A few taste sensations from Bangkok. Part Five.

This is the fifth and last in a series on dishes I loved in Bangkok; one of my favourite eating cities in the world. Sorry for the late posting – I was actually making a version of Buta No Kakuni (Japanese Braised Pork Belly) mentioned in the last post!

Mango and sticky rice (kao niow ma-muang)

Out of the Izakaya bars and back on the streets, one of the most traditional ways to end a meal in Bangkok is with mango and sticky rice (kao niow ma-muang). But Thai locals don’t need to have finished a meal to enjoy this snack. Just as many Westerners reach for a chocolate bar when they want something sweet, in Bangkok they go to their local street vendor. Usually the vendor sells mango and sticky rice and nothing else – I just love this about the street food here. Around the corner from where we stayed on this trip there was a woman who only sold bananas cooked over coals on skewers with an accompanying syrup. She would smile at me as we exchanged greetings while she worked away grilling up the bananas when I went past in the morning. By 8pm that night she’d be cleaned out – not a grilled banana in sight. Was she happy because she was doing something she knew she was good at and people appreciated? I like to think that it was a great part of it.

But back to the mango and sticky rice. Look for a stall with bright ripe mangos and plenty of locals hovering around the stand and then it’s pretty hard to go wrong. It’s also a dish that’s hard to replicate, not only because achieving the right texture and moistness of the rice with the coconut milk is a black art, but also because the Thai mangos used in the dish – naam dok maai – are simply unsurpassed by any grown elsewhere in the world. Once again, even with dessert it’s a dish of contrasting textures as well. The addition of sesame seeds (sometimes nuts) give the dish that crunch that the two main ingredients don’t provide.

A note of caution: eating a great version of this dish on the first day of a trip to Thailand can result in addiction for those with a sweet tooth and withdrawal is tough when you can’t find those damn mangoes at the local supermarket…