Night + Market: exceptional pork-ilicious Thai street food

After returning from Bangkok a few months ago and experiencing some amazing street food, I was excited to check out Night + Market, the Thai restaurant specializing in street food and was opened by Chef Chris Yenbamroong, the chef-son of the owners of next door Talesai. The restaurant is located on Sunset Blvd, just down the street from Key Club and The Roxy.

The restaurant has vibrant orange colored walls, brown paper lining the tables, simple artwork, and a Woody Allen film projected on the wall.

We made it in time for happy hour which ends at 8pm (all night happy hour on Wednesday) which included small plates for around $5 and drink specials.

Pig ear with chile and garlic
I've had a lot of crispy pigs ears around town but this preparation was stir fried instead of deep fried. It still had a crunch to it but with a more gelatinous texture. I really enjoyed chewing through the pieces. The pigs ear was boldly cooked with spicy peppers, lime and basil. Lots of amazing flavors here.

Pork Toro
The fatty hog collar looked like simple pieces of meat but upon biting it, your teeth sunk into a very tender and fatty piece of meat. It almost reminded me of a very buttery kalbi. The pork toro was seasoned with BBQ flavoring and fish sauce.

Fried Pig Tail

Here's a cross section of the meat. The pigs tail was tender with chunks of fat (my favorite part!). The meat really came off the bone easily and there were quite a lot of bones which reminded me of an oxtail bone. It was a lot of fun to chew around the bones. The breading was well seasoned and was crunchy but not greasy. The sharpness of vinegar based sauce helped to cut the fattiness of the pork tail.

Prawn Satay
Four prawns were skewered and grilled. We could smell the lovely strong fishy and smokey scent. Such as simple preparation but lots of flavors here. Our favorite part was chewing up the shrimp heads just like you are supposed to do if you ate this on the street.

Nam Prik Gapi
We didn't realize that this dish was very similar to the last one. Once again, we got the prawn satay but this dish also included battered fried eggplant with a shrimp paste sauce. The eggplant was soft and paired well with the tangy sweet and spicy sauce.

Kar Moo Parlow
I love whole braised pork hock which is a familiar dish in Cantonese cuisine, except that the sauce here was on the sweeter side. The hock was slow cooked with 5 spice, dark soy sauce, and many other ingredients including pepper, sugar, lime and garlic. The pork hock was such a delight to eat with fall-off-the-bone meat, fatty sticky skin (heart attack!), and gelatinous tendon. We ate all the meat and chewed off all the tendon and cartilage, which I think is rather impressive. I also enjoyed the side of soft braised cabbage.

Pad Kee Mao
The flat noodles were fried with a spicy chile, garlic and basil sauce. Pretty standard Thai flavors which packed a punch. The pieces of short rib were fatty and really tender.

Dinner at Night + Market was really such a treat. I just love how Chef Yenbamroong utilized different parts of the pig (hock, tail, collar, ears). The food is unique, it's delicious, it's bold, and is not something you'll find at your usual Thai joint. I just cannot get over how flavorful and aromatic the food was. The prices were very reasonable too. We only touched upon the surface of the menu, and there are definitely a lot more dishes that I cannot wait to try next, but I will not be able to refrain from ordering some of the same dishes here.

Night + Market
9041 W Sunset Blvd.,
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 275-9724
www.nightmarketla.com

East Indy (Sivatel Bangkok): Hotel buffet ain't so bad

I typically shy away from hotel buffet lunches but I succumbed when we only had a few hours before our flight out of Bangkok, and the sign outside of the East Indy restaurant at our hotel Sivatel boasted of "traditional street food".

We only had about 35 minutes before the restaurant closed so we headed straight for the buffet.

The appetizer selection included spicy pork with sausage, boiled egg with mixed seafood, spicy minced pork salad, pork Chinese sausage salad, green roasted chili dip and samosas.

Stir Fried Kale and Oyster Sauce, and Stir Fried Squid with Curry

Pumpkin Curry, and Braised Tofu and Egg

Fish & Chili Soup, and River Prawns with Chinese Chili Sauce

Egg Noodles with Pork and Black Pepper, and Fried Rice

Preserved cabbage soup with spare ribs had good flavors. I only wished that the soup was hotter, and that the spare ribs had some bone to it.

Dim sum selection was pretty ordinary.

My selection of appetizers were pretty good. The pork larb was spicy with a citrus zing to it. I went to town on the sliced Chinese sausage, and returned for seconds on the samosas.

I enjoyed pretty much everything here. The chili squid and prawns had good flavoring, and the pumpkin curry was quite good. The pumpkin was soft but not mushy, and the combination of the curry spices and sweetness from the pumpkin worked. The only thing on the plate I did not care for was the noodles. It had a black bean sauce that was overpoweringly sour.

For something sweet, they offer coffee and chocolate drinks.

For dessert #1, I had Vanilla ice cream with palm seeds, pineapple chunks, beans and drizzled with condensed milk. Love the creaminess and sweetness of the condensed milk with the ice cream.

Dessert # was a couple choices of kuih (little coconut and pandan cakes).

Overall, not a bad selection of food. I wouldn't say it's outstanding, but it was a good way to get a flavor of Southeast Asian cuisine when you don't want to venture out of the hotel into the heat.

East Indy @ Sivatel Bangkok
53 Wittayu Road
Lumpini Patumwan
Bangkok, 10330 Thailand

Banrie Bai Ka Prao Bork, Bangkok Thailand (where the locals dine)

On our last night in Bangkok, we met up with my friend from Singapore, who was also in town visiting a buddy who lives in Bangkok. Not only was I looking forward to seeing my friend, but I was also excited to dine out with her friend that lives in Bangkok. After a couple days of amazing street food eating, I was curious as to what the locals eat for dinner. We met up at Banrie Bai Ka Prao Bork (what a mouth full!) located near the Ekamai BTS station. The Ekamai district has a lot of bars and restaurants but is apparently where the locals and expats hang out. This place is so non-touristy that the waiters speak minimal English, and you can barely find anything about the restaurant online in English.

The restaurant has a sizable courtyard but we opted to sit inside because it was raining.

The Tom Yum soup was a great rainy day dish. The soup was filled with mushrooms, plump shrimp and chicken. I enjoyed the aromatic lemongrass flavor and the tang of the soup.

Fried kang kong (water spinach) with spicy sauce was sort of like tempura vegetables. I have only had stir fried kang kong before, not deep fried. I actually couldn't stop eating these. They were crunchy with an airy breading, but were not greasy.

The green curry chicken was fiery even though the sauce seemed deceptively watery. This spice level was what we were hoping for.

The grilled Pork was my favorite dish of the night and one of Banrie's specialties. It looked simple but the meat was cooked perfectly. The pork was so buttery and melted in your mouth. It was also adequately seasoned so you didn't need a sauce and could eat it on its own, so as to savor the porkiness.

Papaya salad with and dried shrimp. I loved the addition of the salted egg.

The Pad Thai was very tasty. This version was similar to the ones served back home, unlike the one that we got from the street vendor a few days ago. Both versions were good. Unliked the geasy Thai takeout that I get at home, everything here tasted fresh and not oily.

The Otak was not what I had expected. It looked and tasted different from the Singaporean version that is wrapped in a banana leaf. Here the fish paste and egg mixture is loaded with lots of seafood, and wrapped in foil and steamed. It was fun to dig into the dome of spicy otak to find whole mussels, crab and prawns.

The whole fish was nice and crispy on the outside. The fish was served with a spicy sauce.

To top of the night, we ended with their coffee which apparently is very popular.

Apart from the otak, the types of dishes offered didn't seem any different from you can find back in the States. However, I do have to say that everything was delicious and cooked fresh, with lots of spice and flavor.

Banrie Bai Ka Prao Bork
Sukhumvit Soi 63,
Bangkok, 10110, Thailand

Bangkok Street Food (a feast on lots of skewered animal parts)

The thing I was most looking forward to in Bangkok, was the street food. Our goal was to basically graze our way through the city. The street food in Bangkok did not disappoint. It was so good that it made us forget that this was the city where everyone was trying to scam us.

On our first night, we headed to the Kao San area. Sure it may be touristy, but we knew they had lots of street food vendors.

There were vendors serving up grilled meat parts. Lots of offal (gizzards, hearts) but also regular meats (chicken drum sticks and wings). I opted for the drum stick and gizzard skewers.

Just to be safe, don’t buy the ones that are sitting by the side of the grill. Have the guy grill you up a fresh batch. That way, you won't leave Southeast Asia with an upset stomach and bad memories.

Skewered squid was fun to eat. Very fresh and seasoned with lots of spice.

The gizzard was also seasoned with spice and chili. It was chewy, in a good way.

Pad Thai was quite different from the version we get in the States.

You can choose your type of noodles, which include not only the flat ones that we are used to. Next, you choose your main ingredients, which in my case was seafood. The seafood looked really fresh and included a nice selection of squid and prawns.

Freshly fried up with lot of spice. It was essentially fried noodles and did not have that peanut sweet taste of Pad Thai that I was accustomed to. I actually really enjoyed the Pad Thai. It tasted fresh, had good flavors and was only 50 baht (US$1.60).

Corn with sugar, condensed milk and salt was only 30baht (less than US$1). It was so delicious but yet so simple to prepare. The creaminess of the condensed milk was similar to that of creamed corn, but the corn here still held its firm texture

Perhaps my favorite street food was something we stumbled upon in Chinatown. We weren't even planning to eat anything because we were on our way to meet friends for dinner.

This wasn't even in a street food stall area. There was one sole man grilling up some pig ears and stomach on the side of the street. The portions were huge! He grilled them up, then scissored them up into to edible sizes and doused the pig parts with lots of homemade spicy chili.

If you like gnawing on cartilage, this is possibly one of the best bites you'll ever come across. The chewy pieces were so much fun to eat, and the chili was the hottest things I had eaten in the city.

The best part of the Bangkok street food that we sampled, was that the portions were small so we were able to eat all day. I really enjoyed the skewers which are a perfect bite size snack after a full day of boozing.

Scenes from Bangkok, Thailand

Some non food shots of Bangkok.

We stayed at the Sivatel Bangkok Hotel which was located in the Ploen Chit area in Embassy district. We picked it because it's popular with business travellers so we knew that they would have good amenities. It was about a couple minute walk to the train station, and only a 15 minute walk to the bustling Siam Square shopping area.
Serene infinity pool that overlooked all the office buildings.

Our room had a spacious living room area.

My favorite part of the room was the bathroom. Don't worry, there are blinds for privacy.

The hotel amenities and service was great. The complimentary breakfast buffet had a nice mixture of Western and Thai offerings. Definitely a hotel that I would recommend if you want comfort but don't mind walking about 15 minutes to the bustling part of town.

On our first day, we took a boat ride on the Chao Praya River to get acquainted with the city. You can hop on and off depending on what sights or neighborhoods you want to check out. The boat ride was pretty cool as it allowed us to absorb the scenery.

Lots of temples along the river.

The only tourist site I really saw was the famous Buddhist temple, Wat Po. This is their famous reclining Buddha.

Wat Po is also where the traditional Thai massage originated. The only reason why we decided to pop in for a massage was because the rooms were air conditioned.

Flower markets are also very popular in Bangkok.