Personal Essay

Thailand Stories

Breaking the Fast

I’m pretty sure my oil is not hot enough but this is my homage to my Dad’s fried egg sandwich. it’s on a buttered piece of rye. I garnished it with a quick cherry tomato jam, that I made and a bit of chilli crisps — I’ve adapted.

As a kid I woke up to the smell of hot oil and coffee. My dad fried his eggs like a Thai person, Kai Dao, made crispy in a generous amount of oil. He liked the yolk hard, not runny, not like a Thai. My mother, she liked a runny yolk, more like Kai Luak, very soft-boiled eggs cracked into a glass. She seasoned them with butter and salt, not Maggi sauce and white pepper; soy sauce wasn’t a condiment in our house. Dad slathered his fried egg with ketchup, stuffed it between two pieces of dry white toast, wrapped it in wax paper, and packed it in his big metal lunch box to take with him to work.

Me, I'm not really fond of eggs at all.

Jok, the Thai version of congee, also known as rice porridge, is about as comforting as a Thai breakfast can get. The first time I encountered it was at the hotel breakfast buffets when I started traveling to Thailand. I’ve never been a breakfast person, I was intermittent fasting before it was a trend. I was however, raised by two prairie people who were raised on the typical big North American breakfasts. To my eye, Jok looked like the gruel that fed orphans in a Dickens story. I didn’t understand it or that it was purely a vehicle for what went on top—often things like Kai Luak or Kai Dao.

I am a big fan of Patangko. It’s one of the things I would miss about Thailand.

It was at these breakfast buffets held in the open air lobbies of big old-school Thai hotels that I first encountered Patangko, the Thai version of the Chinese fried doughnut. It sat on the buffet table with the other accoutrements for Jok.

Sold in the morning on street corners all over Thailand, in its own way it serves a Thai breakfast in the same way as toast served the breakfasts of my parents. Cut up like croutons or dipped into Jok, taken with soy milk or dipped in sangkhaya, a coconut custard sweetened with palm sugar. I prefer mine unadorned, maybe lightly salted, with my morning coffee. I miss my local stand in Bangkok. It took me a while to find a source here. I found it eventually by following the smell of hot oil.

Not all Thai food announces itself with the commonly cited four primary pillars (sour, salty, sweet, and spicy) in its ingredient list. Patangko is just flour, water, salt, sugar, and leavening. It’s how it’s adapted and what it’s served with that has made it Thai.

Khun Neung, the Top Dog in Dog Town

If you live here long enough, you get used to eating from makeshift kitchens and roadside stands; this is often where the best food is found. I passed by on my Sunday morning bike ride. I wasn’t sure what he was cooking, but he was set up right beside my favorite coffee stand, so I knew I’d be back. I could smell the oil on the griddle on my way back around. Waiting in line for coffee, it was hard to resist: bacon-wrapped hot dogs cooked on the spot, smothered in all the condiments, fried onions, and topped with Cheetos.

It’s a Hot Dick!

It was indeed hot — and delicious.

LA-style hot dogs adapted by a Thai sense of humour. All pillars were accounted for. He sold out by ten.

It's not how things should be, but how things are. Breakfast in Thailand isn't defined by categories of food, but rather a moment in the day.

*Shanti C K wanted to hear*

what breakfast is like

in the places I’m near.

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