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Dear
Food Lover |
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Globetrotting to beautiful British Columbia in April, we showered in spring-time cherry blossom petals, with streets, sidewalks and gardens across the city paved in pink. En route to Canada, Robert and Morrison stopped in Thailand to soak up Songkran – Thailand’s wet and wild New Year’s festival, held annually on April 13-15 to celebrate New Year. |
| Also fêted in Burma, Laos and Cambodia, where it’s variously known as Thingyan, Pimai, or Chaul Chnam Thmey -- whatever it’s called, prepare for a soaking. |
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| Considering there are only three four-month seasons annually in this part of the year – winter, summer and wet -- this mid-year New Year’s timing makes sense. Songkran coincides with the hottest and driest month, with temperatures regularly soaring to the mid and high 30s C (90-100 F). But like a Halloween of more tricks than treats, tourists and locals alike are pummeled with jet streams of water shot variously from flat bed trucks. For our complete Songkran perspective, click here. |
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For the most outlandish experience, go to Bankgok’s Banglamphu backpacker area along Khao San Rd. There, you’ll be smeared with wet talc (sometimes colored), and doused with ice cold water stored in cooling bins. Or see it first hand on video here. |
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One of our favorite dishes to eat during this period is khao chair – a seemingly incongruous dish of rice floating in floral iced water. Accompanying this very cooling dish are bits of moo wan sweetened and shredded dried pork; stuffed chili peppers coated in a lacy fried egg “omelet”, and kapi or shrimp paste puffs. The rice itself is scented with the fumes from tiem-ob a small horseshoe-shaped candle. Khao chair is a dish you don’t normally find in the recipe books, and understandably so. A Thai friend told us that she attempted mastering it for three years, until her mother-in-law finally approved of her efforts. One of the best we’ve ever sampled is at M.L. Terb in Bangkok, whose famous chef celebrity Terb Xoomsai died some 13 years ago. She was a television chef sometimes called Thailand’s Julia Child, and her focus on Rattanakosin royal dishes holds sway over the country’s cookery still today. Consider khao chair a seasonal dish, as it’s normally served in the hottest summer months, a bit like eating steamed pudding only in winter. But there are exceptions to be found throughout the remaining year – particularly at Bangkok’s not-to-be-missed Wat Arun festival in late November.
M.L.Terb Royal Thai Cuisine, 13/10 Moo 9 Kaset-Navamin Rd., Klongkum, Buengkum (02) 946 1180-1 |
| This year’s Songkran was also an opportunity for the city to test drive its new subway system, when residents were given free passage. In August, when the train lines officially open – coinciding with the queen’s 72nd birthday (a biggie in a country that celebrates life in 12 year cycles) -- Bangkok will be served by both a sky train and subway, markedly improving essential travel through its oft formidable traffic jams. |
| We’re also delighted to include Bangkok as our first destination in our November Feasts & Festivities Tour, as it’s one of our favorite cities. In a slight departure from our single-country travel format, our next tour is arranged around historic and heritage sites in Laos, central Vietnam, Cambodia, and central and eastern Thailand. |
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| Most locations are designated Unesco-heritage sites, including Luang Prabang in Laos, My Son and Hoi An in Vietnam, Angkor wat and the environs of Siem Reap in Cambodia, and Sukhothai in Thailand. We’ve also just re-organised an optional add on to Thailand’s Isan region for the elephant round-up, plus a tour to little-visited Phra Wihan just across the border in Cambodia. This last site is spectacular, sitting on a 500 meter (1400 ft) cliff overlooking the Cambodian plains. Access is only via Thailand, unless you wish to drive for hours over Cambodia’s unsealed roads, then scale the cliffs for two days. When we last visited, we felt like 19th century tourists in a lithograph of the Coliseum or the Acropolis, stepping over stone ruins. New and expanded information about our November tour is available on www.asianfoodtours.com with substantial early bird discounts for payment by June. North American participants now have the option of reserving directly through us on the website, or through Mary North Travel in Seattle: rochelle@marynorth.com Our tour is priced on a land-content basis (but including internal Asian airfares), meaning that you arrange your own overseas flights from your country of origin– arriving early into and departing later from Bangkok, as you wish. Participants on our tours regularly use mileage points to either book passage, or to upgrade. Contact us for more information: info@globetrottinggourmet.com |
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We don’t deny that safety and world travel are issues these days. What with avian flu, Sars, terrorism, and the like, travel is a difficult market. But be assured, your safety on our tours is our primary concern. Additionally, we organize our tours away from the standard tourist itineraries. Of course, the corollary benefit is that in times of travel difficulties, sites are less frequented. This means, less crowds, less waiting in lines or queues, and better photo opportunities. Bali, for example, is a great place to visit now, and in a recent issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, Michael Vatikiotis writes that Bali “has returned to its bucolic roots… a scene from Bali decades ago, long before the big jets started flying in…” For nightlife and high-end entertainment, Seminyak still thrives. Ubud by night is strangely eerie, but by day vibrant. The 5-star resorts of Nusa Dua, however, can prove deathly quiet. For our latest report on Bali eats out, check our story. You may also want to read the “Blaming Ourselves” article in the April 29 issue of Far Eastern Economic Review, pg. 61. www.feer.com |
| The old adage about April showers rings especially true in Canada's British Columbia, with spring blossoms everywhere. |
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Appropriately, we chose to eat our first meal there at Raincity Grill, overlooking the straits, and majestic Stanley Park in West End. What brought us to Vancouver was the province’s compassionate marriage laws – allowing for Morrison and myself to be legally wed after some 15 years together. We looked like a San Franciscan wedding cake, but as one wag aptly quipped “Someone left the cake out in the rain.” Raincity Grill is worth a special gastronomic detour for any traveler. |
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Standouts included rare squab, and the most delicious halibut we’ve ever tasted (and we’ve sampled a lot over our portly years!), topped with the indelicately named "asparagus three ways" (light tempura, grilled and steamed). Not surprising that Rain City uses only local ingredients and organic produce. Keep your eye on chef Sean Cousins' starlit staircase ascent.
www.raincitygrill.com Less successful was trendy Gotham. Our local contact raved about seeing Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman dining ensemble here, but judging from the restaurant’s polyester napkins, they might have felt things amiss as well. For our complete report on Vancouver Eats Out, read on... |
| Vancouver, British Columbia is one of the truly great settings for a world class city, and gastronomically it trumps the rest of the Pacific Northwest – not only just in superb Cantonese cuisine. Since before the turnover of Hong Kong back to China, Vancouver has benefited more than any other city in the food stakes. Still haven’t found anything to equal it in Seattle or Portland, Oregon. |
| Following our Oregon Coast primer in the last issue, one New Zealand reader wrote back, advising us to head to Vancouver’s Chinese restaurant scene for geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck) clams. These behemoths are so large, the clam “neck" splays lazily outside the shell like a frolicsome donkey. There is absolutely no room for it to retreat within its shell. Previously, we only sampled these in classic clam chowder – especially as the clams are notoriously tough, and mincing is often the most expedient cooking process. |
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| Their full flavors also makes them a cheap enhancer to canned commercial chowder. But Chinese chefs are creatively cooking geoduck these days. We noted that they’re called “flower clams” at Bangkok’s always-full-for-lunch Dynasty restaurant in the Sofitel Central Plaza hotel, where the “neck” is sliced paper thin into ribbons, then steamed bunched like a flower, and accompanied with a soy and wine dipping sauce. Likewise, we sampled a similar cooking treatment at Vancouver’s Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant, with the added bonus of its “innards” fried in a salt-and-pepper coating, similar to squid or calamari. Like abalone, geoduck requires either slow and tender cooking, or conversely quick and fast. But once the world catches on, its relatively cheap per lb. price will raise stratospherically like abalone. Those who have read Steinbeck, will recall that abalone was once the poor man’s seafood near the Monterrey’s coast. Even cheaper than oysters. Not so today. |
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| And returning to Bangkok’s Sofitel Central Plaza hotel: For those not wishing to stay inner city, so to speak, this is a perfect location. A short 10 minutes to the airport, almost across the street from the vast weekend Chatuchak flea market, and directly linked to a huge shopping market and Central department store, this place is convenient. (As of August, you will be able to catch the new subway from here, as well.) Not only that, the hotel holds Bangkok’s record for the most expat chefs, each presiding over their own signature restaurants. The afore-mentioned Dynasty’s chef harks from Hong Kong, while the hotel restaurant’s Vietnamese eatery trained in Hanoi at the famed Metropole hotel under Didier Corlou. We especially loved the antics of chef Alberto Bruni, who presides over arguably the city’s best Italian eatery, Don Giovani, or Gio’s for short. The hotels’ executive chef Vittorio Bertini harks from the same village in Liguria, although they didn’t really know each other until they met in Asia. Chef Bertini gives Alberto rare praise indeed, when he boasts, “If you awarded stars to Giovanni’s, you would need to give it 5 stars plus.” But best of all, the hotel restaurants here really attract the locals, instead of farang tourists. We were so impressed, that we’ve confirmed this hotel on our upcoming Feasts & Festivities Tour in November. www.accorhotels.com/asia |
Standards in airline travel is hotting up as an issue in Asia. One international business journal says to “Expect the big Asian airlines to copy their European counterparts when the low fare carriers establish themselves in the region. It seems that economy class travellers nowadays prefer cheaper tickets to inflight food.” Alas… Discount airlines in Europe regularly eschew comforts even in the terminals, like sky bridges and padded lounge seats, not to mention connecting baggage... As one authority commented: “it may be the cheapest, but it is uncomfortable, provides nothing more than the basic essentials and, worst of all, treats people like a commodity.” READ MORE HERE. |
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Finally, congratulations to the three winners of our drawing at the International Association of Culinary Professionals Showcase in Baltimore, Maryland. Our Globetrotting Gourmet® stand for www.asianfoodtours.com offered three autographed copies of Robert’s books. Lori Farris won a copy of Robert Carmack’s latest book, Vietnamese Home Cooking. Lori designed two of Texas' premier Italian restaurants, Arcodor and Pomodoro in Houston and Dallas, where brothers Efisio and Francesco Farris reputedly dish some of the best Sicilian food in the state, if not in the country. As one reviewer gushed to us, “Their restaurants are really great.” www.arcodoro.com Lori is also actively involved in organizing Texas’ hosting of the IACP conference in Dallas, next year.Second and third place winners were Susan Zubik of Edmonds, Oklahoma, who won a signed copy of Robert’s book Thai Home Cooking; and Tami McAdam of Edible Artistry in Melbourne, Australia, who received Fondue also by Robert Carmack. Fondue by is now available in five separate language editions, plus numerous abridged paperback editions. Both of Robert's Asian cookbooks are available in French from Editions Soline. |
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Cheers,
Robert & Morrison |
| In our next issue: Dien Bien Phu at 50; Baltimore & BromoSeltzer |
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Come
join our November Connoisseurs' Tour of SE Asia
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| Substantial Early Bird discounts thru June |
| 19-22 November, 2004 |
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