Mushroom soup

I recently made a visit to a semi-famous Isaan restaurant in Bangkok called Crok Mai Thai Lao [ครกไม้ไทยลาว]. The name refers to the ever ubiquitous wooden mortar and pestle required for somtom and northeastern chili dips. Most Isaan restaurants in Bangkok are little more than temporary street stalls whereas Crok Mai is relatively large and much more permanent. In fact, it’s permanent enough to even have its own website: Crok Mai Thai Lao. It is also well known for the expansive menu it harbors, featuring regular favorites such as grilled chicken, somtom, curries, and soups all the way to frogs, snails, bugs and vegetables not often found in Bangkok. There are way too many interesting things to try and I will have to make many visits to test them all. I even noticed at least 12 different kinds of bugs on the menu! Alas, as often happens when a restaurant becomes popular, the price is higher than typical Isaan fare and the portions seemed quite small. Even so, the chance at tasting all these new foods makes it more than worth it for me.

This was actually my second visit to Crok Mai. After my first visit I sort of forgot about it until recently. On this visit I went for a nice variety of food. First, I chose a mushroom soup (gaeng hed paw [แกงเห็ดเพาะ]). I found a lot of information about hed paw at thai-mushroom including the common name of barometer earthstars. Wikipedia states that many “North American sources often describe [them] as being of either unknown edibility,or too tough to be edible.” I think these are relatively uncommon in Thailand, but mushrooms were edible and I didn’t get sick. Actually, they were very tasty with an earthy flavor and a lot of fun to eat too since they (sort of) popped in your mouth.

Ant egg omelet

Ant eggs!

Second, I got an ant egg omelet (kai jiaow kai mod daeng [ไข่เจียไข่มดแดง]) which was actually disappointing. I have had red ant eggs several times before (ant egg soup), and this was the stingiest anyplace has ever been with the eggs. I was expecting a plump spoonful of eggs with every bit of omelet, but I could barely taste the ones in this. If you look close enough, you can see a few white eggs mixed in there, but more or less it tasted like a plain old omelet. The only way I recognized the eggs was the occasional pop (like the mushrooms) when I got one. Now I know: never skimp on the ant eggs in your omelet.

bee grubs

bee grubs closeup

Third was some bee larva (rang phung yaang [รังผึ้งย่าง]). I have also had this before, but I wanted to see how it would be prepared here. The serving was small and basic: some grilled up bee grubs and a bit of salt. It had an odd flavor that I found to be very good, although it was slightly pasty at times. It’s strange because not only do you eat the larva, but you also eat the hive around the grubs. If the hive had been out in the wild longer, I believe the meaty grubs would have turned into bees, the hive would have waxed over, and then it would have been filled with fresh, sweet honey. Sometimes its amazing how much difference a little bit of time can make for a potential food.

grilled frog

sour fish

Fourth, I ate a meat dish: grilled frog (gop yaang [กบย่าง]). This was the most surprising plate of the day. On the previous occasions I’ve eaten frog in Thailand, they just minced it up, bones and all. In this case, it was actually a whole grilled frog. I was surprised at the amount of meat on the frog and it was quite delicious. This cliche saying truly is fitting here: tastes just like chicken!

And finally, I needed some sort of fish so the meal was finished off with some bplaa som (bplaa som [ปลาส้ม]). The bplaa som was big and tasty with large bones. Large bones are good because they are much easier to pick out compared to the usual array of small and microscopic bones you encounter. I have talked about bplaa som before here, but to quickly summarize, it is basically a fish that is covered with rice and water which is then left to ferment (or rot) at room temperature for a few days before cooking. I did a quick search for a recipe and found this funny quote:

9. Soak it in a bowl of beaten egg before you deep fry. Don’t forget to remove the rice you see outside the fish. Leave the rice in side its mouth and stomach there. I think it will be ok.

All in all, this was a refreshing meal. Thai food is almost always delicious, but if I had to choose a region, it would definitely be Isaan-style food. I find it to be more exotic with bold tastes that can really get to you. Whether it’s salty, sour, bitter, sweet, or, most noticeably, spicy, northeastern cuisine just seems to have more oomph in it.

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Nice scorpion

แมงป่อง (maeng bpong)

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Ready to eat

Well, it didn’t take long to prepare those. Throw them into the wok with a bit of soy sauce and there you go. So now I have this stir-fried assortment of bugs sitting in front of me. I won’t be digging in too much, though. I just had a sample of each and that is enough for me. They all taste pretty much the same and not bad at all, but I’ve blogged and tasted many bugs in the past. Although maybe the perfect analogy just came to mind: soggy potato chips. That is exactly what the texture and taste is like so if you can handle that, you can definitely handle a serving of grasshoppers, water beetles, and crickets. Just close your eyes first…

closeup!

Another angle!

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What a surprise!

I came home just the other day to discover that someone had purchased a bag of treats. Maybe I should be more specific and say a bag of Thai treats…AKA bugs. Yep, I encountered a variety bag of bugs including grasshoppers (dtakadaen [ตั๊กแตน]), water beetles (malaeng dtapdtao [แมลงตับเต่า]), and mole crickets (malaeng sawn[แมลงซอน]). I have tried many bugs in my time here in Thailand, but of these three I had only encountered the grasshoppers before. All these bugs were freshly killed and ready to be fried up. Stay tuned for an update.

Three different kinds

water beetle (แมลงตับเต่า)

mole cricket (แมลงซอน)

grasshopper (ตั๊กแตน)

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Bamboo salad

This here is an Isaan dish called supnawmai [ซุบหน่อไม้]. It is basically a bamboo salad in a similar vein as somtom. I really enjoy this dish and for a little while was going on a binge ordering ever day. It is nice and sour from the pickled bamboo that forms it’s base, but it’s got a lot of other tastes as well. I especially like the texture of the stringy, shredded bamboo alongside the crunchy, roasted bits of rice thrown in the mix. Many other bamboo dishes have a firmer, stiffer texture to them. This meal is often served in typical Isaan fashion with some grilled chicken and sticky rice. And to top things off, bamboo is supposedly very healthy for you!

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Happy Pigs

On the rural road between Korat and Buriram there are a few strange attractions. This is a shot of some giant pig statues. They sure look happy holding their bottle of beer. They are part of a larger group of statues used to advertise for a place that sells whole pork legs commonly used to make the dish khao kaa muu (stewed pork leg). Despite the marketing effort, the place always seems to be empty.

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A plate of duck beaks

Closeup of a quartered duck beak

Grilled duck beaks

Here’s one that ranks up there with the strangest: grilled duck beaks (baak ped yang [ปากเป็ดย่าง]). This dish is usually eaten by Isaan folk when they need a snack during their drinking sessions.  The beaks are quartered when looking at them head on so each piecea is actually just one fourth of a beak.  The thinner end is near the tip-you can see teeth in the closeup.  The thicker end is where all the meat and tendons that attach the beack to the face are.  You still eat the entire thing.  The beak is brittle like bone and the meat…well…what little there is, is very tough and chewy with a strange taste.  Just munch on it like a very hard potato chip.  I wonder who first came up with the idea of this snack.  Interesting, nonetheless.

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dtom saep haeng

Here we have another Isaan favorite, dtom haeng (or the longer version: dtom haeng kruang nai wua [ต้มแห้งเครื่องในวัว]). In this case we have beef insides, although pork can also be used. It can also be served as a soup. Actually, it is usually just simmering in a giant pot and even you want the soup version they’ll just give you some of the broth as well. Either way, the meat is generally tender (for innards) with a sour, ‘tom yummy’ taste. Anyway, just by looking at it you can get a pretty good idea of what it is. We have intestines, stomach, liver, lungs, and meat. I’m surprised they leave the kidney out considering that is also commonly eaten. My personal favorite part is the tiny pieces of real meat you occasionally get, followed by the lungs. For some reason I like the lungs although I vaguely remember reading that they are unhealthy and possibly even dangerous to eat.

Lung piece closeup

ต้มแห้ง

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Tiny bugger

These tiny bugs, called gudjii [กุ๊ดจี่] up in Isaan are another unique snack. These bugs are actually members of the dung beetle family. In other words, they are bugs that live almost exclusively on animal poop. And many types don’t just eat the poop, but actually play with it by rolling it into little balls. I wonder if that’s what makes them so tasty?

I found these insects quite entertaining as we caught them. They fly really slowly towards the lights in the house, then get blinded and fall to the floor. Often times they land on their back where they have a seriously difficult time getting back on their feet. While they’re laying there we can just snatch them up and throw them in a little cup of water. They can’t climb up the smooth sides and the water doesn’t let them use their wings.

Once you have enough of them, just throw them in the wok for a quick stir fry, maybe add a few spices and some fish sauce, and there you go. They really do taste pretty good and you can just pop them in your mouth. I also find it interesting that I have never seen these for sale anywhere. I guess they’re just not as profitable as the maengdaa and mod daeng.

I also found a Thai site with a few more pictures and information on dung beetles: malaeng.com .

Tasty little critters

Stuck in the bowl

Ready to eat

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The pleasant serving dish

This here is a common Isaan dish called dtom saep [ต้มแซบ]. It is a sourish soup, somewhat like tom yam with the main difference in the meat department. Tom yam is generally served with chicken or shrimp as the meat whereas dtom saep is always (as far as I know) with pork or beef. And of course it’s not the pork and beef you would see in a typical western meal. Nope, this meal consists mainly of the parts we would usually throw out: intestines, stomach, liver, and lungs are some of the more common pieces. Occasionally you are rewarded with a real piece of meat. With that said, I do find this soup to be quite tasty and regularly order it when I go out for Isaan. You can also order the dry (haeng [แหง]) version which I will save for a separate post.

In this particular case we ordered a big portion that came in a nice sized serving bowl with a charcoal flame in the middle to keep it hot.  These bowls are frequently used in restaurants, but I’m not really sure why since the soups are always piping hot in the first place.  I always find it a bit of a nuissance since then it forces me to wait longer for the food to cool down.

Another item that made this order somewhat unique is that we managed to get a bunch of vertebrae in the soup. These bones take up a huge amount of space and there is very, very little meat on them, but I guess they add to the flavor of the soup.  It definitely makes for an interesting experience.  Spinal cord soup, anyone?

Some leftover vertebrae

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