The Kitchen
Everything here is a real recipe with real temperatures. Nothing needs a restaurant kitchen — a pan, an oven, and something to drink while you wait.
8 showing · 444 plates · 15 drinks
Nobody here drinks without eating. A bottle of Hong Thong or SangSom lands with a bucket of ice and a siphon of soda, someone keeps topping your glass, and the table fills with kap klaem: salty, sour, charred, deliberately too spicy, so a session can run four hours. It happens on plastic stools outside Isaan grill shops, at ya dong carts in Chinatown, in any open-front shophouse after dark. Boiled peanuts and raw cabbage arrive unasked.
ไก่ย่าง (kai yang) · Bangkok
Half a bird flattened between bamboo and turned over coals for the better part of an hour until the skin is lacquer. Famous, and it earns it. Torn apart by hand, not carved.
Where you'd actually eat it: The kai yang and som tam carts that set up outside every Bangkok office block at 5pm and are still there at 11. Bought by the half bird, eaten off the paper it came in, with large Leo and ice.
From behind the bar: Cilantro root is the whole point of the marinade. Frozen roots are at every Thai grocer; if you can only find the herb, use a packed half cup of the lower stems.
ปลาเผาเกลือ (pla phao kluea) · Bangkok
A whole fish packed in coarse salt and stood over coals until the crust goes to plaster. You crack it open with a spoon and eat the fish out of it with your hands and a sour dip.
Where you'd actually eat it: Open-air riverside drinking sheds along the Chao Phraya and out toward Nonthaburi, where the fish comes to the table on a plank. Ordered for the whole table with Sangsom, Coke and a bag of ice.
From behind the bar: Do not use fine salt. It penetrates and you end up with a fish nobody can eat. Coarse or kosher only.
ไข่ปิ้ง (khai ping) · Bangkok
Whole eggs on a stick over coals until the shell scorches and the inside scrambles itself. Costs almost nothing, takes twenty minutes, and eats better than it has any right to.
Where you'd actually eat it: Night-market carts and school-gate vendors that migrate to the beer strips after dark. Sold three to a skewer for pocket change and eaten standing up between Chang bottles.
From behind the bar: Any egg that hisses or weeps from a crack is about to go. Pull it off the fire and let it cool before it takes an eyebrow with it.
ไส้หมูย่าง (sai mu yang) · Bangkok
Cleaned, boiled soft, then grilled until the outside crisps and the inside stays rich. Chewy, fatty, faintly barnyard. This is the last thing eaten before the night gets called.
Where you'd actually eat it: The 24-hour Isaan grill carts on Pracha Songkhro Road, working between the karaoke bars at 3am. Ordered by taxi drivers and people who should have gone home. Lao khao, or beer over ice.
From behind the bar: Buy intestine already cleaned from an Asian butcher if you can. It halves the work and still needs one salt-and-flour scrub before it goes in the pot.
คอหมูย่าง (kho mu yang) · Bangkok
The default order at every Isaan grill shop. Fatty pork collar over coals, rested, sliced thin, dragged through a sour chili dip. Meant to be picked at slowly while the ice melts.
Where you'd actually eat it: Soi Rangnam, Ari, any mo-lam grill shop with plastic stools on the sidewalk. Hong Thong and soda over a full glass of ice, topped up by whoever sat down last.
From behind the bar: Toasted rice powder is the whole point of jaew. Toast raw sticky rice in a dry pan over medium until deep tan, 8 minutes, then grind. It goes stale fast.
ไส้กรอกอีสาน (sai krok isan) · Bangkok
Sour, garlicky, blistered on the grill. The rice inside ferments and does the work. Eaten with raw ginger, bird's eye chilies and cabbage, one bite each, all night.
Where you'd actually eat it: Cart grills outside Victory Monument and Ratchawat market, and every Isaan shop in town. Leo over ice, or lao khao if the table has already committed.
From behind the bar: Fermenting raw pork at room temperature is real charcuterie. Use the curing salt, keep everything cold while mixing, and throw it out if it smells of anything but sour.
ปลาหมึกแห้งย่าง (pla muek haeng yang) · Bangkok
Dried squid grilled over coals until it smells like the whole street, then rolled flat and torn into strips. Chewy, salty, sweet dip. Pure jaw work between sips.
Where you'd actually eat it: Handcart guys with a charcoal box and a hand roller, working the bar strips of Chinatown's Soi Nana and outside Ekkamai. Beer, always beer.
From behind the bar: Dried squid lives in the freezer section or the dry-goods aisle of any Thai, Viet or Korean market. Shredded dried cuttlefish is the shortcut if you cannot find whole.
คอหมูย่าง (kho mu yang) · Bangkok
The default order at every Isaan grill shop. Fatty pork collar over coals, rested, sliced thin, dragged through a sour chili dip. Meant to be picked at slowly while the ice melts.
Where you'd actually eat it: Soi Rangnam, Ari, any mo-lam grill shop with plastic stools on the sidewalk. Hong Thong and soda over a full glass of ice, topped up by whoever sat down last.
From behind the bar: Toasted rice powder is the whole point of jaew. Toast raw sticky rice in a dry pan over medium until deep tan, 8 minutes, then grind. It goes stale fast.