Hok Kee Phochana/ฮกก่ีโภชนา

I may not have the most sophisticated palette or possess the most extensive knowledge about food, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve been blessed with powerful restaurant sense. I can usually pass by a place and at a glance, get a relatively accurate feel for whether or not the food’s going to be interesting. I’ve been burned a few times, but would attribute these lapses to the existence of some kryptonite-like element (perhaps those deep-fried hot dogs that are ubiquitous on Bangkok’s streets?), and in general, my track record is pretty solid.

This was confirmed yet again at Hok Kee Phochana, a longstanding Chinese-Thai restaurant in an obscure corner of Bangkok. I’d passed by this desolate stretch of Thanon Banthat Thong a few times and noticed an intersection with a glut of restaurants selling haan phalo (?????????), goose braised with five-spice powder. Curious, I recently returned to the area on foot for a closer inspection and was drawn to the old-school interior of one of the restaurants, Hok Kee Phochana. In fact — and providing the ultimate challenge for my senses — Hok kee has three interiors: the un-air-conditioned crusty one, an adjacent simple but air-conditioned dining hall, and rather brash modern restaurant.

Wherever you eat it, the highlight here is the braised goose. We ordered the mixed version (illustrated above), which in addition to tender goose breast, also includes intestines, wing, blood, liver, heart and other hard-to-identify giblets. In particular, the blood here is almost impossibly soft and tender — one of the best versions of the stuff I’ve encountered. The thin layer of braising broth just might be the most satisfying bit, and unlike elsewhere, is not overtly sugary, instead relying “sweet” spices such as star anise and cinnamon, which are countered by a salty, slightly peppery flavour. The goose is consumed with a tart/spicy dipping sauce that combines, vinegar, garlic and fresh chili.

On my second visit, I tried a couple other dishes, including deer fried with Chinese celery:

The deer meat was very tender and pleasantly singed, and any gaminess (there really wasn’t any) was countered by slivers of ginger, the fragrant Chinese celery and chili. The dish included salted black beans, a rarity here, even in Thai-Chinese cuisine. Excellent.

There was also fish head hotpot:

something that’s quickly becoming one of my favourite Chinese-Thai dishes. The fish head is served in a broth made tart with the addition of salted plum, and is served with a dipping sauce of fermented soybeans and garlic. Fish head doesn’t generally mean a lot of meat, and that which is found requires some effort to extract, but it really is some of the tenderest most flavourful part of the fish, and also has the benefit of adding a level of meaty depth to the broth.

Other recommended dishes at Hok Kee include or suan, a type of oyster omelet, and abalone fried with kai lan.

View Thai Eats in a larger map

Hok Kee Phochana
Soi Chula 34, Bangkok
02 214 2439
9am-10pm

View the original article here

Dee Mee Phochana/ดีมีโภชนา

It’s my favourite kind of culinary discovery: an old-school restaurant that’s new to me.

Guided by Ideal Map’s Good Eats: Rattanakosin, a food-based map to Bangkok, I was recently pointed in the direction of Dee Mee Phochana, decades-old restaurant located in an even older neighbourhood.

Dee Mee is your classic Bangkok-style khao tom restaurant, serving a variety of prepared Thai-Chinese-style dishes. Just point at whatever looks good, and a few small plates will be brought to your table, to be accompanied by regular rice or a watery bowl of rice soup.

I went for a combo of khaa muu, braised pork leg, and tao huu phalo, tofu braised in Chinese spices, as well as a unique dish of fish served with pickled vegetables:

The phalo was a pleasant surprise, and turned out to be one of the better versions of the dish I’ve encountered in a while. Many versions of this dish can be cloyingly sweet, but the sweetness here was subtle, and was accentuated by spices such as cinnamon and clove, not more sugar.  The pork leg was tender, with similar flavours, and both were accompanied by a tart, spicy, garlicky dipping sauce. The fish dish was one I hadn’t encountered previously, and combined tasty braised freshwater fish, crunchy chunks of pickled mustard green and a ‘red broth’ (nam daeng) that brought it all together.

Dee Mee Phochana
Th Ban Mor, Bangkok
11am-10pm Mon-Sat
02 226 4158

View Thai Eats in a larger map

View the original article here

Somsong Phochana/สมทรงโภชนา

A while back, I asked fellow Bangkok-based blogger and likewise graduate of the University of Oregon, Sirin, about her favourite places to eat in Bangkok. Without hesitation she mentioned Somsong Phochana, a shophouse restaurant in Bangkok’s Banglamphu neighbourhood. I ate there for the first time not long after our chat, and after a few subsequent visits, suspect that Somsong may also be nudging its way onto my own favourites list.

Somsong is actually the name of the current owner’s deceased mother, who started the restaurant more than 40 years ago. A native of Sukhothai, she began by selling curries and stir-fries, and later also sold the signature dish of her hometown, kuaytiaw Sukhothai, Sukhothai-style noodles. The dish is still available today:

and appears to be the reason most people visit Somsong. Kuaytiaw Sukhothai combines thin rice noodles, a sweet broth, thinly-sliced long bean, various cuts of pork, and a topping of deep-fried pork rind. The version here also includes - unusually - crunchy squares of salted radish and ground peanuts. But despite the accolades and fans, I found the dish (both the ‘dry’ and broth versions) overly sweet and one-dimensional, lacking the meatiness and oily richness of the versions I’ve encountered up in Sukhothai.

Instead, what brings me back to Somsong is the restaurant’s excellent central Thai-style curries and spicy stir-fries. In particular, you’re safe ordering just about anything that contains the restaurant’s look chin plaa kraay, dumplings make from a type of freshwater fish. Tender and pleasantly fishy, they’re some of the best I’ve encountered in Bangkok, and feature in several dishes including Somsong’s excellent green curry (pictured at the top of this post). If you’ve only encountered green curry at Thai restaurants abroad or at places that predominately serve foreigners, you might initially be disappointed, as the curry itself is rather thin and watery and has little of the coconut milk creaminess that I suspect many have come to associate with the dish. Instead, the emphasis is on taste, not texture, and an effort is made towards a balance of sweet and savoury, with tender eggplants providing a slightly bitter kick. The curry above was served over khanom jeen noodles instead of rice, and as with many central Thai dishes that include fish or seafood, also included thin strips of krachaay (a root herb with a camphor-like flavour), which serve to counter any unpleasant fishy flavour.

On a previous visit I had a somewhat more traditional green curry with chicken, accompanied by a spicy stir-fry of frog:

And on my most recent visit there was a tempting kaeng matsaman, but as usual, I went for the green curry.

I’ve also been told that Somsong does excellent desserts, but I’m usually too full to investigate. For more descriptions of the dishes at Somsong, proceed to Sirin’s write-up, here.

Somsong Phochana
Soi Wat Sangwet, Bangkok
02 282 0972
9.30am-4pm

View Thai Eats in a larger map

View the original article here