my wife, but she said not to worry about it - someone would find them.  I was at a loss, so I agreed.  Sure enough, when we went out later that day, the bag was gone.

The only other glitch was with the very last bag, a large bag I had left in some bushes.  I left it at night and was sure no one saw me, but the next morning, two women knocked on the door.  When I opened it, there they were with the bag asking me if I had lost a some money coins in the bushes.  One of them had what I was sure was a little sly smile on her face.  I assured her that they were not my coins and that she should just consider herself lucky, but I am pretty sure my cover was blown.

That was our very last day in the apartment and nearly our last day in Thailand.  I had shed about 30 kilos of coins in the last few weeks and felt pretty good about how things had gone.  The coins donated had essentially served double duty with equivalent amounts going to Operation Smile and to people who were not exactly poor but who were definitely not rich either.

If my cover was blown, that's okay, but I prefer to think that people will talk about the 'Coin Fairy' who, once, long ago, used to leave bags of money for good people everywhere.  When I think about it, this was one more small step in leaving Thailand.

Thip Samai Pad Thai

A piece of art

Small Steps (Part 5) - Pala Pizza

 

Pala, you have been ever reliable, like the star in my farang food solar system.  I don't eat farang often, but when I do, you are the first one I think of. 

Rivals have come (think Massilia or Peppina), but you continue to stand head and shoulders above them. You may not have the prettiest space, but you are down to earth in attitude and the art of food. You know that good pizza relies on a few key things being done right - namely crust and sauce.  And you do them right every time. 

In the many small steps of leaving this place I love, I thank you for being there like an old and dear friend. 

First Small Steps (Part 6) - Thip Samai

Leaving a place you love usually happens over a long period of time.  In the process, you inevitably make lists of the places you love that you have to visit one more time and the places that you have always wanted to visit but never have.

Pad Thai Thip Samai (ผัดไทยทิพย์สมัย) is one of the latter.  It's been on my list of places to go for a long time, but I just hadn't made it until recently.  Pad thai is good, but it's not one of my favourite dishes.  Plus there are other places near Thip Samai that I know I love, so it's always remained on the 'to-do' list.

With our upcoming departure, it finally made it to the top of that list and off we went.  It's just as busy as one would expect from reading about the place.  The lines start immediately upon opening; table service and takeaway are crazy busy.  The food comes pretty quickly, and it is indeed really good pad thai.

After the visit, I decided to look up some reviews for fun.  It was interesting because they ranged from the raving 'best pad thai ever' variety to 'yuck, don't go'.  The majority were very positive, but I think I know where the bad reviews are coming from.

So many of us have been trained by the thousands of Thai restaurants around the world to expect something very different from what pad thai really is.  For some people visiting Thailand, pad thai is a real disappointment because it doesn't match those expectations.

Thip Samai is kind of an extreme version of that.  Their version is delicious (seriously), but it's also quite shrimpy.  For someone 'trained' in the peanutty, sweet, and light version of pad thai some common around the world, this would be a very, very different pad thai.  So, if you go, be prepared.

Anyway, Thip Samai, thanks for the fine meal, and thank you very much for being one of the small steps in my long and love-filled goodbye to a place that I love.

The line, minutes after opening.

Signature style, wrapped in egg.

First Small Steps (Part 4)

There are so many things I am going to miss about you, dear Thailand.  Some are obvious - others not so much.

Take these two, for example.

In public parks, small patches of open sidewalk, or even under overpasses, there are free public exercise sessions each night at 6 p.m.  They are usually attended primarily by women, but the range in age is fantastic.  While we often view exercise as private if it doesn't take place on a team, this is shared and somehow beautiful

The second photo is rather innocuous but also very Thai.  Near Saochingcha in the old part of Bangkok fairly close to the palace, there are a number of stores that make and sell Buddha images ranging in size from something you would put on a table or altar to many times larger than life size.  Walking down the sidewalk, one often sees them on display or be loaded onto trucks for transport to wats.  Often they are wrapped in beautiful orange cloths like the robes worn be real monks.

This shot, however, is something much more mundane but also something that belies the nature of the stores even late at night when they are closed.  The sidewalk tiles there are multiple colours, but there are also swirls of gold.  They form the outline of the statues when they are brought out into the street for painting.  

Beautiful clues to Thai life.

Amantee: I love bread

My history with Amantee has always been good.  When they were located off Chaeng Wattana in a beautiful compound of incredible teak houses, I used to occasionally drop by for lunch and then browse their incredible antique collection.  Lunch in the sala or just walking through the traditional style Thai houses made me yearn for traditional Thai living.  Once, friends and I even planned a great party evening in the house, using the rooms for a fun mystery game and then having dinner.

When I heard that Amantee had moved downtown, I thought that the charm of the place might be lost.  Then I heard that they had started baking bread.  Knowing that they had done everything from building a masterful collection of Asian antiques to caring for gorgeous old wooden houses so well, I knew that this was not going to be a whimsical foray into brownies and doughy baguette.  I knew it would be good.

But when I got there, 'good' was not the word to describe what I found.  This was bread as art.  I got there late-ish in the day and was terrified to see that there was a whole shelf of baguette with little 'reserved' tags on them.  I panicked for a moment, but the woman behind the counter found one for me.  Then, like a find cheese shop, she started offering little slices of different breads.  There were Eastern European style ryes, hearty whole wheat loaves, and even some with fruit in them.  Each was fabulous.

And then I saw the einkorn.

Einkorn is, for those of you who are not history nerds, the 'original' wheat.  It is the wild ancestor first gathered by nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Fertile Crescent - probably the Natufians - that over time was domesticated.  Or you could argue that over time einkorn domesticated our ancestors because they eventually stopped being nomadic hunter-gatherers and settled down to farm the miraculous stuff.  Einkorn and its domesticate progeny - edible grass or human, however you look at it - gave rise to the very first urban civilisations of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.

Now I had a chance not only to taste a type of bread I had never had, but I felt like I was eating a bit of history.  I practically yelled, "EINKORN!"  My friends turned to look as I jumped and pointed at the loaf.  "Look!  It's einkorn.  Remember?  I've told you about einkorn before."

Blank stares.

"You know, the original wild wheat?  The Natufians?  Mesopotamia?"

A glimmer of recognition.

"Doesn't matter...just taste it."

And they did.  And I did.  And it was good.  I mean, I would still choose a baguette, but this was flavour and history in one bite.

The next day it was the first thing I told my classes.  They either loved the story, or they very kindly humoured me, asking questions about the bread, where they could have gotten the flour (which I will ask next time I am there), what colour the bread was etc.  If the place were closer to school, I would insist on a field trip.

Amantee, I not only love bread, I love your bread.

Water, Rivers, Boats, Thailand...Songkran

I love this documentary.  I watched it first to practice my Thai, but I loved it because it's beautiful. Love you always, dear Thailand.

The boat lady of Bangkok - Winner Vimeo WEC from Benjamin Parrot on Vimeo.

I say again, WHY does Bangkok need food trucks?

So last night after some fun and excitement in my dear Bangkok, we were hungry.  We wanted choice, we wanted flavour, and we wanted food fast.  Being close to Thonglor, there were plenty of restaurants around, but we didn't want to hang out with a hi-so crowd, and we didn't want foreign food.

The obvious choice?  Soi 38, right at the BTS.  Now Soi 38 isn't my favourite street food, but there are about fifteen stalls serving everything from noodles to khao man gai.  Throw in the food stalls all around the intersection of Sukhumvit and Sois 38 and 55 (Thonglor), and you could conceivably have a mini Bangkok eating tour self-contained in about one square block.

There was a food truck last night sharing some pavement space on Soi 38, but it had closed up already.  Meanwhile, the food carts and stalls were going strong with most tables packed.  So I say again, Bangkok invented mobile food - who needs food trucks? 

Peppina - Even Better Than Before

The last time I went to Peppina on Soi 31, I certainly liked it, but I didn't love it.  The food was really good, but I found the portions for the salads and appetizers to be 'underwhelming'.  I came away thinking that, while it was a good meal, I wouldn't be in a hurry to return.

Last night I returned to Peppina with some friends, and all my previous small criticisms of Peppina disappeared.  The food was great, with the pizza fulfilling its starring role in award winning fashion.  The crusts were light and provided the perfect bed for the tomatoes on the pizza.  The salads, especially the beetroot, were flavourful, with the flavour of the vegetables coming through loud and clear (instead of relying on the dressings to make them appealing).  Portions were satisfying and worth the price.  The atmosphere is loud and friendly with families and couples loudly sharing their meals.

For me, there is still something special about Pala - it's so accessible both for location and cost - but Peppina definitely took a big step up for me.  Where it wasn't a priority to return before, now I would jump at the chance.

Bangkok, who needs food trucks when you have all this? (Soi Convent styles)

I like food trucks.  I like the idea of a mobile restaurant, and I like the idea of someone with a vision for food finding an alternate path to market.  Food trucks can be an amazing part of the culinary and cultural landscape of a city.  Toronto desperately needs them.  Los Angeles and New York's food scenes have been enriched by the diversification and growth in food truck culture.

Potential diners checking out their options

But what I don't understand about food trucks is WHY WE NEED THEM IN BANGKOK?!?! Like all trends, food trucks made their way to our fabulous city, but this one should have come and gone with nothing but a little yawn.

Kao man gai - drooling still...Tell me why I need a food TRUCK again?

Why?

Because street food vendors all over Thailand beat all you food truck fans to the punch decades ago.  Nine out of ten of my meals in Bangkok are cooked and served by people who work miracles each and every day out of a cart on a sidewalk or in a parking lot.  They set up, cook, serve,  and wash dishes anywhere and everywhere.  Most have a 'fixed' spot only in that they return to the same place each day, but they are mobile in every other sense of the word.  Many of these restaurants literally disappear at the end of their opening hours, leaving only an empty stretch of sidewalk where moments before culinary delights appeared one after the other to hungry patrons eager.

I have eaten some of the most amazing meals of my life on the streets of this fair city.  A cart, some plastic stools, and a few flimsy tables are all some of the finest chefs on the planet need to draw huge crowds of people.  So far, I can't find any advantage for food trucks, especially since most of them end up selling overpriced Western food.

I got on this anti-food truck rant about a week ago.  I had spent a late night out and decided to have a first-class Bangkok 'brunch' by visiting Soi Convent.  I won't even go into why Soi Convent is better than a hotel brunch; I'll just focus on my original pro-food cart rant.

To start heck this cart out.  First and foremost, they sell amazing kao man gai for 40 baht for the normal sized portion.  Second, this cart looks pretty mobile to me.  In fact Khun Noy can actually roll this cart away.  Finally, she can park it on the sidewalk, set up tables beside it, AND wash dishes because it's not some giant beast of a food truck.

And that was just my first stop in my Bangkok food cart brunch.  From the kao man gai, I moved on to spring rolls and then som tam.  I ended the meal with a coffee from a mobile coffee cart.  Everyone was mobile, everyone was friendly, and everyone served high quality food FAST.

Just last night I was at The Great Outdoor Market down by Rama IX Bridge.  There were tons of food vendors, and I started with a grilled cheese.  After placing my order, the very nice lady told me it would be 25 minutes.  Wait...what?  For grilled cheese?  From a truck?  Umm, sorry, no matter how good it is (and it was okay), you're missing the point if it takes 25 minutes.  And they didn't have any tables and chairs!  AND THEY SERVED EVERYTHING ON DISPOSABLE PAPER TRAYS.

So, tell me again why I need a food truck?  Let's face it, Thai people, you basically invented the idea of delicious mobile food.  You perfected it - turned it into an art form - and probably feed a few million people a day this way.  Don't fall for the imported fad of the food truck.  You and your food carts would destroy any food truck competition.

I salute you.

Just another Soi Convent bonus

Blasphemy (Overheard in Bangkok)

So I'm sitting in Ceresia, arguably the best coffee in Bangkok, and this loudmouth says, "It's like Gloria Jean's!  In Australia we love Gloria Jean's."

Gloria Jean's?!?!  What did you say?  Sir, you are lucky I am not the proprietor of Ceresia because I would have banned you for life for your blasphemous words.

Rocket Coffeebar

Okay, there are a few things I love about Rocket Coffeebar on Soi 49.  First and foremost would be the cold brewed coffee; it's smooth and, while strong, lacks bitterness. The subtle flavours of the coffee come through clearly.  I could drink it all day, savouring every sip. 

Next up, the cheese toastie with gazpacho, though far too small, is one of my favourite farang (ฝรั่ว) things to eat in the whole city.  It reminds me of cold winter day comfort food  even though the Bangkok heat is waiting for me outside the door. 

Finally, the space itself is bright and comfortable. I feel like I might be in a little Toronto or Northern European restaurant except the staff are a lot friendlier.