Bangkok street food

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Bangkok’s food on a stick

Bangkok street food

Food on a stick–it’s everywhere in Bangkok. Photo by David Lansing.

Everyday Ketsara gives me a new Thai word or phrase to learn. The first day it was sawatdee, which just means “Hi.”

Today’s phrase was Gin khao reu yang?

Ketsara told me that this is another way to say hello. “Depending on what part of Thailand you come from you might say sawatdee or you might say gin khao reu yang.”

I asked her what it meant.

“It mean, Did you eat yet? Where I come from, we don’t say sawatdee. We say, Did you eat yet? This is more polite.”

Thailand, which promotes itself as the “Kitchen of the World,” has the most amazing street food scene I’ve ever seen. You can’t walk more than a hundred feet in Bangkok without stumbling across a vendor selling some little snackable tidbit. The streets smell of garlic and chili and various cuts of pig or chicken grilling over charcoal. For around a buck you can get satays of duck sausages, fishballs, chicken hearts—whatever you desire.

Most of this stuff is food-on-a-stick. You smell something fantastic—duck tongues and dried fish on skewers with a garnish of chili and coriander—plop down your 30 khat, grab your food, and off you go. An urban hunter-gatherer. And if, ten minutes later, you run in to an old friend, you greet him with a cheerful Did you eat yet? Even if, like you, he had a little something-on-a-stick just a few minutes ago, he’ll probably be more than happy to join you at the next sidewalk stall for a skewer of pickled hard boiled eggs or some curried cuttlefish. In Bangkok, it’s all good.

Gin khao reu yang?

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