Dogmatix vs. Snowy
Comments (1)I got one of the best presents ever from Joe who just got back from France: a little plastic figurine of a little white dog.
“Dogmatix!” I squealed.
“I thought it was the dog from Tintin,” said Joe.
I looked at the dog. Was it? Which one was it? I pulled out an Asterix and a Tintin comic book. Long ears, with black tips, it was Dogmatix. He goes along with the Asterix, Obelix, and Fulliautomatix (whom Joe mistook for Obelix)
I can’t believe I never realised this before: that both Tintin and Asterix (OK, technically Obelix) have little skinny white dogs.
Theroux talks about nature and makes me think . . .
So tonight I went to a talk by Paul Theroux (of travel writing fame.) Since it was sponsored by a local open space group, he talked mostly about the importance of nature and wilderness, and nature writing by other writers like Thoreau, Stegner, Darwin, Basho, etc. In fact the title of his talk was “Madly Singing in the Mountains: Traveling in Natural World” which is taken from a poem by 白居易 (Po Chu I or Bai Juyi).
This talk made me think:
1) Theroux read a quote from a ‘blog’ about the earthquake in Concepcion, Chile . . . and it was from Charles Darwin’s journals from his voyage on the Beagle, over a hundred years ago. People really had better writing skills in those days. It was so well written, it’s hard to imagine it was something Darwin scribbled in his journal. If it was me, I’d have to labor over it, and edit a few times. This blog is my journal of sorts, but no one is going to read this in a hundred years and quote it as good writing. I really just dash things off here.
2) I really should go and read all these good-but-old-timey writers Theroux waxed on about. I go to the library pretty often, but I just usually browse the new section, and rarely find anything worthwhile. There’s a universe of literary classics for me to read now that I didn’t while in college. I should read Thoreau, instead of reading about him. (I knew of Thoreau and how his ‘reclusive’ lifestyle at Walden was not actually so hermitic; his mom did his laundry for him regularly. Come to think of it, I learned this titbit from one of Theroux’s books!) Part of my not having read these books earlier is that I have a hard time and little patience with reading Victorian writing; the style was rather convoluted, with flourishes of phrasing and literary arabesques. It takes a lot of attention and effort to read, and sometimes reread ‘to get it’. Unlike straight-forward contemporary prose that I can just gallop through.
3) Theroux talked about being a boy scout and going camping and how it was a formative experience in his life, and led to an appreciation of nature. That resonated with me: I go camping every year with some college friends and their kids: it’s become an annual ritual. For myself, it’s to ensure I don’t forget how to camp, to sleep outdoors, and ‘rough it’ a little. For us all, it’s a reunion that’s a constant, because we hardly see each other otherwise. For the kids, I think it’s a good and happy thing for them to experience, because camping is one my of favorite childhood memories, a yearly event I anticipated more than Christmas.
People are often surprised that I know how to build a campfire, without lighter fluid! Will gets the credit. It was in depths of his parents’ backyard (bottom of a petit canyon) where we slept ten cousins in a tent and built campfires . . . . to toast marshmallows and heat up take-out dim sum. Will being almost twice as old as we were (OK, 15 years to our 10) was the de facto camp counselor. Since he was a very responsible eldest-brother-type, he taught us practical skills like how to build a camp fire, ensure it was put out properly, and how to pitch the tent, invaluable skills to this day. Since he was also intellectually precocious, he tried to teach us how to play chess in the tent. That was not so successful; we ended up mostly playing card games! I’m very grateful though, that Will taught us how to camp.
4) I forgot to bring my copies of Theroux’s books to get autographed. Part of it is shyness, or a sense of not wanting to be cheesy and going up to a celebrity to say “I’m a big fan of yours.” Also, both copies I have are mass paperbacks, used and quite dog-eared from constant re-reading. It would have been embarrassing.
The two volumes do have quite a lot of sentimental value for me. “Riding the Iron Rooster,” while mostly about the trains in China, starts off from Europe on the Trans-Siberia. A bunch of us cousins (who used to camp together in Santa Rosa) rode together on the same one-week train ride from Beijing to Moscow. We ate haw flakes and saltines with peanut butter, played cards, and read and passed Theroux’s book around amongst ourselves. Fortunately no one got duffiled, although one of our new Russian friends on the train had her camera stolen (with all her pictures of her trip to Beijing!)
My other Theroux book is “The Great Railway Bazaar”. It’s the book which put him on the map, so to speak, and is a definitive work on traveling in the 70’s on the overland trail from London to the Far East. (“Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” is where he retraces his steps 30 years later on that same corridor.) Very aptly, I was given the book by a fellow traveler named Max at the pension I was staying at in Cairo, on my first ’solo’ backpacking trip. I don’t know how Kindle will change things, but back then on the backpacker circuit, it was a perk to swap books, because English books were a treat. They were expensive and/or hard to find. Most people who like to travel also like to read.
Max’s destination after Cairo was Istanbul, specifically “Room XXX at the Pera Palas Hotel.”
“What’s so special about that particular room?” I asked. “The view?”
“I was conceived in it.”
It turns out twenty years ago, his parents were traveling the hippie overland trail; had split up for part of the trip but made plans to meet up in Istanbul at a certain point. And then, an unplanned consequence from that happy reunion. Presumably Max’s mom and dad had paid little attention to the view of the Golden Horn.
Max also taught me a good strategy for budget traveling, if you can afford it. Stay in the cheap two-cockroach hotels for most nights to save money. But once in a while, splurge and check into a five star hotel to enjoy the mod-cons of air-conditioning, hot showers, cable TV and ordering ice-cream sundaes from room service. You’ll really appreciate it, and it’ll keep you sane on the road.
Go Bears!
I have to admit, I don’t know how to listen to spectator sports on radio, basketball, baseball or football. I’m not into sports enough to know how to visualize the play by play action in my head. But without cable TV, I just tuned in on the radio to the Cal vs ASU men’s basketball game, to keep track of the score. And now the PAC-10 championship is ours!
This was also the last home game for senior Jerome Randle. I think of him as “Buzz-Buzz Mosquito” every time I saw him play because he’s short (for a basketball player), and he’s fast; he’s everywhere all the time. I hope he makes it to the NBA, or wherever he wants to be.
Giving and taking
Summer is the season where gardeners strive to give away zucchini and tomatoes because they’ve got more than they can humanly eat. In winter, this phenomenon is downsized: fewer people around here have citrus trees. Anne’s been giving oranges away every time I see her, neatly packaged, 4 to a blue Mercury News plastic baggie. Since I’ve seen her three times this week, I’ve got a lot of oranges!
The other winter phenomenon is getting preserved home-grown produce. Marcella usually gives me selection of jam and pickles for Christmas. Joe’s dad gives us the lion’s share of dried chilies and jujubes (Chinese dates) for us to pass them on and forward.
I dropped off some dried chilies at my client’s office in Santa Rosa earlier this week. Fortunately there’s two people there who really like spicy food.
Then I had arranged to give Ellen a ride yesterday to dental surgery in Palo Alto and back. ‘Oh goody,’ I thought. I can give her some oranges from Anne: they’ll keep until her teeth allow her to eat them. And since I’m out there, I can drop off the dried jujubes to my uncle in Menlo Park while Ellen’s in the patient’s chair. (Under doctor’s orders, he’s eats 10 a day for his condition.)
I pick up Ellen, who hands me a mesh bag of avocados. “I bought one too many by mistake, so why don’t you take this.”
Later in the day, Anne and I are biking and we stop to check out a nifty little art museum in Belmont. The receptionist/docent is very effusive and explains about the exhibits in great detail. On our way out, she stops us. ‘You can’t leave without taking one of these,’ pointing to a basket of lemons.
First asparagus of the season!
I went out for dinner at Salang Pass in Fremont before taiko class tonight. When I got home, Joe wasn’t back yet, so I had time to make him dinner: a fritatta from the the first asparagus of the season we bought on Sunday at farmer’s market. I make asparagus fritatta almost weekly when it’s in season, which feels like it arrived early this year. And asparagus season is not that long that I get tired of it. It’s based on a recipe from the Frugal Gourmet (God rest his maligned soul), and it’s the one recipe I can make from memory!
Take asparagus and steam it until it’s this side of underdone. Chop an onion and saute in some sort of oil in a cast iron pan. (Olive if you’re health-conscious; but any bacon grease you have lying around is so much better.) Beat eggs, stir in some shredded cheese, salt and pepper. (Oops I forgot salt tonight. Technically, the cheese should be parmesan, but I use whatever’s at hand, which tonight was a sharp white cheddar). Put steamed asparagus in the pan on top of the onions, then pour cheese-egg mixture over that. Set the flame to low if you have the time and patience: eggs are so much more tender when cooked long at low temperatures. When little fissures of steam vents start bubbling, throw the rest of the shredded cheese on top and stick it under a broiler (preferably preheated) for a up to a few minutes until it turns golden.
I typically make this is a regular 10 inch pan, but I came across a mini 5 inch cast iron pan (used and seasoned), so I could make a cute individual serving sized fritatta (which means Joe has no leftovers for lunch tomorrow!)
I’ve tried making this fritatta with other veggies like green beans or broccoli, but nothing tastes as good as the unctuous triumvirate of asparagus, eggs and cheese. The onion, humble as it is, is the magic touch, adding an almost-burnt savouriness.
I made this for a work potluck once. Most people who saw it thought it was a green bean fritatta and bypassed it. My one colleague who tried it ate a full quarter of it! I offered for him to take the the rest home, but he was too polite and declined!
Framing paintings
It’s always irked me that getting a painting framed costs so many times more that the painting itself. Maybe it’s because the paintings I’ve ended up buying were purchased in places like Thailand and Bali, where the art is cheaper than here. Even getting it framed there would probably cost less, but then having the framed art shipped back to the US would be really expensive. So I usually end up bringing the artwork back rolled up in a tube and then get it framed here.
We went to a framing shop today, because I had bought a painting on my recent trip to Chiang Mai on the Sunday walking street market (they close off this one street to traffic, and all sorts of vendors come and set up stalls. It gets terrifically crowded, so much that you have to walk in a one-way loop!)
I hadn’t meant to buy a painting (goodness knows I have enough stuff that I haven’t yet hung up. My cousin Pat was looking to buy a painting for his flat; we were lucky to come across a nice traditional Thai style painting of a white elephant that was about the right size for his wall space. There’s a few painting stalls, but most of the work is very cliched (for the tourists!) or not very interesting. We arranged for the painter to roll up and pack the painting in a tube so that Pat could take it with him on his flight back to Hong Kong.
Walking all the way to the other end of the street, I came across a really striking and elaborate painting. Think “Day of the Dead punk in a Thai tattoo parlor”. The painter was at his stall, and his breath reeked of beer. The painter babbled on about how he free hand painted it, two years ago. It just gushed out of him, and he’d never taken a photo of it. I was quite possibly the first person to express any interest in the painting. I laughed and said maybe it meant I was the most deranged person to encounter it. His younger brother, who was all of 12, but twice his brother’s age in sobriety, told me it was 2,000 baht. I said I’d finish walking down the street and think about it, not as a bargaining tactic, but because I really wanted to see what other interesting things were on sale at this market.
I came back and looked at it again. It was really arresting, but I needed another painting like I needed another hole in my head. The painter was still there, this time hanging out with a friend. “If you like it, you can have it, name your price.” I offered 1,500 baht. I think if I offered him 1,000 baht he would have sold it to me, but I didn’t feel like taking advantage of a drunk man, especially since he’d probably put his heart and soul into it. Then again, if that painting hadn’t been sold in two years, maybe he was happy that at long last the pit-bull of a painting was going to a nice, understanding home. His friend and I rolled up the canvas and stuffed in in a plastic bag, since he wasn’t quite steady enough. He didn’t have any cardboard tubes, but I lucked out. Near our guesthouse was a framing shop, and they gave me a cardboard tube free for the asking, when I went to ask the next morning.
Pat was pretty quiet when I was contemplating this disturbing painting, which after all was signed ‘Psycho’! But I worried more about what Joe would think, since sometimes we have very divergent tastes in art. Fortunately he was OK with it, and the divergence in our tastes was with the framing. We finally settled on a very simple plain black frame (boring), but suitable for this overwhelming painting. The frame with the black glitter would have just been too expensive!
I plan to hang this new painting in my living room, where another Thai painting currently sits on my wall. The incumbent is a nice, sedate, village life by the klong, folksy scene. I’ll either put that in the guestroom or sell it. If I hung my new painting in the guestroom, my visitors would get nightmares. As it is, their appetites might be mildly suppressed as they gaze at it from the dining table.
Oddly enough, I got another painting recently. This, however, was from my aunt. She was getting rid of the painting because she needed to make room for some Rorschach. She has two young grandsons, whose mother is really good at framing her sons’ photos and artwork, and presenting them as gifts. They do make much better Christmas and birthday presents than fruitcake or slippers; so much more personal too! So my aunt is running out of wall space. She gave me the painting, because it was painted by my dad. He’d given to his brother as a wedding present. When his brother moved abroad, I think he gave it to my aunt. When I got married, I was kind of hoping that she might me give me the painting. She didn’t, but now by the grace of her grandsons . . . I guess we both value art based on sentiment.
Actually it was pretty funny when my aunt proudly showed me the kids’ artwork. “Look at how smart he is, how symmetrically he painted it. And he’s only 4!”
“Err, you know how they’re made? You smear some paint on the paper and fold it in half. Typically they come out looking like a butterfly,” I hastily added, “But this one looks like an elephant, so yeah, he does have some talent.”
“Really? You don’t say!” my aunt exclaimed.
“Didn’t your son ever make the same kind of artwork at school and bring it home?” It was my turn to be surprised. I thought inkblots were the universal next step after finger-painting in
kindergarten. I guess my cousin got tracked to math and engineering from an earlier age than any of us.
Eventually he gained some art appreciation: one summer in college, we visited the Louvre together. He bought a poster print of Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.”
You don’t want your plumbing to sound like that
We went on the guided tour to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo last week. They have the tours between December and March, where the new-born elephant pups are hanging out around the beaches and sand-dunes, being nursed by mothers, or bullied by juveniles, or baby-sat by male adults. I think elephant seals are named so, because their noses are elongated, not as long as a land elephant’s trunk, but thicker; it reminded me of a camel’s nose.
Since California law prohibits getting within 25 feet of any of these creatures; plus a male elephant seals weighs as much as an SUV truck, and can move almost as fast as one, you need a trained docent to guide you to see them. You need to make reservations in advance; and it’s a long walk from the visitor center to the viewing points, part of it on high sand dunes, but it’s worth it. Seeing all those elephant seals just lolling about on the sand is a priceless experience. There’s only a couple of other elephant seal rookeries in the world.
While all I cared about at first was seeing the elephant seals around like marine mammal torpedos, the things the docent explained about the habits and norms of the elephant seals was pretty amazing too. Like the fact that they can stay under water for over an hour, before surfacing for air. Or that they hang out at 2000 feet below sea level. Or that the females come ashore once a year to give birth, but before they leave for their next trip out, they’ve mated. So they swim out with fertilized eggs, but the eggs don’t implant until 4 months later, because gestation is 8 months, which makes it a total of twelve months in between their annual visits to shore. It’s incredible to think they they spend most of their life being pregnant. Can you imagine if human women spent most of their life being pregnant, or even just having PMS!?
The elephant seals were almost hunted to extinction (among other things, their blubber was so ‘pure’ that it was used as a lubricant for watch parts. As opposed to whale blubber, which was used mainly for oil lamps.) Their population is now in the 100,000s, although because they’re only descended from a couple dozen originals, there would be a genetic bottleneck issue if they were struck by an infectious disease.
The males are very territorial, and there is a very strict pecking order of hierarchy they establish. Occasionally a younger elephant seal who thinks he’s hot stuff will challenge another male, by vocalizing. Being used to the barking sounds of the seal lions at Pier 39, I was expecting the elephant seals to sound similar, But they have a deeper, more echo-ey sound, that sounds like, well if your household plumbing ever sounded like that, you’d be in trouble. The males will also chest-slam each other in mock fights (over time they’ll develop chest armour skin from the accumulated scars), and use their little tusks to slash away at their opponent. The pair we saw fighting each other actually drew blood, although the docent assured us that it didn’t really injure them that much, because they have a layer of blubber that’s 4 inches thick!
Even with such a thick ’skin’, they often use their flippers to flick sand on themselves while on the beach. It partially acts as sunscreen, but it also helps them cool off, since the sand is wet and cold. They’re so adapted to the cold waters of the deep, and with such thick ‘wetsuit’ skin, they actually find lying in the sun on the beach very hot!
You can still see the elephant seals at other times of the year at Ano Nuevo, simply by getting a free permit from the visitor’s center. Bring binoculars. And as always, your visit will be enhanced by eating at Duarte’s Tavern in nearby Pescadero!
Half the Sky
‘Women hold up half the sky’ – attributed to Mao Tse Tung
Lately, I’ve been struck by the idea that people are realising that it’s better to give women, rather than men, powers of management and decision-making, because women are more responsible. The outcomes will be better!
My opinion on this solidifed based on the few things I read recently. I came across them randomly, but they all happened to have this same underlying theme.
1) In the editorial pages on the NY Times:
“Not too long after the tsunami, government officials came through the village and announced that all new homes would be titled in the name of women (some were jointly titled to men and women). The men grumbled, but the officials told them they had no choice. Men drank and gambled, they said; women were more reliable.
Almost 50,000 houses have been built along the coast of Tamil Nadu. The result of titling these homes to women has transcended the economic gains of home ownership. It has changed the very social fabric of the coast.”
See the full article here
2) Likewise, in the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Haiti, the coupons for food rations were given to women.
3) Half the Sky
The most attention-grabbing/memorable quote in this new book by Pulitzer Prize-winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is:
” … a medical technician named Sonette Ehlers developed a product … Ehlers had never forgotten a rape victim telling her forlornly: “If only I had teeth down there.” Some time afterward, a man came into the hospital where Ehlers works in excruciating pain because his pen1s was stuck in his pants zipper. Ehlers merged those images and came up with a product she called Rapex. It resembles a tube, with barbs inside. The woman inserts it like a tampon, with an applicator, and any man who tries to rape the woman impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have Rapex removed. When critics complained that it was a medieval punishment, Ehlers responded tersely: “A medieval device for a medieval deed.”"
Men reading this are probably cringing. Don’t worry, it’s equal opportunity cringing. As a women reading about fistulas, and worse, well I was taking lots of deep breaths, but soldiered on.
The authors are up-front about this book being a pitch for their message: ‘a call to arms . . . against the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.’
See also the halftheskymovement.org
This book is a must-read. There’s a lot of rationale for why empowering and educating women simply makes good economic sense, and stimulates overall growth and development in developing countries. It will also in turns horrify you by its descriptions of atrocities committed against women, and inspire you with its accounts of strong, resilient women who are fighting back, doing amazing things to help themselves and their communities, against social/economic/political/cultural odds. But above all, it’s written in a way that’s so engaging and accessible, you’ll end up with a good understanding that these aren’t just ‘women’s issues’, but why things happening in the world are the way they are.
This autobiography by Muhammad Yunus is about how he started Grameen Bank and how it evolved. For these efforts, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Grameen Bank provides small loans, known as microcredit, to the poor, as start-up capital so that they can improve their livelihood. (As a matter of fact, microcredit is featured in ‘Half the Sky’ as one of the most potent tools to help women. )
I started reading the book because I was really intrigued by the idea that what could be considered small change, say $15, the cost of lunch, could end up propelling a family out of poverty A hundred bucks is about what I donate to my alma mater in a year, which might cover half a textbook for a student in the UC system. Yet half across the world, as a loan it could probably enable a woman to invest in some bananas and cooking fuel, make banana cakes; and sell them for enough to put her kids to school for a year and cover their uniforms, and cover loan principal and interest. Such small sums, yet so potent! As someone who tends to be thrifty/cheap (hey I collect pennies 50 at a time and deposit each roll in my bank account!), I’m quite taken with this concept. Plus, these are loans, not handouts. Teaching fishing, not giving a fish!
Back to my original point about empowering the women . . . I was surprised to learn from this book that Grameen Bank quickly figured out that these mircoloans should be directed to women, not men, for better results. Women were more likely to do something productive with the money for their family, than men, who might abuse the loan for personal benefit, or just be plain flaky. Grameen developed a system where the loans wasn’t just offered to individual women, but to groups of five women for peer-enforcement. If the first two women repaid their loans, then the others would get their loans. (Actually, Grameen does give loans to men, but by they focus much more on women. )
By the way, if you’ve saved the cost of lunch by bringing leftovers, and are inspired, you can take that $15 and make a loan to someone halfway across the world, woman or man! via kiva.org
Winter Olympics
This year, Thailand has no athletes participating in the Winter Olympics. In the last two Winter Games (Salt Lake City and Turin), there was a professor at Drexel University who represented Thailand in cross-country skiing. This time, he’s sitting out.
This NYT Sunday Magazine article on Shani Davis has the most arresting photo of anything I’ve seen in a long time. Scroll down to the second photo, credited to Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images, and click on ‘Enlarge This Image’. Those angles!
Baan Suan Restaurant and Miu Kiu Wai
About 30 years ago, I went to Chiang Mai for the first time. I was just a kid, and I don’t remember much about the trip, but someone took us to a restaurant that made a great impression on me. I remember the name was a bit unusual “Baan Suan” which literally means “House Garden”. It was apt though, the restaurant was like a home in a garden setting. (It turns out ‘baan suan‘ is a common type of establishment, Baan Manovejchapan is also a ‘baan suan‘)
There was a simple salad that was the most delicious one I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t mean salad as in a Thai-style ‘yum’, it was a proper farang salad with slices of tomatoes, lettuce and thousand island dressing, like what you’d find in the US, which in that context, was the ne plus ultra. Today ‘salat’ are quite a fad in Thailand: you can get take-out boxes in all the Royal Project produce shops with lettuce, shredded carrots, tomatoes and a side of ‘naam salat’ (salad dressing), but the reverse snob in me now thinks they pale in comparison to a good Thai yum, which has more substance.
There were other dishes that were also very tasty at that western-style meal at Baan Suan, but the specifics have faded from my memory into the mists of time. Possibly a roast chicken or a pork chop.
I’d been to Chiang Mai since, but never had the opportunity to go back to try and track down the restaurant until now. Poring over the Nancy Chandler map, I came across the Baan Suan restaurant in the outskirts of town on the Mae Nam Ping, but I couldn’t find the listing or phone number, so I googled it and found only a review with contact info. They didn’t seem to have their own website. I called them up and asked how long they’d been in business. “Well we’ve been here at this location for about 10 years. Before that we had shut down for 2 years. We were originally located closer to town, where” he named some hotel ”now stands.” I infer that the site they were located on got taken over and redeveloped into a hotel. Then it took them two years to find a new location.
“How long were you located at the original site” Pause. “I wasn’t with this restaurant back then, but I think it was 10 or 20 years.” I was excited. It sounded like it could be the same Baan Suan with the mythically unsurpassble salad of my childhood dreams.
Since it was a Monday, I asked if it was necessary to make a reservation. ‘Well, it’s better if you do, because sometimes we get booked up entire for parties.’ I didn’t know what we were doing that day, and what time we’d be eating dinner, so I said 7 PM, but would it be OK if we came earlier or later. Sure, he said in that ever-accommodating manner of the Thais.
I forgot to ask what kind of food they served.
Because they were so far out of the way, I had to book a taxi that would take us there, wait for us while we ate dinner, and then bring us back. For 500 baht! (I think the taxis in Chiang Mai are second to Phuket island in the rip-off levels, in part because there’s no convenient bus service). Then again, we were going somewhere relatively far, and fancy, compared to all the meals we’d been having in Chiang Mai. My cousin and his mom were visiting Chiang Mai for the first time, and I was taking them around. This was a last-night, splurge meal, might as well go all out!
We arrived after a drive that was longer than even I expected. There was a wooden Baan Suan sign with a logo of a plate set with a fork and spoon that looked vaguely familiar. Maybe it was the same restaurant from my childhood.
There was a waiter waiting for us when we got there. “Celia for 7 PM”, I said, but that turned out to be superfluous. “Go ahead,” he said.
Uh, which way? It was very dark. The set-up was a little weird. Right at the entrance, there were two narrow passageways, I couldn’t tell which way led to the dining area, as opposed to the kitchen. He pointed us in the right direction, we walked through and then suddenly found ourselves in an expansive space enclosed by a tall pavilion that was completely open on two sides to the river bend. There was a long tree trunk conference table, a few lounge chairs, and an eloquently giant flower arrangement. In the dim lighting, it felt like a hotel lobby. The vibe felt odd. We were the only ones there. I started to wonder if coming here had been a mistake.
They led us to one of several finely appointed tables at the edge of the deck. There was a strip of lawn between us and the Ping. The inevitable stray/kitchen cat strolled by, the inevitable soundtrack of chirping played on, eventually becoming white noise. You could see the tall reedy wild grasses across the water, since the land on that side was undeveloped. At this point, the river Ping was more of a creek.
“You can actually see the stars here,” marveled my cousin as he looked up at the dark sky draped over us. He lives in Hong Kong now, where there’s too much urban nightlight pollution to see any stars. Actually, if you looked towards the city center of Chiang Mai to the southwest, the sky was a paler shade of grey, rather than the inky black of directly above.
Other aspects of Thailand not to be found in Hong Kong that my cousin was not so fond of were the jing-joks (lizards). They were hanging out high on the columns of the pavilion, each near a sconce.
Once we opened the menu, I perked up a bit. There was no salad, but a page full of yum listings. The food was mostly Thai, with some fusion/western elements; and some dishes that were local and unfamiliar and therefore intrigued us. One was a soup with local vegetables and miniature river shrimp, freshwater ha-mi as it were. The most unusual thing on the menu was “Hanging pork or beef”. The waiter explained it to me in Thai. But it was complicated, and I couldn’t grasp the concept except that it came with four dipping sauces. We ordered it anyway, to be adventurous. “Unfortunately, tonight we only have pork, no beef”. That actually, was fortunate. Beef in Thailand tends to be very chewy.
“There’s also a couple of specials tonight. One is poh piah gaeng kiew waan kai.” Literally ‘green chicken curry spring rolls’. Again I couldn’t fathom what it would be like, so we ordered it to see. After all, curry is a very saucy ingredient to be contained in a fried wrapper. “And for tonight’s yum, we have yod maprow on, and another yum of a local vegetable.” Oh good. I thought it would be neat for my visitors to try coconut shoots, something they probably never had before. Just to cover our bases, we also ordered ribs in barbeque sauce (the sort of American version) from the menu. After all, if everything else turned out to be disappointing, well, how could anyone mess up BBQ ribs?
The food came almost all at once. The green curry spring rolls were a hit. Small pieces of chicken are marinated in green curry paste and then encased in long flat skinny egg roll wrappers, fried until perfectly crunchy, and not too spicy. They were served in a wineglass, so we picked them up with our fingers like oversized grissini.
The soup came, a clear broth with veggies and lots of little pink shrimp the size of a thumbnail, complete with bead black eyes. The Anthony Bourdain adage about not ordering seafood on a Monday, especially at a restaurant with seemingly sluggish turnover was moot here. The shrimp were fresh, my GI tract had no complaints. The shells gave a little chew of calcium goodness. The herb/spice that was used to flavor the soup is the same peppery-sour one that I recognize from poh-taek soup. But I have to admit, I don’t know what it is. In the cool night air, the soup, served in a large bowl, cooled a little too quickly. It would have been better to serve it in a hotpot (moh ron), but then the shrimp might be overcooked if you let it sit too long. Perhaps a tea candle would work.
The two yum came together on the same plate; the flavors were well balanced. “What is this?” asked my aunt, pointing to the coconut shoots which are white slivers of tender crunchiness, mixed in with cashews, and other usual suspects you find in a yum. Since my culinary Cantonese is very limited when it comes to describing non-Cantonese food, I said “Well, you know, if you have a baby coconut plant that’s just beginning to grow and the stems are just coming out of the ground, well that’s what this is.”
“Oh, yeh miu!” Yeh means coconut.
“Say that again, the second word.”
“Miu.”
Flash. “Oh the miu in “Miu Kiu Wai (苗僑偉)” I exclaimed. He’s a Hong Kong actor who was prominent in the 80’s, also known as Michael Miu. Come to think of it, he became famous about the time of my first visit to Baan Suan.
“You know who Miu Kiu Wai is?” My aunt was mockingly impressed.
I vaguely recalled seeing his name in print in tabloid magazines. Miu is rather rare for a last name. But I remembered it incorporated the radical for grass on top, and paddy on the bottom. Actually it made sense, grass coming out from the paddy beneath it would be ‘shoots’. Agricultural etymology.
The steamed rice came in green banana leaf cones (like they did at Heuan Pen), like an up-ended Cornetto ice cream. I guess it’s a Lanna/northern Thai thing.
The bbq ribs were pretty tasty, but plain jane, in presentation when compared to the drama of the hanging pork (moo khwaen).
Picture a suspended cast iron bell the size of softball, with a profusion of little nails protruding like vicious thorns. It could have been a medieval torture device for the jing joks my cousin loathed. The bell is preheated, and chunks of pork are spiked on those nails. The waiter pours a little brandy over it, flicks his lighter and the meat is flambéed with a flourish. Underneath the bell is pile of French fries, although there really aren’t any juices for the fries to soak up (and get soggy from). (The waitress told me later that the bell concept was not Thai, but imported.)
To remove the pieces of pork from the bell, you use your fork and knife to pry it off from the nails. The pork was a little too lean and overcooked to the point of chewiness. It was pretty plain also: I don’t think it was marinated in much. (The BBQ ribs were better in that respect, they weren’t as dry.) The several different dipping sauces did help slightly: thousand island dressing; mayonnaise; ‘Café de Paris’ which is actually a garlic butter, and the only Thai one: jaeow. It’s usually like a murky black sour and spicy chipotle sauce (if you are familiar with Mexican food). This one was spicy and sour, but it didn’t taste like regular jaeow. Maybe it was Lanna style.
We took in our surroundings. The informal and spare layout of the pavilion seems well suited for anyone wanting to host large party in casually elegant manner. (It turns out that the place is designed by Chulathat Kitibutr, an architect who focuses on Lanna architecture. He also designed the reknowned Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, which we didn’t have a chance to visit). My cousin and I wondered out loud if we could persuade any of our younger nieces or nephews to hold their wedding here. Or failing that, perhaps he could come back with a client to use the location for a photo shoot!
The service was fairly attentive throughout the meal, even through ordering of dessert. Their house speciality was a mango granite with St. Emilion wine, but we ordered the buay kaew. I didn’t know what a buay kaew was exactly. It turned out to be red fruit, like a miniature plum with a textured skin and a single seed inside, like a hawthorn. It was sweet-sour and perfectly delicious, served with shaved ice and simple syrup.
Two hours had passed by so leisurely and agreeably that we’d hardly noticed it. But it was getting late, and time to leave before we could be turned into pumpkins. We walked to the hostess stand where we had come in and called out “Check please.” There was no response. It was as if the place had been abandoned, the staff melted into thin air. I think the thought crossed all our minds that we could simply walk out without paying! With due diligence we walked towards the back. On the kitchen porch, various black clad wait-staff were sleeping around a table, heads resting on elbows. One of them woke up with a start, and led us to the other side of the restaurant, past a quirky little Olde Curiosity Shoppe with dusty paintings. That’s where the cashier’s desk was tucked away.
The bill came out to a reasonable 1,500 baht (US $45) We hadn’t had any alcohol. The hanging pork was the most expensive dish at 500 baht. I had been a little apprehensive, since we had ordered a few of the daily specials, and I didn’t know what the prices were for those dishes.
One word of advice: Depending on your proclivities, you must check out the toilets . . . or avoid them completely. (They are located ‘downstairs’, in what would be the open space of the stilts of a traditional Thai house).
On the door of each stall facing you as you are conducting your business, there is a painting in traditional Thai style, of a man and a woman embracing. The woman is bare-chested, but that was not unusual back then, until Victorian prudishness was imported to Thailand. Scrutinizing the painting a little more, you realize that they are beyond a PG embrace; they are very erotically engaged. What looks like blue and white bike shorts on the man is actually an elaborately patterned tattoo, modesty in camouflage. I don’t know if my aunt noticed. I don’t want to know if my aunt noticed.
(I have to admit, I checked behind the doors of the other stalls in the ladies’ room, and they all had similar artwork. Since there was no one else around, I checked out the men’s bathroom too! Same same!)
I don’t know for sure if this incarnation of Baan Suan restaurant is a direct descendant of the one I went to when I was a ten-year old. The menu has definitely evolved since then, in its new location. The food is creative, more hit than miss. The surroundings are pleasant and tasteful, if somewhat a little eerie on a quiet weekday night. Seeing the place in daylight would be nice. And if you have kids, you might have them use the toilet before you get to the restaurant.
Baan Suan Restaurant, 25 Moo 3, San Phi Sua, Chiang Mai
Telephone 053 854 169
