Elegant Chaos in Chinatown, Bangkok and the Iconic Khao Soi

Food was a means to survival, it is now a language. A form of expression and identity which magnifies the creative outlook of cultures and individuals around the world.

In 2019 I traveled to Thailand with my partner during Monsoon season, the season of heavy rainfall, simply because it is much cheaper and much cheaper for us is always good. A rainfall in a Thai jungle, how we experienced it in Khao Sok National Park is an incredible sight so I would say we got a good deal in fact. Food in Khao Sok was spectacular as well. We spent a few days in Ko Tao to scuba dive and a few in Bangkok.

Everywhere we went we were received with kind smiles and genuine interactions, sometimes communication was an issue as I have an accent in english as well, but through food Thailand told me everything. Soups like Tom Yum or a fierce and spicy Pad Thai made in front of you in a river market followed by coconut ice cream.

The food was meticulously good, down to every herb and taste, and it unlocked flavours which I could not have thought of before. I always have a few cans of coconut (not-a-nut) milk now on my counter and the taste of lemongrass is iconic.

All of my experiences in Thailand were amplified when we visited Bangkok.

The plane got there early during the day, we boarded the taxi pretty tired and trying to give directions to the driver was a truly difficult task. He did not speak a lot of english, my english sounds like a stereotypical latino accent from the 80's, my 'b' and 'v' pronunciation sound the same and the hostel was a little hidden from the main streets.

Driven through Bangkok I was beginning to feel a little disappointed. After coming from staying in the middle of a jungle, on a treehouse, and then on a small island, the big city full of littering and stray pups was a bit much. Anyways, as a Salvadorian, the image of a city with littering and stray animals is a bit too familiar. We got into the hotel after four wrong turns, equally the driver's and my fault, and we just napped.

The heat was overbearing as it often can be. We order some takeout street food. Yes, takeout street food in Thailand is a funny concept but in the defence of my action based on the assumption that you are judging them because I probably would, it was convenient, equally delicious and it was just too damn hot to leave the AC.

At night when it cools down, we decide to go explore finally. I try to pet a stray dog and almost lose a hand, is a habit from my days in El Salvador.

We ask around and decide to visit Chinatown to get some food. I was a bit confused at there being a Chinatown in Bangkok, but we were intrigued so we went. The drive there blew my mind, it was a different city at night. Apparently Bangkok discovered that by lighting up the streets with colourful xmas lights all year long the city didn't have to worry about the littering or maintenance, because my eyes were only fixated on the pretty lights everywhere. The cool breeze was a blessing, and the driver's stories made the ride a wonderful experience.

Then we get to an absurdly busy street, the driver brushes us off the car quickly saying we had arrived and there it was Chinatown.

The lights are everywhere, the shinny signs, the food stands and merchants, the tuktuks looking for tourists and the people in quantities. It had rained a little earlier so the dark asphalt of the streets looked glazed from the wetness. It was chaos. Yet it was beautiful. The scent was the most provoking. It was the smell of frying oil as well as spicy foods, seafood somewhere in the distance and a stance of fried sweet donuts on my left. Food was the language that was being spoken by most here.

We stayed on the side of the street that we got dropped off from to checkout the food there. Here there is no Yelp or Google reviews, barely even signs, you just allow your eyes, nose and heart to take a gamble. Our first target was a stance of Thai milk tea. Taking a milk based drink from a street food stance might not seem wise, but the prospectus reward outweighed the risk. Thai milk tea is an orange creamy deliciousness that mirrors all the good things Thailand has to offer, and there is nothing more rewarding that this icy drink considering Thai heat.

Then we walked, and purely out of instinct had to ignore a few stances in order to pick our next target. We probably missed a few gems. Yet we finally settled with this little fried shrimp dumpling to open our appetite and it was a wise choice. They were crunchy and succulent on the inside, the shrimp was gigantic and the sauce was sweet-sour goodness.

Ordering was a mess, trying to yell over all the honking and sounds, but the cheap price was more than welcomed of course. In the middle of ordering is when we saw the real genius of Bangkok's Chinatown. Despite the common onlookers assumption that this place is chaotic, while we were ordering it started to rain just a little bit, it is Monsoon season after all. In an instance, all the food stand entrepreneurs were jolting and setting up tarps or umbrellas or moving their entire stand under a roof somewhere. The lady who was selling us the dumplings recruited me to help her set up the tarp, which we did, and within a few minutes all of Chinatown was back to doing commerce as if nothing had happened. It was almost a choreographed ordeal. We crunched the dumplings into our mouths under the rain and kept searching.

A delicious mango, then a not so delicious durian. A octopus salad, a bit chewy but flavourful. There were people with professional cameras filming some street food chefs who were more elaborated performers than cooks throwing knives around and food flying everywhere.

Then we had to cross the street. People cross the street there no problem; well we call it jaywalking in North America. My partner and I are from Syria and El Salvador respectively, so we felt like we got this, that's how we used to do it. We took a few steps onto the street and a scouter bike almost runs us over and then a tuktuk was honking at us until we returned to our side to safety. Guess we lost our touch. Then an old lady, with a cane and all, just started to walk across forcing cars to stop all around here. So we did what any reasonable person would do, we hid ourselves behind her in order to cross. You could say she was our Moses, opening the sea of cars so we could cross.

On the other side, we wanted to find a main dish to really appease our appetite. That's when we found a Khao Soi seller.

This is the recipe I want to leave you with today because it is the perfect Thai dish objectively speaking. Sorry I guess I meant subjectively, or did I? With some dishes the color tells you everything. Khao Soi soup is one of those. The palm sugar, the coconut milk, the ginger and the chillies just working together to give you this creamy, powerful dish from the North. This dish will give you warmth and comfort, but it's flavours embody the chaos of this Chinatown experience and they always bring me back. I use ginger in a lot of dishes now to add some tanginess and yummy spice. Thai's use of coconut milk is what allowed me to finally start eating fully vegan (after the trip), replacing that creamy texture of dishes that used dairy. That's not me trying to convert you into a plant-based diet, is just coconut milk and cream are a gift from earth which I believe all should take advantage of. I use a lot of this tastes in different curries and dishes I make, it made my cooking life much more interesting.

I'll give you the best recipe I could think off, inspired of other recipes I have tried and what I vaguely remember from the soup we had in Chinatown that day. The problem is that our brain can't retain memories based on flavour, but the upside of that is that the memory I have of that soup is all about how it made me feel. So I hope this recipe makes you feel that way.

The Khao Soi Recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons Red curry paste
• 1 teaspoon of cumin, tumeric, cardamon
• 3 tablespoons of coconut oil

• 2 tablespoon of palm sugar
• 1 tablespoon of fish sauce
• 1 inch of ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 14oz coconut milk
• 1 14oz coconut cream
• 1 lb of egg noodles
• Portion of protein: Either boneless chicken thighs or crispy tofu pieces.

Toppings

• Fried crispy onions ( from a bag)
• Red onions, sliced
• Lemon wedges
• Bean sprouts
• Cilantro

Directions

Step 1:

Cook the egg noodles according to the package.

Step 2:

Use the half the portion of the coconut oil to fry the garlic and ginger. Once it is fried a little bit, add the rest of the coconut oil and the red curry paste, the spices, and fish sauce. Once browned a bit, add the broth, fish sauce, palm sugar, coconut milk and cream. Let that simmer.

Step 3:

Add the chicken or the tofu to boil in the soup. If chicken, wait until is well cooked and then take it out from the soup to shred. If tofu, you can also cut into small pieces, no need to take it out.

Step 4:

To serve, place cooked egg noodles on a bowl, add the soup, put some toppings of your choice, and enjoy! (Add the shredded chicken if you took it out). Feel the warmth and comfort mixed with the chaotic taste of the Khao Soi.

For possible replacements (if needed):

Egg noodles ⇒ Ramen noodles

Coconut oil ⇒ Vegetable oil

Fish sauce ⇒ it can be removed

Palm sugar ⇒ Brown sugar

Red curry paste ⇒ absolute essential unless you can make your own, then there is many recipes online.

At the end of the night in Bangkok, we sat on a little table while still misting lightly on us in a random alley in Chinatown. An Argentinian came to serve me in Spanish, he had moved there because he fell in love with Bangkok. He served me a very large, very cold, very cheap beer which help me wash down the heat but also it was so much better after the Khao Soi.

I sat watching tuk tuks drive through the wet streets, speeding around. It was a fantastic food night. It gave me a wonderful insight into Thailand. An elegant chaos, a genuinely beautiful people and food.