In this edition of Street Eats chef Lucas Sin is in Bangkok, Thailand to try sticky, spicy dressed santol at a legendary fruit stand serving the most elaborate fruit dishes the city has to offer.
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00:00 (egg cracking)
00:02 Welcome to a bright, sunny day.
00:05 An hour outside of Bangkok, I've been told
00:07 that this is the place to check out some fruit.
00:11 That's where we're going.
00:13 Welcome to J Nok Krathong Somkran,
00:16 which is known for the Somtow fruit cut up
00:19 and dressed in an amazing way.
00:22 In the couple of days that we've been here,
00:23 we haven't seen fruit stands of this size
00:25 making dressed elaborate fruit dishes of this quality.
00:29 There is fruit everywhere.
00:31 This, I think is what we're here for, Somtow.
00:35 Also known as the cotton fruit.
00:37 I'm excited because I have no idea what to expect.
00:40 The outside of this fruit is a little bit like a pet.
00:42 It's a little bit furry.
00:44 It's orange, striped.
00:46 It's quite large, but I have no idea what's inside of it.
00:50 Oh!
00:51 Is this Somtow?
00:53 The middle is like mangosteen.
00:57 It's like slurpy, a little bit slimy in the middle.
01:00 The outside, apricot texture.
01:03 Looks a little bit like a peach,
01:04 tastes a little bit like a sour peach.
01:06 The center, there's a pit in the middle that you spit out.
01:10 But the outside, you slurp, try to scrape as much of it off
01:13 with your teeth.
01:14 Kham khap.
01:16 I see honeydew, dragon fruit.
01:20 Oh, by the way, this is the dedication to fruit
01:22 we have as Asian chefs, but that's not what we're here for.
01:26 What we're here for is Somtow.
01:28 Here in the back in the production kitchen,
01:31 she's peeling through it.
01:33 The skin seems quite pliable,
01:36 but it's got good amounts of fiber.
01:38 We're soaking it in water, and the big boy comes out.
01:43 Wah, wah, okay, okay, okay.
01:47 She's not chopping all the ways through.
01:49 It looks like what she's going for is a spiral
01:52 at a bit of an angle through the top, through the bottom.
01:57 (gasps)
01:58 She presses it open.
01:59 Wah, beautiful.
02:01 Can I taste?
02:03 Oh, it needs to be, okay, yes.
02:04 This is where the bulk of it's done.
02:09 It looks like it's soaked in a little bit of a brine,
02:12 but everyone all day is doing this.
02:14 Chef told us that she prepped 1,000 portions of this
02:18 for today alone.
02:19 Here she is doing the takeout.
02:21 When she presses it into the takeout container,
02:23 she'll get a nice, blossoming swirl.
02:26 That way, when the dressing and the seasoning
02:28 and the sauce goes over the top,
02:29 you can pick it up individually for pieces.
02:31 Syrup, okay.
02:35 This is cane sugar, the chef says,
02:37 has been cooked for eight hours,
02:39 and then infused with chilies,
02:40 just to balance out that sweetness,
02:42 so it's not just one dimension.
02:44 And then over the top, peanuts, coconut,
02:47 little baby shrimp.
02:48 Wah, no way.
02:53 Get out of here.
02:54 Oh yeah, yeah, wah.
02:58 Assumptions are being challenged.
03:00 Fruit usually is sweet.
03:01 You have that classic pairing of peanuts and coconut,
03:04 both of those a little bit nutty.
03:06 You're expecting some earthy, toasted brightness.
03:09 I'm expecting a little bit of a punch from the chili
03:13 for that spice, and then for a thick syrup,
03:17 maybe something that lasts a little bit longer,
03:19 maybe something right on the edge of cloying.
03:23 Mm, whoa.
03:25 The fruit itself is tart,
03:28 but the first feeling is a sort of
03:30 buttery, supple richness.
03:35 It's obviously a little bit like that of green apple,
03:38 a little bit of those tannins at the back of your mouth.
03:40 There's a bit of guava, there's a little bit of soursop,
03:43 and the syrup is really sweet,
03:44 but it's really balanced out with that chili
03:45 and that saltiness.
03:47 It's slippery, it's smooth, but it's not quite silky.
03:50 There's a little bit of firmness because it gives way,
03:54 like a peach.
03:55 Smell toasted coconut and peanuts.
03:59 Smell that nuttiness.
04:00 You smell that fragrance.
04:01 There is a whiff of that dried shrimp, and it's very sweet.
04:04 This is definitely a summer dish.
04:09 Imagine this at a picnic, carved out
04:11 so that you can take a piece on your own,
04:13 eat it over conversation.
04:14 I mean, look out here.
04:15 All these people queuing up,
04:17 all these people here first thing in the morning.
04:18 This is one of the most popular fruit stalls
04:21 here outside of Bangkok.
04:22 I also see something over here.
04:25 What is this one for?
04:29 - Number one.
04:30 - For green mango?
04:31 - A chai.
04:33 - This is at the front of the stall.
04:34 Okay, cool.
04:36 Here's some beautifully cut green mango
04:37 with that embellishment, with that specialty knife.
04:40 Fruit carving is a big part of the culture.
04:43 This looks like chopped shallots,
04:45 more little baby dried shrimp, chilies,
04:48 that same syrup, and I smell fish sauce.
04:50 And as it sits here in the front,
04:52 all those flavors come together.
04:54 And one bowl of elasticity red brown sugar.
04:58 It looks like tamarind with a little bit of chili
05:01 and crystal white sugar, and maybe some palm sugar also.
05:05 When you order green mango,
05:07 this is what you get over the top.
05:09 Look at this beautiful gloss.
05:10 And a little bit of a topping over here too, dried shrimp.
05:14 Thank you.
05:16 This is the queen of fruit herself.
05:18 So green mango, unlike yellow ripe mango, is less ripe.
05:25 But also, you're eating it for a different flavor.
05:27 So there's a little bit of savoriness,
05:29 it's significantly less sweet,
05:30 and you want some sourness and tartness in it.
05:32 This is really good.
05:36 This is really good.
05:38 It's like every flavor together,
05:43 every single part of your palate is hit.
05:45 Here's that bright orange shrimp.
05:46 This is usually a saltwater shrimp.
05:48 These are shrimpy.
05:49 They're dry, so a little bit crispy,
05:53 little bit chewy in the middle.
05:54 It's giving us salinity
05:55 to balance out all the aggressive sugar.
05:58 The mango itself is nice and tart,
06:00 almost like a chip from when you dip it.
06:02 It's almost like three stages, sweet and sour first,
06:07 and then the savoriness from the shrimp, the fish sauce,
06:10 and then finally chili, just like lasting chili heat
06:14 at the back of your palate.
06:15 I've had versions of this before
06:17 with pork and different other contexts,
06:18 but within fruit, this is really quite special.
06:21 Is green mango a different type of mango?
06:23 Oh, I see.
06:24 So green mango is a totally different species of mango.
06:27 They're eaten primarily for their texture
06:29 and their sourness.
06:30 When they're ripe, they're not as good.
06:31 So don't assume that green mangoes
06:33 are just raw versions of the regular mangoes
06:35 that we get that we eat sweet.
06:36 Very much.
06:37 Let me tell you what's typical.
06:40 What's typical is a fruit stand in Southeast Asia.
06:44 What's typical is a cornucopia of delicious sweet fruits
06:47 that you can get, the variety that you can get
06:49 in a place like Bangkok.
06:51 What's not typical is the popularity of this place.
06:54 All day, you're just gonna see people drive up,
06:56 hop out to get their fruit,
06:57 hop back in their car, onto their way.
07:00 There are a couple of things
07:01 that make this dish uniquely Thai.
07:02 One, the availability of this fruit.
07:04 If I could get this on a regular basis,
07:06 I'd be messing with the dish all the time.
07:08 Second, the technique.
07:10 Cutting it so that you can smoosh it down,
07:13 spiral it, share it.
07:14 Third, the seasoning.
07:16 Obvious sweetness, fruit, sweet on sweet,
07:18 but also the chilies.
07:20 That echo, that backspice, the savoriness
07:23 from the fish sauce, from the shrimp.
07:25 It all comes together into something
07:27 that is a full pilot, almost full-body experience.
07:31 For us tourists, for people who aren't here in Bangkok,
07:34 I think one of the most amazing things
07:35 is to explore the fruit culture
07:37 because of the variety of textures,
07:39 variety of sweets and flavors.
07:41 Part of it is standing outside
07:42 in the sweltering heat like this,
07:44 waiting for your fruit to be cut up
07:45 and getting it dressed so beautifully, so perfectly.
07:48 It's not something I've ever had before,
07:49 and it's something I'm looking forward to having again
07:51 the next time I'm back.
07:52 Behind you, by the way, durian.
07:57 Stuffed with sticky rice.
07:59 With a queen herself,
08:01 Jai Nong Kratom Som Krum.
08:02 (laughing)
08:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]