Charsiu Bao

Straight from childhood - but better because they're steamy hot and lighter on the meat filling. I used a combination of chicken and chinese bbq pork (charsiu) due to what was on hand. Good for freezing and re-steaming ~ 10 min. I forgot to put a little paper square under each bun so they stuck right to the bamboo rack. oh well.

Bangkok, Thailand: The Mecca for Street Food (& Recipe) (THAILAND - part 1 of 1)

The evening before arriving in Thailand, we were challenged by a professor who had spent a year in Chiangmai in northern Thailand to capture a picture of a Thai child withOUT food in his or her mouth. Already my gastronomic expectations were set high.

Thailand is a place of two coexisting cultures: modernness paired with tradition. Bangkok houses some of the largest mall monstrosities I have ever encountered, surrounded by a moat of neatly organized street vendors selling everything from cheap clothing and accessories to every variety of snack food one might desire. Tuk tuks are as common a transportation means as the highly developed, impressive public transportation system that puts American metros to shame. Street food is no exception to the juxtapositions: rich and poor, locals and tourists, and even vendors bored with their own foods eat from the streets in Bangkok. I stood in line behind a student cradling a 35 baht ($1) noodle soup meal in one hand and a 100 baht Starbucks in the other.



Food is everywhere, or always within a mere five steps away; one can literally trip over food navigating this city. I fell comfortably into the national pastime of perpetual grazing while traveling in Bangkok. Vendors are stationed throughout the day and continuously offer the same foods, immune to scheduled breakfasts, lunches, or dinners. Repetition is not an issue however, as there are about a hundred options to choose from.

NOT SUPER INTUITIVE, BUT IT WORKS...
Despite being in the backpacker's central of Bangkok, vendors know very little English or other foreign languages, faltering with even the basics. This was hardly a deterrence, remedied by wooden placards painted with prices and single word menu descriptions such as "chicken, shrimp, tofu", hanging in front of an obvious pad thai (noodle) vendor. Four or five variety of noodles are mounded into a miniature mountain range along the top rim of a slightly concave, large disk cooking surface. Ordering involves a lot of gesturing and nodding. However faced with a breach of understanding, adopting sous chef and sprinkling in your own spice condiments while the vendor tosses the noodles together with egg and bean sprouts accomplishes the task fairly well.

Organization in the street vending industry is surprisingly advanced however. The arrangement of vendors is efficiently structured into neatly aligned rows parked side-by-side. In the evenings, entire streets will be blockaded and regulated by police for Bangkok's famous night markets to emerge. Vendors will usually stake out a specific spot (determined my rank, seniority, lottery, habit? who knows) to begin their evening and slowly travel half the length of the road over the course of the night. The entire affair is highly mobile. Midway through preparing my order of noodles, the vendor picked up his cart and began rolling away. I was momentarily stunned and then doubly so when I was nearly knocked over by the produce truck he was avoiding.



STREET PERFORMING & TRANSPARENCY
While I may have been impressed by the three-foot-stream method of preparing chai tea in India, Thai tea takes on a whole different meaning. One vendor entertained a crowd of customers with twirls and dancing as he juggled large mugs of the rich, adobe orange tea lightened with sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk. Not to be outdone by the Indians, our man incorporated the waterfall method of mixing the tea with the sweetener and milk, flaunting his skill by preparing two orders of tea at once instead of one. This culture of food performance is common amongst vendors and while some embrace their artistic nature with greater exuberance, all are equally eager to please.

Cooking on-the-spot is another major distinction between Indian and Thai street foods. Carts are specifically designed according to the type of food offered and are usually equipped with a gas stove on one end and a flat prep work space filling the remaining area. Certain items are prepared in advance, steamed rice, noodles for stirfrying, and broths for soup, but the majority of cooking is done on site, including frying fishballs (a major obsession), steaming yams or meatballs, and grilling corn, mini bananas, skewered meats, and eggs (in-the-shell) over coals. By its nature, performance cooking demands transparency from the vendor and consequently sanitation is well enforced. Cooking utensils, ingredients, and methods are open for scrutiny without the shelter of kitchen walls to hide behind. What you see is what you get; no surprises, save the occasional chili that slips into a bite unnoticed. In additional, all stalls were supplied with their own tubs water (one fresh, one soapy) to rinse dishes or utensils in between uses.

Cleanliness extends beyond the immediate vicinity of each vending operation into the roads and entire public community. Despite the heavy reliance on disposable styrofoam bowls and plastic bags, commercial streets are surprisingly clean. Workers seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time sweeping the streets, a battle against trash well waged. The Thai also participate in glass bottle recycling, although disposable containers are more commonly used. Astonishingly it is virtually impossible to find a public garbage bin along the road; vendors cope by tying a plastic bag to the side of their carts instead.

ASIAN COMFORT FOOD, WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE
Grilled whole baby catfish, sticky rice packages, pork braised stews, crispy quail eggs by the dozen, hot and spicy soups, and crisp, cold fruits; Thai street food is appealing, foremost, for its simplicity and comforting response, and only secondarily for its outstanding, pungent flavors and creative preparation. While I found the taste and textures of Thai food intriguing, I was more captivated by the local culture around street food and the social benefits it yields. As I noted before, everyone is a consumer to Thai street food, motivated by four main characteristics. It has the advantage of incomparably low prices, often less than a third of neighboring restaurant fares. The best (venti-sized) Thai iced tea I stumbled, tucked along the edge of yet another grand mall complex, cost me less than $0.5 USD. Most meals are priced below a few dollars. The food is also conveniently available at frequent stops along a brief stroll. This interactive structure fosters a social community both amongst vendors and between patrons. Additionally, the outdoor setting of the venue encourages a level of physical commitment, minimal as it may be, and creates a festive, carnival-type atmosphere. Cheap, quick Asian comfort food at its best. (That is until we reach Vietnam)



A RECIPE
Savory baked egg custard

One of the clever little nibbles I feasted on was a savory egg custard baked in the shell. It was only after peeling and eating the egg (and finding no yolk) did I realize how this snack was made.

(for 1 egg - multiply recipe according to # of eggs)
- 1 raw egg
- 2 good shakes white pepper powder
- 1/8 tsp (good dash) soy sauce &/or fish sauce (optional)
- pinch salt
- pinch+ sugar
*preheat oven 350F
* carefully chip a penny-sized hole in the top end of the egg and pour out the contents (breaking the yolk if necessary); reserve shell intact
* scramble the egg with the seasonings to taste (my recommendations above are arbitrarily based on my knowledge of the flavors)
* pour egg mixture through a funnel back into the reserved egg shell
* set on a rack at an angle OR in set upright in a mini muffin tin (in which case it might be most profitable to make 12 or 24 eggs as an original party appetizer).
* bake (or roast over a grill) until custard is set. This might take between 10-30 min depending on the number of eggs. (The texture will be only slightly softer than the egg white of a hardboiled egg and should be uniformly firm.)

** Experiment with different spices or replacing them with coconut milk and sugar or sweetened condensed milk for a creative dessert.

Boerewors Rolls with Mrs. Ball's Chutney: Fancy Hot Dogs with BBQ Sauce (SOUTH AFRICA - part 1 of 1)

Before being let loose in lively city of Cape Town, we were instructed to eat a Boerewors roll with Mrs. Ball's Chutney sauce by a South African native and shipboard guest. What are they and how do you pronounce the name? Are the two immediate questions that should spring to mind. Boerewors (boar-er-vorsh - I take unscientific liberties with the pronunciation guide) rolls are hot dog buns filled with a spicy, minced beef cured sausage, usually topped with sliced grilled onions and your condiments-in-a-squeeze-tube of choice. Which brings us to Mrs. Ball's Chutney sauce, essentially a Westernized Indian take on American BBQ sauce (ie: spicy! smooth, and highly processed). Ten Rand ($1) will buy you one of these quick bites on the street while 30 Rand and a hungry wait is the going rate for a mediocre (stiff and lukewarm) boerewors at the strip mall fast food joint.

Distinguishing from the township experience I outlined in my previous Namibia post 2 of 2, street food is not a dominant food means for locals in Cape Town. To better understand the street food dynamics of this highly developed city I should first describe the impression of the class structure I gathered during my short stay. The city is very much socially and racially split between unbelievably wealthy white tourists and citizens, and predominantly destitute, native blacks. A small "middle-class"of sorts is composed of the "colored"community including Muslims (colonial slaves from Indonesia), those of mixed race, Arabs, or essentially everyone else. This middle class will be our target group of interest, the consumers of popular street food, and I will refer to them as the "locals"(as opposed to the native black locals, or African-born white locals). For the most part, mainly locals and edgy tourists are "wealthy"and adventurous enough to participate in the street food scene in downtown Cape Town.

BOEREWORS IS KING
Despite the Mediterranean influence of chicken shwarma and falafel in a pita present on several vendor menus, boerewors definitely reigned supreme amongst street food patrons. At one location our local guide marveled over the newest offering of double boerewors in a roll (apparently an innovative thing?). Within a walkable distance in the heart of Cape Town, I counted three unique boerewors stands: a standard small push cart at the mouth of a crafts square, a Halal-advertised shwarma and boerewors double operation, and an evening hotspot on the sidewalk of Long Street (the Center Street, Broadway, Main Avenue, what have you, of Cape Town). The last and greatest of the three was recommended to me as the "best food you'll find at this hour on this street,"and reminded me of the evening food stalls of Southeast Asia (bonus points in my book). A queue crowded around the two butting, collapsable tables and grill and curled down the block. As we shuffled slowly forwards towards the smoky scent of sausages and charred onions, we watched the iron chef production unfold in front of us. The boerewors are procured from a mysterious location below the table, sliced lengthwise, and flipped onto the coal grill for a few minutes per side. A traditional soft hot dog bun encases the reddish-brown link, with the open slit facing up in anticipation of a mouthful of caramelized onions. Farther down past the grill master and cashier, a plastic bottle lineup of sweet mustard, ketchup, sweet chili sauce, Mrs. Ball's chutney, and an unidentifiable pale green salsa of sorts are ready for squirting in unregulated, artistic combinations. "They all taste the same after awhile,"confided a neighboring local at our indecisiveness. I cradled the boerewors in a scrap of paper and nabbed a gluttonous bite of tender, juicy, flaming hot sausage cushioned by the air-filled bun. Sticky sauce and onion-oil dribble added texture and a neutralizing sweetness. Even by my preference for all meats unground, the boerewors made an unabashed statement.

While waiting for my food, I managed to conduct an interrupted conversation with one of the three vending assistants (in between her rubbernecking the police activity of a pick pocketing brawl, and slicing a crate of pearly onions into a less pristine paint bucket). This marked the sixth year of the hopping sidewalk operation. Through her broken English, I gathered that their opening hours ran until 5AM and that a (city?) permit was required to conduct business. She could not explain why their boerewors were so popular in competition with the fast food storefronts currently obstructed by the long chain of patient customers. However the satisfaction of my midnight snack summed up my opinion (this coming from a near-herbivore, mind you). Simple, good food with all corners intact; fresh onions slowly grilled, 100% meat packed with spices, and a league of customers willing to keep their grumpy girlfriends waiting for a boerewors roll.