Some of my earliest memories take me to a restaurant that occupied the first floor of a midcentury building in the Silom area of Bangkok. I can see my family seated around a large round table as ceiling fans turned slowly above us and the traffic of older waiters in
My paternal grandmother hailed from the north country. That made her a descendent of the Lanna Kingdom, and in photographs from her younger years, you can see hints of that bloodline in her pale skin and elongated features, Chinese-like, but not completely. Years later, having moved to Bangkok and married
When I was young, going to the beach meant gorging on sweets. The drive south from Bangkok to the seaside town of Huahin took more than a couple of hours, and Phetchaburi, a small city that has established itself as a destination for traditional Thai sweets and snacks, lay at
Pad Thai is the most misunderstood noodle. Its best incarnations are difficult to find outside of Thailand, even as the basic ingredients are now readily available abroad. I think back to the Pad Thais of my childhood, freshly made at a Bangkok street stall and packaged to go in banana
One of my earliest memories involves a table on fire. I was no more than three or four years old, and I was celebrating some occasion with the paternal side of my family at a Bangkok restaurant. In the middle of the lunch, someone knocked over a gel-fuel buffet warmer
