Thai Street omelet by Richard@Thai-Blogs
This post is probably gonna piss off a few people, and make other people doubt my sanity or street cred, but street food in Asia is almost uniformly bad. I've eaten from food stalls all across Asia, and most of the fare was pure crap. Boiled fishballs in water with seacress is not food - it's fish food for goats.
But that's what is usually served from food stalls in Bangkok, Pattaya, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar, Delhi, Varanasi, and Trivandrum. I've eaten street food in all those places, and mostly it has been less than garbage. Unless you have absolutely no taste or distinguishation in food, skip the street foodstalls and spend a little extra money and dine in a cafe where the chef actually knows how to cook.
Cooking good food takes some training and expertise, and most street cooks don't have a clue. So, the end of another travel fantasy.
The only good thing on my one-year journey across Asia: I lost 67 pounds.
Time to get back to Asia!
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Street Food in Asia
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6 Comments:
Yep I think street food can be good for snacking and sampling small dishes - in Thailand or Malaysia [haven't been to Indo yet] - but you're better off having an entire meal in a restaurant. They've simply got more ingredients available, and hygeine facilities too.
Street food here in Cambodia? fogettaboutit. It's terrible, because the ingredients usually are, and you just don't want to know where the hands have & haven't been; they've certainly not been anywhere near soap in a long while.
There's definitely a cult of street food amongst backpackers, but I often find the "authenticity" they crow about to be simplistic.
Cambodian street food certainly isn't uniformly terrible: but a great portion of it is ordinary. The hardest thing about eating randomly off the street in Cambodia is accepting that your hit to miss ratio is going to be so much lower than any of the neighbouring nations, but not necessarily lower than eating in local restaurants. I think the thing that keeps me going through my rare gut-churning moment is that they make the highlights and sense of discovery seem even more rewarding. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.
Guys on the street certainly will never be able to match the general quality of ingredients that a restaurant can because the street vendor’s clients (in Cambodia, at least) can’t afford to buy anything better. Wholeheartedly impugning the culinary skills of the street vendor however is a bit rough: try dropping into Quan An Ngan next time you’re in Ho Chi Minh City and see what happens when the top street vendors get washed up and their clean hands on quality components.
The “street food is authentic” argument is completely spurious. I’m a huge fan of the inauthentic street food that has started to flood Phnom Penh recently – Belgian waffles with Mondulkiri honey certainly wasn’t one of the meals that the Angkorean god-kings were chowing down on.
While I agree that much Asian steet-stall food can be, well, pedestrian, going into a spiffy restaurant is not any guarantee of quality and especially not authenticity. They bland it down for "tourist" palates, charge ten times as much for the same stuff purchased from the same markets three days earlier, and probably have similar hygiene problems out the back as well, except in big hotel restaurants. Go where the locals go, as a rule.
The range and variety of foods available at street-stalls usually is wider, particularly sweets! Like those coconut milk custards in banana leaf, or the ones fried in the metal things like egg-poachers - you don't see them in restaurants too often! Yum.
Or weird things like ice-cream and sticky sweets IN A BREAD ROLL!
E@hencetheL
There's a lot more than boiled fishballs in water... if you care to look. Cutting yourself off from street food is pretty much cutting yourself off from daily life. And ordinary people in the countries you visit. Every town has its special place renowned for one kind of noodles, or rice porridge, etc. Like say, an awesome taco stand in Frisco.
Some definitely can't hack street food - different bodies, different diets. Age is definitely a factor. I have friends with lactose intolerance, special food needs - one friend in Cambodia discovered she was allergic to wheat. But if you go with local folks you'll get steered to the better quality places, and have a better batting average. I think Elizabeth is due to visit my favorite 'baw baw' emporium in Siem Reap shortly.
I'll eat pretty much anything that's put in front of me. Years have practice have taught me that Khmer pâté seems to be incompatible with my system. But garlic fried crickets go down a treat.
I'll refer you to some good noodle places if you come to Cambodia. But until you do, there's more for me. Yum!
Today went to a fruit vendor in front of a beauty parlor near my house - I often go there - usually she cuts the fruit up in front of me, but today it was pre-cut - I bought it as I was on the run to a show.
I've had a massive stomache ache all day, probably from the ice the fruit been resting atop for most of the morning. Reminder that next time I'll cut it up myself!
And yes, I stopped regularly eating the often-bland and usually greasy, even lukewarm street food here in Siem Reap after I spent an evening at a street food restaurant waiting for my bike to be fixed. That's why I referred to hands being washed, or rather not. Occasionally they were dipped in dirty dishwater, but that's about it. The breakfast noodles at Phsa Leu with a chili or two can be a nice snack.
Street food is like any other food. You have good cooks, and you have bad cooks. Generalization in general is generally a silly stand to take.
To my point of view here are a few tips to find good street food (at least in Cambodia.)
Try to know what is eaten at what time of the day. If you're having left over from breakfast at 3 pm, you will not enjoy.
Try to eat where other people eat, including westerners actually.
Try to avoid restaurant around back packers area.
Do not be afraid to pay a little bit more money.
Ask locals.
Avoid assimilating poor and dirty,uneducated with irresponsible. If your papaya salad seller is using his hands, he is not a good papaya salad seller.
And stop thinking that food should be to your taste. You should try to adapt your taste.
Usually the advantage of street food chefs is that they are cooking the one dish over and over (perfecting it?)
Avoid the top less 50 years old smoking guy who stir fried food using the fat on his hair.
And accept being ripped off once in a while, your shoes probably cost 2 months of the average salary...
Cheers
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