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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Sunday 27 March 2011 :-
Cantonese please -- A range of Chinese dishes have implanted themselves in Thai cuisine, some thriving but some fading, perhaps forever
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When a population migrates elsewhere, one of the most important parts of their culture they bring with them is their cuisine. Food helps new arrivals form a bond with their host country. It enhances understanding and helps promote equality, acceptance and respect. The Chinese experience in Thailand is a good example of this. Thais took to the food brought by Chinese migrants and the cuisine has been adapted and intermixed with Thai cooking ideas, becoming a staple of Thai menus.
Thailand and China now have a close relationship that extends into business, society and education, so it is not surprising that Chinese food from every province is coming here too, in ever-increasing varieties.
These dishes may be a younger sibling of the Chinese food that Thais have been eating for generations, but it is the kind of youngster that grows quickly.
Cantonese food is the most popular type of Chinese food in Thailand. One reason for this is that the Cantonese came to Thailand long ago and quickly established themselves as a community esteemed for their cooking.
Cantonese cuisine covers a wide range of different dishes. There are simple ones served at roadside stands, including grilled meats like duck and pork, ba mee mu daeng (wheat noodles with Chinese red pork), kio kung (sheets of wheat noodle stuffed with shrimp), ba mee thawt krawp rat na naw mai (crisp-fried wheat noodles topped with bamboo shoots in gravy), and kui tio sen yai rat na nuea (broad rice noodles topped with beef). Fancier and more expensive dishes served in restaurants include dim sum, shark fin in red sauce and het pao hue nam daeng (a type of firm mushroom in red sauce).
Restaurants that serve dishes such as this are usually Cantonese-owned and most Thais are familiar with the fare.
But a new type of Cantonese restaurant has been emerging recently. These offer the kind of dishes served in mainland China, and most are located in areas with a high concentration of Chinese businesses _ Silom, Sathon, Sukhumvit and the part of Rama II Road where Chinese factories are located. Staff at these restaurants are mostly Mandarin-speaking Chinese people or migrants from the country.
Two examples of this type of Chinese restaurant are Boon, located opposite the Kio Lio Ning Restaurant in a small alley next to the Shangri-La near the intersection with Narathiwat Ratchanakharin Road, and the Cantonese restaurant on Rama II Soi 69 next to the Lotus Rama II department store.
Cantonese dishes offered at these restaurants include grilled duck, pla het khon sam rot (a local fish with three-flavoured sauce), tao hu phat kap het hawm nam daeng (tofu fried with shiitake mushrooms in red Chinese red sauce), kai tom cheek pen chin (boiled chicken torn by hand into pieces), soup met bua (lotus seed soup), and sen kui tio phat kap mu (rice noodles fried with pork). This is only a small selection of the many dishes on offer at these eateries.
Canton, a large province in the south of China, is home to many different ethnic groups each with their own dialects, including the Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese people. Bangkok is home to Teochew restaurants from Sua Tao in China, including Teochew Restaurant on Charoen Rat Road, which runs between Sathon and Rama III roads, and Tia Chuan in Soi Anuman Ratchathon near Narathiwat Ratchanakharin Road.
The food served at these restaurants is similar to the fare served in Thai Teochew homes, with the addition of some special dishes. These include soup thua dam kap kai (black bean soup with chicken), soup rak bua kap kai (lotus root soup with chicken), phat mu sam chan kap phrik (pork belly meat stir-fried with chillies), makhuea yao phat tao jio (a kind of long green eggplant fried with fermented soybean sauce), and pla nueng kap see iew (fish steamed with soy sauce).
Thais have welcomed this new generation of Chinese restaurants. Some find the food unusual and delicious, while for those of Teochew descent, these restaurants turn back the clock to the time when their ancestors were alive and eating this kind of food.
But one type of Chinese restaurant in Thailand is on the verge of disappearing: Hainanese eateries that serve Western-style food. Among the dishes these restaurants offer are salad nuea san (salad with sliced beef), stew lin (stewed tongue), and san nawk mu choop paeng thawt rad sauce met thua lantao (fried, breaded pork with pea sauce). If this type of food disappears from Thailand, that will probably be the end of it worldwide.
Western-style Hainanese food originated in Canton after the Opium Wars, when Western influence was strong. At that time, Canton was the centre for business with the West, and the Chinese had to run their businesses in a manner that meshed well with Western ways.
Cantonese cooks learned to prepare Western-style dishes, but when the Western recipes were filtered through Chinese culinary ideas and made with local ingredients, the result was certainly different from the originals as prepared in Europe.
The first Hainanese refugees left at the same time as the Westerners, sometimes together with them. They sought new places to live and earn a living. Some opened restaurants that served the Western-style dishes, and these became well known because food of that kind was hard to find in those days, especially at roadside restaurants patronised by the general public. The first customers were probably from the upper classes, but later less affluent people caught on and the restaurants started to appear on almost every main road _ Silom, Sathon and across from the Grand Palace. Some famous ones were Silom Restaurant, Fu Mui Kee, Mitr Sathon, Ming Lee and Mitr Ko Yuan.
Today, younger generations have plenty of restaurants to choose from that serve real Western food and hotels with Western chefs. Most patrons of Hainanese restaurant serving Western-style food are older people familiar with the cuisine. The owners of these eateries are mostly elderly and the younger members of their families have no interest in taking over.
As a result, these old establishments are closing down one by one. Silom Restaurant has few customers and there is a for sale sign hanging on its fence.
Fu Mui Kee is still doing well and is the last bastion of this cuisine for those who enjoy it. The owner of Ming Lee across from the Grand Palace complains that he is very tired and wants to rest. The reason he is still in business is that artists from Silpakorn University next door are regular patrons and ask him to stay open. Mitr Sathon has been gone for almost 20 years, and Mitr Ko Yuan now serves conventional dishes that customers from the younger generations like. This is the current state of Hainanese-style Western cooking in Thailand.
Link :- http://www.bangkokpost.com/food/cuisine/228814/cantonese-please
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:23 pm on Mar. 27, 2011
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 22 April 2011 :-
Chinese a way from Chinatown - New restaurant caters to foodies in the east of the capital
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Since August last year, residents on the east side of Bangkok have become blessed with various new dining options thanks to the opening of Paradise Park shopping centre.
There, you'll find anything from Japanese sushi eateries, Korean barbecue restaurants, Taiwanese shabu shabu places, French patisseries, European bistros, local seafood joints and Western steakhouses. Yet, one thing was missing _ a full-scale Chinese restaurant with a classy, tranquil ambience.
Situated some hundred metres away from the shopping paradise, the Chinese Restaurant of the Dusit Princess Srinakarin Hotel offers discerning diners an alternative that can fill such gap.
Usually busy on weekends and holidays, the restaurant is well-liked among families looking for upmarket Chinese cuisine
The menu is decent, featuring a good selection of dim sum, congee (rice porridge), seafood, poultry, meat, vegetarian and rice and noodle dishes.
Among the restaurant's current attractions is Small Eat, a collection of a la carte dishes served in small portions and at reasonable price designed to offer diners, who come alone or as couples, an opportunity to sample many entrees at one sitting.
Of the dozen-item list, we passed on the likes of crispy duck salad, stir-fried wild mushroom, fried turnip cake and steamed US scallop with choice of sauces. Instead, we went for deep-fried, lightly battered cuttlefish with black pepper and salt (100 baht), which was delightful.
So was the sweet and sour chicken (160 baht), which featured crispy fillets of chicken thoroughly coated with pungently sweet and sour balsamic sauce. While another treat, the fried soft shell crab with red chili and curry leaves (100 baht) unfortunately was unpleasant for the mushy grey-ish green stuff (you know what I'm talking about) inside its shell.
Dim sum, too, is very popular. The steamed shrimp dumplings, aka ha gao (90 baht), sesame shrimp toast with sweet plum sauce (50 baht), abalone and chicken dumplings (130 baht) and steamed prawn and pork dumpling (90 baht) proved pleasurable.
Guest can mix and match their favourite delicacies by ordering a dim sum and Small Eats set (500 baht), which I found very good value for money.
Of that, you can choose three items of dim sum and/or a la carte dishes to go with your preferred choice of soup, a noodle or rice dish and a dessert.
The restaurant also highlights a variety of roasted meat including roast duck, roast goose, crispy pork belly and honey glazed BBQ pork ribs. But the best selling of all is the Peking duck (1,400 baht per duck), which is served in five styles.
First you eat the nicely carved crispy skin with sugar, which failed to impress my palate.
Then the duck leg meat and skin are offered with vegetable sticks, steamed flour sheets and hoi sin sauce. This style was, for me, the closest to the classic and the most tasty of all five.
Next, you enjoy the succulent duck breast meat with all the relishes with a dash of the restaurant's signature garlic-infused sauce which tasted fine. While the rest of the meat will be prepared as an entree and soup.
For those who don't want to order the whole duck, choices are to order a half (800 baht), or go for the special Small Eat set (600 baht).
The latter presents a set of Peking duck cooked in three styles with a choice of Small Eat, a duck soup, a choice of noodle or rice dish, and a dessert.
From the set, we liked the rice noodles with shredded duck in brown gravy (150 baht if ordered as an a la cart), of which the duck meat, which looked very much like beef, offered an amazingly tender texture and nice taste.
If you're a fan of noodles, another noodle dish worth having is stir-fried egg noodle with shiitake mush room and abalone (200 baht).
We found that the restaurant did a remarkable job on soups. The double boiled bamboo pith with shiitake mushroom soup (150 baht) was brilliant, thanks to its soothing and subtle flavour, while the abalone with sea asparagus soup (250 baht) was also impressive.
Meanwhile, the pan-fried cod with pomelo, ginger and spring onions (200 baht per 100 grammes) and stir-fried three-styled mushroom with gai lan, lily bulb and macademia nuts (120 baht) were truly delectable.
There is a decent selection of sweets to end the meal. The desserts combo (260 baht) which featured candied longan peanut brownie, Chinese flower tea tiramisu, seasonal fruit creme brulee and ice cream, was a good option.
Location : The Chinese Restaurant
Dusit Princess Srinakarin Hotel
Srinakarin Road
Call 02-721-8400
Open daily : 11.30 am to 2.30 pm and
6.00 pm to 10.30 pm
Park at hotel car park
Most credit cards accepted
Link : http://bit.ly/esbO5N
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 10:29 am on April 22, 2011
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PussyLover 69
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Report from Bangkok Post dated 3 June 2011 :-
Talk of the Town -
A globe-trotting Taiwanese restaurant chain eases its way into
Bangkok
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Approaching Din Tai Fung, we spotted an amazingly big crowd in front of this restaurant that opened just 20 days ago. "Are they customers waiting for tables?", I asked my dining companion who seemed too perplexed to provide me with an answer
It was noon time on Sunday. Apparently, those folks had come for the very same reason we're there: to check out one of the city's most talked about eateries.
Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese restaurant chain launched in 1980. It has expanded since and now had outlets in 11 countries including China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and the US.
Occupying 2,335 square metres with a capacity to seat 200 diners, Din Tai Fung at CentralWorld is at the moment the brand's largest branch in Southeast Asia and the biggest restaurant in the mega shopping plaza. The establishment boasts a 100-strong kitchen crew, 35 of whom work at the dumpling station while the rest sweat it out in the kitchen.
However, the buzz was more about the brand's prestigious reputation than its size.
Din Tai Fung is among very few Chinese restaurant chains in the world recognised by the Michelin Guide. Its Hong Kong outlet was awarded a Michelin star in 2010, not to mention that in 1993 it was also ranked among the world's top-10 restaurants by The New York Times.
The Bangkok outlet strictly follows the brand's fastidious and punctilious scruples. Each piece of restaurant's best-selling specialty, xiao long bao (steamed pork dumpling) with its exquisite 18 folds and precise weight is made in four seconds. Customers can witness such world-class showmanship, thanks to the show kitchens located at the restaurant's front.
On the day we visited, the restaurant filled up quickly after it opened at noon. One of our first impressions was that the staff, from front receptionists to service crew, spoke English.
Din Tai Fung's menu featured an extensive variety of "simple" dishes. In brief, it's a collection of dumplings, buns, soups, vegetables, rice items and noodles.
You can't miss the restaurant's speciality, xiao long bao (145 baht for a six-piece order). Arriving steamy hot in a large bamboo basket layered with a thin cloth, the neatly made dumplings were to be eaten in a single bite so that it would burst the soupy filling in your mouth.
The skin of the dumpling was soft, cloth-like and almost melt in mouth. The delicate treat with juicy pork centre, the best of its kind I've ever had, was enjoyed with the sour and salty dipping sauce which diners can make by mixing soy sauce, vinegar and ginger available on the table.
Also scrumptious were steamed vegetable and pork dumplings (145 baht for a six-piece order). Of the crescent-shape treat, the filling presented a nice blend of chives and minced pork.
We agreed that oriental wonton with black vinegar and chilli oil (160 baht) deserves two thumbs up. In a bowl, the boiled dumplings came drenched with the tangy, salty and mildly hot sauce and looked rather unexciting. Yet, its subtly rich flavour was something to be applauded.
Should you crave some crunchiness, crispy spring onion pastry (160 baht) is a good choice of starter. Cut in bite size, the flat-shape deep-fired spring roll-like delicacy came with duck meat and spring onion filling and was tasty on itself without any dipping sauce.
Specially created for the Bangkok outlet is green chilli with marinated stuffed minced meat (145 baht). However, I found the treat enjoyable but not notable.
A lot more captivating was steamed chicken soup (185 baht). Though looking simple with nothing but white chicken meat and chicken leg in a clear soup, this popular dish was good to the last drop. The chicken meat was tender and juicy, while the broth yielded a soothing flavour and aroma.
We were pleased with fried rice with shrimp and egg (225 baht), another of the restaurant's most ordered choice. The fried rice may be enjoyed with deep-fried specially marinated pork chop which simply offered a pleasant chew.
At the moment, the only dessert on offer are steamed red bean dumplings (120 baht for a six piece order). Just like the savoury dumplings, these tiny-size dessert dumplings were served warm in a basket. I loved the finely mashed red bean filling which was palate-sticking silky and not at all too sweet.
The restaurant doesn't take reservations. Average time of table waiting at a weekend lunchtime is one to two hours.
Location : 7th Floor of CentralWorld @ Ratchadamri Road
Link : http://www.bangkokpost.com/food/features/240348/talk-of-the-town
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:15 pm on June 4, 2011
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tvn
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Quote: from PussyLover 69 on 12:15 am on June 5, 2011
Thanks. I always eat on 6th floor so have not noticed this place....have to check it out next time I go to CW.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 11:03 pm on June 5, 2011
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PussyLover 69
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Quote: from tvn on 11:03 am on June 6, 2011
Thanks. I always eat on 6th floor so have not noticed this place....have to check it out next time I go to CW.
Hope that you enjoy eating there ! Bon apetif !
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 4:19 am on June 7, 2011
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MontienNovotel
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There is too much fiction on the Internet.
I don't believe the account of Teochew restaurant at Sri Phaya.
Nowadays Thais are well educated and they would have easily given the English name of the restaurant.
The Chinese words are general in nature - as good as saying "hamburger joint" which do not tell what name the restaurant is and where.
In this day and age it is inconceivable that any restaurant owner would only print his restaurant name card in Thai after investing so much money into the venture. Without English or Chinese.
Anyway your friend who brought you there would have easily given the name of the place in English.
The location description is intentionally murky and vague because the fictional story is about a non-existent "Teochew restaurant".
"I haven't heard a single word muttered in thai nor mandarine - all tiochew."
How would any foreigner know how to tell the difference between the various Chinese dialects Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese, Shanghainese, Hakka, just to name a few.
The Peninsula Chinese restaurant is called Mei Jiang.
"....typical low key chinese businessman and others have the worst teeth you will see even in a horror movie." The fabricated story reeks of an overdose of outdated western Hollywood Charlie Chan caricatures of the Far East.
"although they hired some hilltribes waitresses who speak mandarine, but I haven't heard them mutter a single world" Hill tribes from the far northern border regions like Mae Sai. Really? Many Teochew people in BKK can speak Mandarin. No need to go to the hill tribes. Too much of the Shangrila Hollywood movie fantasy in the fabricated story.
Author of fiction got carried away with the name dropping. Peninsula, Oriental and other high end pricey places.
There is too much fiction on the Internet.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:04 pm on Feb. 21, 2013
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