137 Pillars House, Chiang Mai

137 Pillars House pictures (1 of 9)

My Thai Sojourn in December 2012 with Baby G began in Bangkok, the heart of Thailand. From there, we tracked the fragrance of the “Rose of the North,” landed ourselves in Chiang Mai, the fifth largest city of Thailand that bears great historical and cultural significance. And my quest during my stay in Chiang Mai was to explore and understand as much as I could its heritage, culture and history. For that, I chose to stay in 137 Pillars House, a luxury boutique hotel with a rich and unique historical past. A quick search on 137 Pillars House will tell you that it was originally a large teak wood house built in 1889 as part of the East Borneo Company headquarters, restored to recreate its former glory and to perpetuate its fabled history.

Besides its intricate past, 137 Pillars House totally captures my fascination with smaller, hence exclusive hotels that offer greater intimacy and privacy. In its 30 carefully designed suites that capture the old world charm and elegance of the Orient in their own distinctive ways, the guests get to re-live the elegance of the past in the comfort of the present. The beautiful airy garden, bamboo tree-lined pathways, decks, ponds, and century-old banyan trees further add to the exclusivity and upper-class vibes of this gorgeous and luxurious hideaway.

The Rajah Brooke Suite we stayed in was quite possibly one of the best suites I have experienced. It comes with a poster king size bed and provides all the basic amenities for a relaxing stay, with a touch of class. What captivated me was the extended vintage tiled veranda that gave me such expansive view of the swimming pool and the Grand Lawn. I could sit there for hours just soaking in the beauty of the vine-covered wall that lines the shimmering aquamarine pool, giving it a dramatic yet natural sheen of green.

My toddler son really enjoyed frolicking in the free-standing Victorian bath in the suite while I reveled in the clear blue sky and lush greenery in the outdoor garden shower. I also traded my planned adventure at the elephant safari and meeting with the long neck beauties in the Karen Village for more relaxing time at my suite, with a butler and a concierge ever ready at our service. Not to forget that the housekeeping team was tip-top. Our suite was cleaned at least twice a day. Impressive!

Just to not feel guilty of not seeing enough of Chiang Mai, we made it a point to take a leisure walk to the riverside of Mae Ping (Ping River) to check out the dizzying array of riverside cafés, eateries and art galleries. Sipping tea and sampling scrumptious petits fours at one of the riverside cafés looking at the boats slowly cruised down the river aptly defined our relaxing and charming afternoon.

Though we didn’t do much of what tourists would usually do during their visits to Chiang Mai, 137 Pillars House compensated us with adventures of another kind. We enjoyed the tranquility of walking along the quiet tree-lined roads near the hotel, exploring the Wat Gate neighborhood, and surprised by the sight of a grand Muslim school, stumbled upon a busy Muslim market bustled with the typical activities of local Muslim community hawking fresh fruits and other local fares. Our little adventures were made very pleasant and comfortable by the cool weather of Chiang Mai. On top of that, the night before we checked out, we ran into Giada, the celeb TV Chef at the nearby night market. We were also very lucky to have the opportunity to watch MUET – a dance performance by the 18 Monkeys Dance Theatre and choreographer Jitti Chompee held at our hotel. Baby G was so entranced by the performance that he sat quietly throughout the entire performance, which was really rare!

If you are considering visiting Chiang Mai and experiencing 137 Pillars House for yourself, its Indulgent All-inclusive Package (valid till 31 October 2013) can be a very attractive offer. And if you happen to be in Chiang Mai from February to 31 March 2013, you also have the delight to feast your palette on the exquisite 9-course Degustation Dinner created by the hotel’s Executive Chef Jaiphak at its newly opened fine-dining restaurant, Palette, while appreciating the Nouveau Asian Art exhibits tastefully displayed at the restaurant. I was lucky to have sampled Chef Jaiphak’s food during my stay there—the rich and creamy tasting foie gras and perfectly seasoned tuna tartare still lingered in my mouth…

Even though I did not get to see all of Chiang Mai like a tourist should, experiencing Chiang Mai through 137 Pillars House has given me a chance to interpret Chiang Mai from a more personal, intimate, hence creative perspective. From the veranda of my suite, I saw tranquility and peace, the elixir for mind, body and soul. Isn’t that what we look for in our vacations? Well, I found mine at 137 Pillars House, Chiang Mai.

137 PILLARS HOUSE, CHIANG MAI

2 Soi 1, Nawatgate Road,
Tambon Watgate,
Muang Changmai,
50000 Thailand
Tel: +66 53 247 788
Fax: +66 53 247 780
Email: stay@137pillarshouse.com
Website: www.137pillarshouse.com

PALETTE

Tel: +66 53 247 788
Fax: +66 53 247 780
Email: fbm@137pillarshouse.com

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Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck; Grand Prizes from Le Creuset & Random House

Happy early Chinese New Year!

This year I’m unable to make it home to Boston, but I’m still planning on celebrating in two ways: 1) Gathering a big group of friends for dim sum here in New York, and 2) hosting a Chinese New Year Virtual Potluck here with the online food community.

I’ve never done a big event like this here on this blog, so it’s very exciting to announce. My goal, in addition to celebrating the release of my first cookbook, is to get as many bloggers as possible to make Chinese dishes this month (even if it seems a little intimidating!) I hope to make this an event for sharing and learning from each other about how to adapt Chinese cooking to suit your own lifestyle.

I’ve also teamed up with wonderful sponsors including — Le Creuset, Random House, GrubKit, and Edgeware  — to give something to everyone participating.

To participate, all you need to do is cook one recipe from The Chinese Takeout Cookbook (from a list of 7 recipes available on online on here or Amazon), photograph the dish, and write a blog post on their blog about the dish that also mentions the cookbook. (Anyone with a blog centered around food, lifestyle, or home life is welcome to join in.) Then publish the post between now and February 24th, the 15th and last day of Chinese New Year. I’ll link up to everyone’s blog, randomly select a Grand Prize Winner and Runner Up, and post it here on February 25.

All US-based participants will receive 1 copy of The Chinese Takeout Cookbook, courtesy of Random House, to keep, give to family or friends, or use in a giveaway on their blog. Grand Prize Winner — One grand prize winner will receive: Runner Up Prize — One runner up will receive: Two best-selling recipe kits from our friends at GrubKit – Pad Thai and Kung Pao Chicken. Since the Kung Pao is from my own recipe, I’ll just comment on the Pad Thai kit: This is so well-tested and makes way better pad thai than you’ll get ordering in. And these kits are perfect for gifts or last minute dinner parties.Premium Edgeware grater set (seen here, here, and here) – Three total. Wonderful sharp edges for vegetables as well as cheese.We are only able to ship prizes to U.S.-based bloggers, unfortunately.

Scroll down for more details!

So far I’ve received some wonderful feedback from food blogger friends and Appetite for China readers about the book. But I’m curious to hear from more of you! So from now until 11:59pm EST on February 24, 2012, just cook and write 1 one blog post on any of the following recipes that are available here or on Amazon:

Kung Pao ChickenCold Sesame Noodles (vegetarian, vegan)Dan Dan NoodlesChinese Tea Eggs (vegetarian)Chinese Barbecued PorkGeneral Tso’s ChickenBlack Sesame Ice Cream (vegetarian)

Please make any dietary substitutions and other small adjustments as needed. (For example, substituting tofu in Kung Pao Chicken or using gluten-free sauces.) I *love* hearing how creative readers get while making adjustments to suit their needs and lifestyle.

(When blogging about the recipe, just keep in mind the FTC requirements about disclosure, since you’ll receive a book as part of joining the potluck and be entered in the giveaway.)

Then email me the link at appetiteforchina(at)gmail(dot)com. I’ll keep updating the links to the participants on this post, plus do a new full write-up of everyone’s posts on February 25th.

Pad Thai and Kung Pao Chicken Recipe Kits from GrubKit!

I’m very excited to see what you choose to cook for Chinese New Year. Let me know in the comments below if you’re planning on cooking and the name of your blog. And spread the word! Let’s make this a big festive Chinese New Year celebration for the Year of the Snake.

Happy cooking!

Tagged as: Events, News

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House renovation and kitchen planning, an ongoing saga

My cancer treatments are over for now, and since my body is no longer being bombarded by gamma rays and such, I am feeling quite a bit better. So now it’s time to get back to the huge task of renovating the old house we got more than two years ago. Renovations have been stalled for months due to all the other crap going on in my life.

One of the first things we are tackling is the kitchen. Folks, I am supposed to be a food blogger/writer. I’ve written a cookbook and everything. And right now, I have no kitchen. This is seriously cramping my style, to put it mildly, and accounts almost as much as my illness for the paucity of posts on my two food blogs. (I tried to keep up a positive outlook on things and had plans for recipes that didn’t need a cooktop, etc. but I’m afraid all that enthusiasm went out the window when the burglars took most of our kitchen appliances.) Due to yet another unwanted dramatic episode I don’t even have a microwave or a decent hotplate. We are getting by on one lousy cheap hotplate that was deemed too worthless to take by the burglars, and the old rice cooker. Oh, we don’t have a sink in the kitchen area either, and the beautiful new sink in the bathroom already looks banged up because we’re using it in ways it was never intended to be used, like scrubbing pots.

Sigh.

So anyway, we are finally back tackling the renovation. When we started this process early last year (!), we decided that we would be our own contractors/designers to save some money. We figured, I’m sort of creative/artsy (or I like to think I am) and The Guy is an engineer, so we can do this, no problem. Big Mistake. We should have hired a contractor for sure (managing the workers and trying to get them to come on time or even on the day they promise to show up, etc.) is a huge headache. Managing the ordering and delivery of materials, likewise. And as far as the design stuff goes - well, I know now why people hire designers. More than anything, it probably halts the confusion over too much choice and the procrastination.

Right now, the kitchen still looks more or less like this:

Except that the floor has been tiled with the new tile, and the blocks have been skimmed with builder’s plaster or whatever it’s called. The plaster has to be sanded down, covered with white plaster, then an undercoat, then painted or tiled. Ugh.

I did finally order the kitchen cabinets and countertops though.

The cabinets: I did lust for a while after some made to order painted wooden cabinets from a local (well, Marseille) company, like these:

But for all the cabs we needed, it would have cost like, way too much. Besides, sometime during the last year my taste in design seems to have shifted. Before I was all gung-ho for a sort of a 1900s-traditional French style industriel look. I still like that look, but now I’m also strongly drawn to a more modern, streamlined aesthetic too. (You can see some of my kitchen design procrastinations on my Kitchen and Pantry Pinterest board.

So, after much waffling and visiting countless kitchen showrooms, I went with IKEA cabinets. Seriously, I believe they are the cabinets with the best price/performance ratio. I looked at cabinets costing 2-4 times as much that weren’t any better in terms of quality. Plus, they have all those neat things to organize the insides of the cabinets. Besides, the IKEA Kitchen Planner thing is addictive. This is how one wall looks, more or less.

Since this is supposed to be my ‘dream kitchen’ (I’ve never planned a kitchen from scratch before), and because we are in an old house with odd-angled walls and floors and ceilings at different heights and such, I’ve been spending hours and hours and hours on the layout. I wanted to ensure I had plenty of storage space for pantry items, cooking equipment and such. It’s really not easy at all.

Countertops: Initially I really wanted stainless steel countertops. I love the look of a professional kitchen, and how easy stainless steel is to keep clean. We briefly rented an apartment in Zürich that had a tiny kitchen with an old ‘system kitchen’ unit, that had a stainless steel top, and I loved it. However…here at least, stainless steel is prohibitively expensive. It’s the most expensive countertop surface you can get. The countertops alone would have eaten up my entire kitchen budget. (One reason could be that they don’t seem to be that popular here. We had the hardest time finding suppliers who made stainless steel plan de travail for home kitchens.)

I like the look of wood, but having had wooden countertops in my old kitchen in Switzerland, and knowing how it could get stained and damaged and warped a bit around the sink and things, I did not want wood again. The budget option would have been what’s called stratifié here - Formica-type laminated countertops. But…but…I just didn’t want to do that. I know they are serviceable and all, but I did not want.

Another option I looked at for a while was marble. I love the look of real marble. However, every dealer we talked to and every other website out there warned against using marble for kitchens.

So in the end, I went for a white colored quartz with a subtle faux-marble look (Compac® Carrara). This is pretty expensive and took up about 60% of our total kitchen budget, but still cheaper than stainless steel. It’s said to be very durable, and it’s a ‘cool’ surface, which is what I wanted for my future pastry making sessions. (I have a suspicion that in reality I’ll be rolling out pastry 2-3 times a year at most, but it’s the dream that counts, right?) Luckily the countertop place we ordered from had a sale going on sinks and taps, so we got those there too. (Stainless steel for those.)

(Other surface materials that I also considered and rejected: resin aka Corian (looks like bathroom material to me, not kitchen); granite (I just don’t like the look of most granite - I feel like you can never tell if it’s totally clean); glass (I know it’s very durable but we have someone in the house who is capable of breaking just about anything that can be broken…); ceramic tile (this is the traditional Provençal look, but I don’t like it and the thought of cleaning the grout all the time is too depressing); cement (is cement supposed to be good for you…?) and other natural stone like slate (just did not want a dark surface.))

So, the cabinets are supposed to arrive this Friday. They need to get installed by the 3rd week of May when they come to measure for the countertops. Maybe soon, I’ll have a kitchen again. Right now I’m still a bit pessimistic.

So, if you have any kitchen remodelling war stories to share, please do!

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The House Vermont Curry Mystery

Hi everyone! I am back home now after a week in the hospital. More about that later perhaps, but for now I am trying to catch up around here. My usual monthly article for The Japan Times appeared last week, and it was all about Japanese style curry. If you’ve ever wondered how curry got to be so popular in Japan, and why Japanese curry is so, well, different from curry you get elsewhere - head on over there and take a look. (I especially loved finding out about the Great Curry Scandal of 1931.) It has a recipe for a proper, rich beef curry using curry mix (curry roux), which is the easy way to do things of course. (If you’re interested in a from-scratch curry recipe, check out the Beef Curry recipe right here on this site, as well as my Dry Curry recipe. And if you have leftover curry and are feeling ambitious, I have a recipe for Curry Bread (kareh-pan) too!

As I delved into the history of curry in Japan while doing research for the article, I ran across the answer to a question that’s been nagging me mildly forever. Why is House Vermont Curry called Vermont Curry? If you’re unfamiliar with Vermont Curry, it’s the most popular brand of curry roux in Japan (according to the manufacturer, House Foods). Here’s the Japanese packaging:

And here’s the English packaging, which is the one you see more often when Vermont Curry is for sale outside of Japan. I’ve also seen packaging in Chinese and Korean. Have you seen it in other languages?

As I stated in the Japan Times article, Vermont Curry was introduced in 1963 as a “sweet” or mild version of curry, suitable for kids to eat. It really achieved its purpose and then some, as it really helped “curry rice” to become one of the most popular kids’ foods in Japan, rather like hot dogs and pizza are for American kids. The popularity of Vermont Curry was really solidified in the 1970s, when singer Hideki Saijo (still often just known as Hideki) became the face of the brand - a role he was to continue in for 12 years. Here’s a typical Hideki TV commercial from the ’70s. It contains the image of runny honey being poured over a sliced apple with Hideki singing ringo to hachimitsu toro-ri toketeru (“Apple and honey smoooothly melted in”) which came to really symbolize the brand. The guy in the inset is an older Hideki looking at his 18 year old self. (Click here if you can’t see the embedded video.)

And in this version (which I can’t embed at all unfortunately), Hideki even lives in a cute little apple house in a snow-covered landscape - presumably, Vermont.

Looking at the list of ingredients in Vermont Curry, honey and apple are indeed listed - along with tons of other recognizable and unrecognizable stuff. This is an industrially produced food product after all.

So, why Vermont? The Green Mountain state is certainly not known for their curries I don’t believe. The key, as you have probably guessed, is the apple and honey part - but why specifically Vermont, a relatively obscure (for non-Americans anyway) state? Even most Americans in 2011 don’t think “Vermont” first and foremost when apples are mentioned. Well, it’s all because of a health fad of sorts that was very popular back then. In 1958, D. C. Jarvis, a country doctor in Vermont, published a book called “Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health”, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 2 years, and was (according to the good doctor’s Wikipedia page still in print up until 2002. You can still get a used copy now. One folk remedy that particularly captured the imagination of people was the use of a mixture of apple cider vinegar and honey, called honegar, for anything that ailed you. The popularity of this magical mixture eventually spread to Japan and was known as the “Vermont Health System (????????)”. So when House Foods introduced their special, sweet and smooth curry in 1963 (even though the mix includes other sweetening agents besides honey and apple), they latched onto this “healthy” combination, blithely changed the apple cider vinegar to plain apples, and voila! Vermont Curry was born. Isn’t marketing just grand?

Nowadays of course, barely anyone remembers just how widely popular “honegar” was, though the popularity of using apple cider vinegar, or other vinegars for that matter, as home health tonics lingers on. (Readers have pointed out that honegar is still available in some areas.) The most recent ‘healthy’ vinegar fad in Japan was for kurosu or “black vinegar”, an aged rice vinegar. This stuff was wildly popular as a weight-loss aid until around 6-7 years ago, and they still advertise “40 year-aged” kurosu and kurosu supplements on Japanese TV. (My favorite happens to be kurosu flavored candy, which probably defeats the ‘healthy’ purpose.) Thankfully perhaps, no black-vinegar flavored curry mix emerged from the fad.

Vermont Curry is now available in three degrees of spiciness - amakuchi (Mild or Sweet), chuukara (Medium Hot) and karakuchi (Hot), but to me the one real Vermont Curry is the Mild one, which can be served to a small child or an excessivly timid-about-spiciness adult without compunction.

Incidentally, manga and anime fans may know Hideki Saijo via the Chibi Maruko-chan series, which is set in the mid-’70s when his popularity was as its peak. Hideki is still in showbiz, though he’s transitioned into becoming a TV presenter and occasional actor (he’s not too bad either) rather than a pop singer.

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House Shichimi Togarashi 10.58 oz (300g) - BUY 3 GET 1 FREE!

Ingredients: RED PEPPER, ROASTED ORANGE PEEL, BLACK SESAME SEED, YELLOW SESAME SEED, SEAWEED, GINGER, JAPANESE PEPPER

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House White Shirataki Yam Cake 10.5 oz

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House White Shirataki Yam Cake 10.5 oz

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House Black Shirataki Yam Cake 10.5 oz

Konnyaku Black Yam Cake

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