What I Learned from Andy Ricker on an Eating Tour of Thailand

Vintage cafe On Lok Yun has been serving all-day American-Thai breakfast since WWII. “It’s a real time capsule,” marvels Ricker. He explains that the blue rose–patterned plate of French toast in front of us has been cut into neat squares because Thais eat by pushing food with their forks onto spoons—no knives for slicing, no chopsticks (unless you’re eating noodles). And instead of maple syrup, there’s sweet, fluorescent-orange goop. Sometimes even Ricker is stumped. His best guess for the mystery sauce: a blend of coconut milk, egg whites and food coloring. On Lok Yun 72 Charenkrung Road, Bangkok; +66-2-233-9621; instagram.com/onlokyun

Ricker struggles to translate nam prik. He calls the powerful, pulpy mash part of “a class of chile dishes throughout the county” but, whatever it is, it’s never the same thing twice. The Never Ending Summer’s version, prepared with shrimp paste, accompanies a three-tiered platter of precision-cut beans, gourds, bulbs and leaves to rival Michel Bras’s iconic 50- to 60-ingredient gargouillou. Architect-restaurateur Duangrit Bunnag’s buzzy repurposed warehouse isn’t essentially vegetarian (two protein-friendly highlights: deep-fried omelet showered with edible flower buds; juicy watermelon with pungent fish flakes), but, for Ricker, the vegetable heaps on every plate are emblematic of Thai cooks’ herbaceous ethos. The Never Ending Summer 41/5 Charoen Nakhon Road, Bangkok; +66-2-861-0953; facebook.com/TheNeverEndingSummer

Ricker’s not a fan of drinking wine with Thai cuisine. He thinks it’s tricky and prefers the local beer or rice whiskey. When pressed for wine matches, he names fruity varietals with acidity like Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Albariño to cut the spice. Stick with light to medium–bodied reds, he says, and stay away from anything tannic or high-alcohol. But I really like the aromatic GrandMonte Verdelho with Bo.Lan’s personal, rooted-in-tradition food, like salad of local flowers, pork and coconut vinegar, and stir-fried cowslips with salted fish and shrimp. At their ambitious restaurant—in a chic, secluded Bangkok home—chefs Duangporn “Bo” Songvisava and Australian-born Dylan “Lan” Jones are such regional boosters that even the wine list incorporates emerging Thai producers.  Bo.Lan 24 Sukhumvit 53 Alley, Bangkok, +66-2-260-2962; bolan.co.th

Coming to Koh Kred north of Bangkok in our teakwood longtail boat is like going out to the country for a weekend meal. (The terracotta mortar I lugged home was hand-thrown in one of the island’s ancient kilns.) But we’re here because Ricker loves old-school khong waan (Thai sweets), and on Sundays, the narrow concrete lanes are thronged with vendors and day trippers, munching on a breathtaking variety for a handful of baht: coconut custard squares, feathery deep-fried flowers, a sweet mochi kind of thing, stuffed-dough pyramids, mung bean dumplings and too-many-to-count variations of steamed coconut sticky rice in banana-leaf packages. Ricker’s advice: “Just try everything.” Klong Kanom Whan, Koh Kred

My drink at Mai Klang Krung is a tall glass of tropical color—it comes lashed with a yellow-centered plumeria blossom—and the liquid is shocking purple. I think I’ve encountered the Southeast Asian equivalent of Blue Curaçao, but Ricker reveals that Thai cooks use a natural tincture of blue butterfly pea blossoms to color everything from tea to noodles and steamed rice. This noodle house-in-an-antiques shop near the magnificent UNESCO Sukothai Historical Park also serves sweet, ultratender rice-batter dumplings time-consumingly griddled on a brazier and dyed a delicate periwinkle. Mai Klang Krung 139 Chodvithithong Road, Sukhothai; +66-55-621-821

“The smell of rice is the smell of Thailand,” Ricker says. To illustrate the grain’s centrality, he offers a common Thai greeting, which means, literally, “Have you eaten rice yet?” It’s also the aesthetic inspiration for the Four Seasons Chiang Mai’s landscape; the luxe resort is designed around a terraced rice field. On the paddy’s edge, in an ancient rice barn, I encounter rice in a few of its countless iterations. This being Northern Thailand, there’s the region’s sticky rice—which locals use in small clumps as an edible spoon to pick up food and to swipe up sauce—but also boiled rice congee and wok-fried rice noodles (both Chinese imports), khao tom (pork broth–based rice soup), steamed jasmine (typical of Central and Southern Thailand) and mountain rice. One notable absence, and the subject of Ricker’s next book: lao khao, distilled rice whiskey. Four Seasons Chiang Mai fourseasons.com/chiangmai

Since I’ve been drilled in the “chef is always right” tradition, I have a hard time grasping a made-to-order cuisine in which the customer helps design her own lunch. Thai soups in particular arrive somewhat bland with the expectation that you’ll add condiments from those little jars containing khruang phrung, the “four flavors”—sugar, fish sauce with chopped chiles, chile powder and mild green chiles soaked in vinegar—to taste. At 50-plus-year-old Khao Soi Prince, one of Ricker’s favorite noodle bars, it’s also assumed I have an opinion on whether I want the beef or chicken version. The namesake curried soup always comes with hand-cranked boiled wheat noodles in a coconut milk–enriched broth of astounding depth, topped with more, deep-fried, noodles. But when the bowl arrives, there are further garnish options: add pickled mustard greens or not? What about the fried-chile paste? Raw shallot? Lime wedges? Fortunately, the complex, slightly spicy, slightly sweet one-plate meal is worth the decision fatigue. Khao Soi Prince in front of Pom Siri Dorm in Mae Joe, Chiang Mai, +66-89-435-3991

Ricker’s not preachy but he has been sounding the holistic note. I don’t get it until I’m sitting, shoeless, on the cool tiled floor of a teak hut in a Chiang Mai suburb, pounding the same roots, herbs and spices I ate for lunch into a soft, moist mass for an herbal steam bath. Next, I’m luxuriating in a fragrant fog that penetrates my pores, warming and soothing me from the surface of my skin deep into my body. Simultaneously relaxed and energized, I wonder what a healer’s touch would be like at Baan Hom Samunphrai. I’m plotting a return to this rustic-simple Thai massage school and herbal health center. Baan Hom Samunphrai  93/2a Moo 12, Tawangtan, Saraphi, Chiang Mai; + 66-53-817-362

If you’re a six-foot-two blond, like Ricker, and, in fluent Thai, you earnestly request an incendiary heat level, you may still find your food’s only mildly spicy. “It’s not a Soup Nazi, you-will-eat-this-way kind of thing,” Ricker says. “It’s concern for your taste buds.” At Baan Rai Yam, a packed-to-the-rafters, rambling restaurant with a Thai band playing the Carpenters, I’m hugely grateful for this solicitude when I mistake a fresh green chile for a piece of long bean on the crudité plate alongside my intensely spiced minced pork laap. A sympathetic waitress delivers a peeled orange when she spots me writhing. (Both sugar and fat help mollify the burn.) Post chile-bombing, the only fire I will get near is a candle-fueled paper sky lantern we release in the restaurant’s backyard into the starry night. Baan Rai Yam Yen 14 Soi Khantha-tiro, Chiang Mai; +66-53-247-999

Ricker’s whole bicoastal restaurant empire started with a flame-roasted-chicken shack. Charcoal flavors a gazillion Thai dishes—satay, jumps to mind—but his model was a particular, vertical spit–roasted bird from Chiang Mai. In fact, Northern Thailand isn’t the epicenter of grilled chicken, so for the original kai yaang, Isaan’s classic spatchcocked chicken, we stop at Khao Susan Kwang Mittraphap Roast Chicken in Khon Kaen. The mahogany-skinned birds, splayed on wooden trusses and cooked over glowing coals, look like a Cro-Magnon feast. They arrive hacked into manageable pieces with a pungent garlic-lemongrass topper and are so toothsome that we each consume one entire chicken. Alongside are little dishes of chile sauces, sticky rice and Northeastern Thailand’s fiery, superfunky version of papaya salad. If you want to understand how an elemental technique can become a completely consuming passion, this is the place to go. Khao Suan Kwang Mittraphap Roast Chicken 169/9 Maliwan Road, Khon Kaen; +66-43-236-193

Nam pla, the Thai salted fish sauce, is now an American supermarket staple. But pla ra, Northeastern Thailand’s lesser-known unfiltered, unrefined sludge of fermented fish gives me a new understanding of putrefaction. You can’t miss the link between this condiment and its terroir at Khoen Kaen’s market, where freshwater fish from the region’s rivers and lakes is exuberantly displayed next to plastic bags of pink salt (for making pla ra at home). The fishy stuff is crucial to Isaan-style papaya salad, which is a funkier, more fiery and sour version of the sweet som tam familiar to Westerners. At a cooking class at the Avani hotel, I try my hand at bruising shredded papaya with a pestle while simultaneously using a large spoon to toss it with pla ra, dried red chiles and lime juice. When I present it to Ricker for inspection, he says, nice, but how fast can you turn it out for a restaurant full of hungry patrons? Avani Khon Kaen, minorhotels.com

Thailand. Is. Not. A. Monoculture. After a week of seeing for myself, Ricker’s geopolitical spiel begins to makes sense. “It’s composed of four basic regions,” he repeats, “Central, Northern, Northeastern and Southern.” With its weather-beaten open-air huts overlooking a creek and mangroves, Mor Mu Dong has the stamp of tropical Phuket, Southern Thailand’s largest island. We dive into the restaurant’s massive oceanic menu: spicy stir-fried crab; blue-tinted jasmine rice shaped like a turtle, deep-fried curry-stuffed mackerel. But, I wonder, how do you order if you don’t have Ricker for a guide? The chef has an answer for that, too: If you don’t speak Thai, there’s always somebody around who speaks a little English. Just ask. Mor Mu Dong 9/4 Chao Fah Ta Wan Aok Road, Phuket Town; +66-76-282-302

Chinese-Thai. Laotian-Thai. Cambodian-Thai. Vietnamese-Thai. Burmese-Thai. Indian-Thai. You’d have to be a scholar of a dozen cuisines to be able to point a finger at what’s historically or “purely” Thai. In Khon Kaen, I eat amazing versions of laap (probably Laos’s best-known dish) and banh cuon (Saigon is an hour’s flight, Vientiane, in Laos, is 45 minutes). At Keemala, in southwest Phuket, I order a mishmash of Chinese dim sum, Indian dosas and a fantastic vegan spinach salad tossed with coconut-pink peppercorn dressing—and not just because it’s a luxury resort with an international clientele. Ingredients, recipes and techniques from all over the world have influenced authentic Thai cooking. Keemala 10/88 Nakasud Road, Kathu, Phuket; +66-76-358-777; keemala.com

Ricker’s constantly asked if it’s safe to eat at sidewalk stalls. His response: “Would you rather see somebody cooking in front of you or out of sight?” One late Sunday afternoon, we enter street-food paradise: Thalang Road in Old Phuket Town’s historic Sino-European district. Among stands selling pearl and jade necklaces and cobbled-in-front-of-you rubber sandals, vendors hawk everything from toasted rice crackers the size of LPs to mee krob (sticky, chewy, sweet rice noodles) and khanom buang (rice flour crepes topped with shredded coconut and egg yolk threads). Thai takes on foreign fast food are also intensely fascinating: buttered white bread toasted over burning coals and sprinkled with sugar, and khanom Tokyo, hot dogs swaddled in crispy crepes. A little intestinal discomfort is a pretty cheap price to pay for a thrilling block party. Lard Yai Walking Street Thalang Road, Old Town Phuket