- Bangkok famous!
Oh, look at that, that is just beautiful!
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Hey everyone, it's Mark Wiens with migrationology.com
in Bangkok, Thailand.
I'm in a taxi right now and on my way to Dalat See Yan
which is near Tou Dusit
and I am going to eat at what I've heard
is one of the most legendary places to eat a dish
called yum naem khao tod,
which is a fermented pork rice salad.
It's only gonna be a take-away food stall
so they have no seating and no tables
and they just serve it to you in a plastic bag.
If you want to eat it on-spot,
you gotta bring your own plate,
so somewhere in my bag,
I've got a plate and I am gonna eat it on-spot.
I got a plate and there's a spoon somewhere
below the camera in my backpack.
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I really love Sriyan Market.
There are so many interesting things
and it's such an old classic Bangkok market
and this has been one of my favorite markets
in Bangkok for a long time.
There is a lot of delicious food around here,
but the reason that I have never tried this
yam naem place is because they are literally
only open for a couple of random hours during the day,
and a couple of random hours in the evening
so if you don't catch them at the exact right time,
you will never see them.
And also from what I've read they often sometimes
sell out before they even open,
there's a whole long line of people
and they only have a certain amount
that they sell per day, or per time they open.
Ying, my wife, talked to them on the phone.
They said they're gonna be open at 2 p.m.
So we have about an hour to just walk around,
but we're definitely gonna show up early
so that we get our hands on some yam naem today.
As we're waiting for the yam naem,
we've decided to try,
there's another famous vendor that's selling
haw mok here.
So it is haw mok made with snakehead fish.
I know it's down here somewhere.
Oh, where is it?
I hope I didn't forget my spoon.
Oh, I got it, oh yeah.
So I just got one haw mok
and she told me that it's made with pla chon,
which is snakehead fish
and haw mok is a type of fish custard
which is made with a whole bunch of curry paste
and fish and then it's stirred for so long
that it turns to almost a meringue.
This is a real old Thai dish that has Portuguese influence,
so it's kind of a Portuguese-Thai dish
It's steamed in a little banana leaf cup and then,
oh yeah, you can feel that like custardy texture.
Oh yes.
And I really love haw mok when it is made the old way
but you can definitely find some versions of haw mok
which are not very good.
(chuckles) And this is definitely gonna be a good one!
At least I think so, because you can already see
the pieces of fish in there
and then the custardy curry paste and egg,
which is just like coating and surrounding it in custard.
Oh wow!
That's one of the best haw moks I've ever had.
Mmm!
The depth of spices in there,
and then the fish is really soft and really juicy
and then it's just surrounded by that coconut milk
which has like completely custard-ified.
I'm gonna take another bite
with that piece of fish and that chili,
and you can just see all that juice
and those juices that have formed down there.
That coconut milk, the eggs in there, the fish,
it is just a pure harmony.
And normally, you would eat this with rice,
but just as a steak it is amazing.
The leaves on the bottom, in Thai, they're called bai yaw.
And they're kind of stuck below there.
There they all came.
This is why I love Sriyan Market so much.
There are so many gems like this.
Haw mok is one of the Thai dishes
that's very common to find, but it's very hard to find
a really good version.
That's because it's actually very difficult to make
and it's also very time consuming,
because you have to really stir the coconut cream
until it becomes custard
and it's very strenuous as well.
But this is a true place to eat some amazing haw mok.
Wow, that was good!
We have about a 30 minute wait now
until they open the next stall.
(woman speaks in foreign language)
(mans speaks in foreign language)
(woman speaks in foreign language)
Oh, you got one to-go too?
- These are to-go.
- She literally just rolled the cart
to the position here on the sidewalk
and magically just a whole crowd of people appeared
and started ordering.
But yeah, she definitely had some orders
before she even started selling
and she is just busy as soon as she rolls her cart here.
Instead of having her put it
into the plastic bag for takeaway,
I just gave her my plate which I brought with me.
This salad is composed of three different parts,
the pig skin and the khao tod, which is like rice balls.
She has already broken them down
but they are deep-fried rice balls,
and then also the crunchy bits.
Then she mixed in some chili flakes,
she mixed in some lime juice and fish sauce,
and she really stirred it up just extremely expertly
using a plastic-bag mitten
and then piled it onto this plate.
Oh, and there's some green onions on top.
Then in the bag here, she gave me some side toppings.
She said to put this on first,
which is some kind of fried, crispy batter
with some chilies and peanuts on it.
Should I dump this all on?
I think I will just dump this all on.
Some extra crispies with peanuts
and some fried chilies on there too.
Then there's also vegetables on the side,
some raw vegetables to eat with it as well.
But I just gotta taste this immediately.
I thought I had lost my spoon,
but then I remembered I put it in my pocket.
You've always gotta carry a spoon with you
in your pocket.
I'm going in!
Bangkok famous.
Oh look at that, that is just beautiful.
The individual little pieces in this mixture
are just fantastic.
I think I have a little bit of everything in this bite
and I got one of those dried fried chilies and a peanut,
some crispies, some of the rice, and a lot of pig skin.
I have to admit, that pig skin usually does not sound
all that appealing to me.
But this is unbelievable.
You cannot really tell it's pig skin.
It's so soft and so tender
and it has just like a very slightly,
slightly gelatinous texture to it,
but actually, the way she's cooked it,
it's so soft and tender.
And then, oh man, there's some little pieces of minced pork
in there as well, but then also
the little soft pieces of pork skin
are just broken up by the really crispy little bits.
And it's spicy, a lot of ground chili in there,
powdered chili.
And then also it's nice and sour from the lime juice
and just perfectly salted from the fish sauce.
Wow, that is actually remarkable.
That is so good!
And what you can really taste are like
every single individual piece in this mixture.
You can taste every single piece of the pig skin.
You can taste the little kernels of fried fritter.
You can taste the green onions, you can taste the chilies.
And you also get a little bit of sourness
from that fermentation as well.
It almost kinda eats like a trail mix.
You can almost just pick it up with your fingers
and just kinda eat it like a bag of chips or something.
I'm going in for some raw vegetables.
There are some pennywort leaves and some cabbage.
Actually, let me put some of this onto my plate.
I'll just put a handful of it onto my plate.
Oh yeah, and you can just sort of garnish.
Oh, there's some Vietnamese coriander here too.
In Thai it's called phak phaew
and then some pennywort leaves.
You can just kind of garnish.
Mmm, very, very green tasting.
I love it.
Yeah, it sort of has like the caramelized crunchy bit
that you get at the bottom of the rice cooker,
but that's actually deep fried.
(group laughs)
Very good, very good.
(woman speaks in foreign language)
Yeah, as we're standing here eating this plate of yam naem,
a friendly guy, he was just talking to us
and basically he was just joking
and he was saying the yam naem is not good
and she's not very nice.
You should not come here to eat
as he was buying like four bagsful of takeaway. (chuckles)
This is one of those dishes that you keep on eating
and you don't even realize it,
and all of a sudden you're on your last bite.
And so, I'm on my last bite.
Or at least, couple of last bites.
But it has gone down so easily.
Wow!
Although it contains pig skin,
it's such a like, light dish, and kinda refreshing.
That was well worth the food adventure it was
to come eat this yam naem khao tod.
That was really, really good.
Each of the components actually are kind of random
and kind of plain on their own,
but when they are mixed together
and then seasoned with lime juice
and fish sauce and chili flakes,
it just creates like a very unlikely snack mixture,
and it even has like a dryness to it.
It's not like a juicy mixture, but it's just so good,
and it works so well together,
and that is by all means the best one I've ever had
in my life, across Thailand.
That's really, really good.
She's really nice.
The hardest thing about coming here
is trying to figure out their opening times
and if they have sold out or not.
So that is a little tricky.
I'm gonna try to write all the details.
I'm gonna end the video here.
Thank you all very much for watching this video.
Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.
Also leave a comment below.
I would love to hear from you
and I will see you on the next video.
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