february

The second time it was different, but me, too, I was different the second time, I’ve written before. And so the truth has found its way in again.

I’m sitting here in a street stall coffee shop a little west of the Thonglor neighborhood in Bangkok. Liz orders a cold coffee with yuzu that tastes like the Thai correlative to the espresso and tonic. I get a hot Thai coffee faded sandy brown with sweetened condensed milk, sweet enough to put sleeves on your teeth. 

The coffee is rich, tarry, like wet tobacco leaves, but dustier, the way freshly ground white peppercorn grips to the back of your wet throat, insistently. The air is an intoxicating olfactory cocktail of dirt and petrol, charcoal and smoky wok hei, grilled meats and the musky damp fragrance of fat green leaves. All this, mixed with the perfume of sudsy detergent being broomed and sluiced down the sidewalk and into the street. 

A woman sits on the street corner, singing a meandering verse of songlike supplications for change, spare or otherwise, her voice gritty and garbled through a portable stereo microphone. It feels like a prayer, though, steady, unyielding, as though she’s been sitting on that corner a hundred years and will remain there another hundred more, her chants circling the street like the swirling eddies of diesel fumes. 

In the coffee shop, a small oscillating fan cranes side to side, blowing a string of prayer pennant flags, strung tethered and flittering, while the shop woman pries back the aluminum lid to another can of Thailand’s ubiquitous sweetened condensed milk. 

In the back of the shallow shop, where the family lives, a window reveals large portraitures of family members poised like royalty, or perhaps they are in fact members of the king's family and not the proprietor’s at all, or maybe they’re considered all the same. The way my grandmother would talk about the characters in soap operas—her stories—as though they were local gossip fodder, the Joneses down the pew or from across the tracks. That sense of suspended disbelief that allows for unwavering devotion toward a course or a cause.

Taking in all the sights, the sounds and smells, is sensory overload. The wet slap of a mackerel on a wooden slab about to be shuffled and dealt by a cleaver with the cold precision of a croupier; a woman spraying her produce, the morning light clinging to the particles of mist; a rusty corrugated shop shutter growling in aperture while monks and uniformed schoolgirls queue up for the bus; roosters ambling on the sidewalk, cawing like car horns, while street workers tug-of-war to exhume a cement pipe from the subterranean city grid.

It feels almost like being tasked with collecting the rainfall from a colossal skybreak with only a plastic bucket, an offering plate, trying to take it all in. The trick, I suppose, isn’t in capturing everything individually, but instead simply allowing the totality of it all to wash over you like a baptism. A baptism, after all, isn’t about staying under the water, but coming up from it, the water peeling away and leaving you in an entirely new air, a new way of seeing and being and believing in the everyday existence of miracles. 

Coming back here—the first time was the five weeks we spent in 2020, just before the world was turned inside out—I’m trying to understand what it is we are searching for. Other than the food, and inspiration, and some time away from Chicago’s inexorable February cold. The second time it was different, but me, too, I was different the second time, I’ve written before. And so the truth has found its way in again. Rewalking certain alleys, name-pinning remembered smells, this kind of yearning for something recognizable in its alterity, yet something entirely new at the same time, hoping it will change us somehow, or at least grant a new kind of lens for seeing the miraculous in the mundane once we return home. 

Regardless, we don’t plan on coming home the same. And of course we can’t wait to see what new food ideas and preparations we come up with as we distill the incredible font of inspiration here, offered like an alm to those hungry for revelation and wonderment, ready to be changed, again and again. 

Yours, with gratitude,

dsp + liz

serious

gallery

vol. 19: PERSIMMONS

Yes, persimmons. This entire menu was a celebration of our favorite winter fruit, utilized in various forms and preparations to highlight its sweet and musky flavor, the tannins it wields—sometimes like a blessing, sometimes like a curse—and its sensuous and tender flesh.

Several months back we connected with Allan Weinberger who runs A Very Serious Gallery in West Town, and thought the venue and its current show, “Winter Dreams,” would be the perfect backdrop to this dinner. 

The night began with guest bartender Chiyo Takemoto from Apologue and West 32 Distillery, who created a sensational cocktail with Apologue’s persimmon liqueur and West 32’s soju reserve, some mommenpop grapefruit aperitivo, umeboshi-honey, and prosecco, garnished with a persimmon wheel and a delicate sprinkle of aka shiso furikake. The drink was delightful and went round after round while guests perused the gallery space, and it was such a lovely pleasure to have Chiyo join us for the dinner.

We gathered in the soft white light of the gallery space, passing a first bite of hoshigaki paired with a brunoise of pickled rutabaga and dusted with yukari—a dried and pulverized form of the red shiso used in the process of umeboshi, as it absorbs all the extracted sugars and salt during fermentation. Red shiso, aka (“ah-KAH”) shiso, AKA (also known as) beefsteak plant. Similar to sesame leaf, shiso has a wide leaf with feathery tines, green on one side and purple on the other, like those swim trunks from the 90s with the metallic green sheen that turned purple with hydro-contact.

The first course of the night we called ‘pad thai,’ as the dish was the inspiration for the flavors here: a nugget-sized mound of sticky rice tossed in grilled gai lan juice and seared, gowned with a glossy meniscus of tamarind-black soy gaze, a dollop of persimmon jam, topped with crushed peanuts and some lime cheeks.

Up next was a persimmon carpaccio, pure and simple raw fuyu to present the wild tender and tropical flavor of the fruit. Unlike hachiya persimmons, which are insultingly tannic if eaten before reaching a cushion-tender ripeness, fuyu can be eaten when firm, skin-on, like an apple, and on through varying stages of ripeness. For this dish we had mid-ripe fuyu, with some snap still in the skin but tender flesh, sliced thinly and fanned in a concentric ring on the plate, topped with some shaved lardo (that we smuggled back from our September sojourn in Sardinia), a fistfull of feathery, finely-crushed popcorn, and sprinkled with lavender and fragrant fennel pollen like fairy dust. Simple, playful, pseudo-summery, and probably my personal favorite dish of the night. 

Next up on deck was a dish we’ve been wanting to do for awhile. Again, despite the nickel-sized snowflakes sashaying outside, a perhaps unseasonably crab tostada, wrangled back into midwinter with a persimmon vinaigrette, an emulsified kumquat kosho—fermented chilis and kumquats from my granny’s tree in Georgia—with red shiso and a lemongrass-coconut foam, all perched on a fried tar-black squid ink and masa tortilla.

Our next dish went through a wild evolution from concept to execution. What finally landed on the plate we dubbed fazzoletti (translated as “handkerchiefs” or “face towels” from Italian), typically torn scraps of pasta, but we ripped sheets of chow fun noodles, layering them like lasagna with a sunchoke bechamel and a blend of roasted cauliflower, persimmon, and fennel soffritto, pulsed to a consistency reminiscent of a hearty bolognese, baked until char-spotted and bubbling, served over a silky spread of butternut squash and white miso butter. We finished the dish with a furikake (loosely) of crushed nori and dried persimmon peel. By far the heartiest dish of the night, homey and comforting, something like nonna might scoop out of a baking dish on a snowy evening. 

Dessert was a play on banana pudding. We did a stacked napoleon with a homemade ‘nilla wafer—like a lady finger—layered with a lustrous and airy persimmon diplomat creme, some persimmon custard, sliced ripe plantain, some makrut lime leaf caramel, and a little troll’s hair poof of white vanilla cotton candy, to match the ‘Winter Dreams’ display. 

A huge thank you to Allan for having us in the space, and thank you to all who joined us for such a lovely night.

comin’ up

february

BRB, supper club!

We’re hitting the ground running as soon as we’re back from Thailand with several private events, but we’ll be back in March for a stunning menu with some early spring produce.

Remember last year’s white asparagus dish? This go-round we’ll have white asparagus with a cardamom-almond milk, rose water, and sesame; a late winter salad of pear and parsnip, pecorino and kumquat; and a sweet rice and sesame dumpling with hibiscus and ginger for dessert. 

We also partnering up with some pretty darn cool friends with some pretty darn cool spaces this April & May. Keep your eyes peeled and your heart to the ground…

BEST BITES

okay, we thought we’d try something fun here…

Instead of actual recipes this month, here’s a quick little dive into some of our favorite bites from this week :

KHAO MOO DAENG // red barbecue pork

This is a Thai-Chinese dish of jasmine rice, a mound of tender, thinly sliced red barbecue pork (the Thai version of char siu), crispy pork belly (moo krob), and sliced Chinese sausage called kun chiang.

The rice is smothered with a ladle of red (daeng) barbecue sauce—with ‘red’ and ‘barbecue’ both loosely interpreted here, as the sauce is more of a brown gravy—with the pork(s), sliced cucumber, and a hard boiled egg. Let’s talk about this egg for a minute. The yolk has such a silky buttery texture, almost like a mousse, very different from a lot of Thai boiled eggs, which are left for hours in the pot, up to the point of becoming somewhat shriveled. Oh, and the plate is served with a sidecar of a super delicate broth of celery and, presumably, chicken, that serves as the perfect intermittent palate cleanser. Absolutely remarkable.

Try as I may, I can’t find the name of this place. It’s a small stall in the Pat Pong red light district near Silom, with a smattering of outdoor tables and plastic stools in a side alley between a main road and a smaller one. Another remarkable thing about this place? I’m pretty sure this is the only dish they serve. There we were, the two of us hunched on little stools, our knees up to our chins, with like 60 other people, every single of us having the exact same dish.

We found this little corner in 2020 on our first trip to Bangkok, having just gotten into the city. It was 4am and everywhere was dead, when we turned a corner and suddenly it was like the city’s reboot kicked in. There were lights, and music, and all the things that red light districts are inclined to offer, and we fed and feasted furiously. Going back in the daytime was no less disappointing.

A few more from the week, w/ more waxing on these in next month’s newsletter:

MAW FAI (fire pot beef), Heng Chun Seng

This meal was a joy. The offerings of offal were plentiful. Ordering was simple, the service speedy, and the pungent and fragrant bubbling broth was a delightful moat that just kept on giving.

TASTING MENU at BoLan

This entire meal was jaw dropping. If you ever find yourself in Bangkok with a bit of extra baht, make this night happen. The first bite of the night: soft paw-paw with pork, prawn, and coconut.

PAD KRAPAO (holy basil chicken), Ung Jia Huad

Liz ate this for lunch three times…

KHAO TOM MUD (steamed banana in sticky rice w/ black beans), soi 55, Thong Lo

The perfect breakfast on the way to breakfast. Warm, sweet, portable.

GUAY TEOW NAM SAI (noodle soup), soi 49, Thong Lo

This refreshing broth soup is like no other. Clean but rich and hearty from shrimp balls and delicate slivers of pork. Chilis, vinegar, and fish sauce accompany each table at most sit-down carts or stalls, allowing for each diner to add at their leisure and taste. Each spoonful of pounded chilies and dash of salty fish sauce awakens the eyes and the belly, little by little, for the day.

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