EATING OUT
Informal little eatery offers dishes which cannot be found anywhere else in town
UNG-AANG TALAY
Family Restaurant Okinawa is an invitingly informal little place. |
Okinawa, located half way between Kyushu and Taiwan, has its own distinct dialect and culture, but what about the cooking? The thought that Okinawan food might be very different from the fare served in most Bangkok Japanese restaurants is something that Ung-aang Talay had never thought about until a Japanese-speaking friend made intriguing mention of an Okinawan dining room on Sukhumvit Soi 69 where, she said, dishes were served that could not be had anywhere else in town.
Family Restaurant Okinawa, located not far from the entrance to the soi, is an invitingly informal little place. The saataa andagii, warm little doughnut-like balls, crunchy on the outside, soft inside, that were immediately placed on the table were a very pleasant surprise. While munching one, Ung-aang Talay surveyed the walls, which were covered with pictures of the available dishes.
The same photos were printed on the menu, a document that will be mysterious for visitors unfamiliar with Okinawan cuisine, as the Thai and English words that appear under the pics are just transliterations of the Okinawan-Japanese names, without any explanations of what goes into them. Fortunately Ung-aang Talay's friend knew what was what, and offered some guidance as the order was placed. After she had done some explaining U-a T and friends asked for Okinawan soba with pork, goyarchanpuru (a stir-fry made with bitter melon), taco rice, rafuty (pork belly meat simmered in sauce), jiimaamitofu (a tofu dish), cuubuirishi (fried seaweed), and garlic fried rice.
The taco rice is an Okinawan dressing up of a Mexican standard. |
The garlic fried rice. |
Rafuty is a very heavy and fatty dish. |
Goyarchanpuru, or bitter melon stir-fry. |
The jiimaamitofu, which arrived first, was a dish that could easily trigger an addiction in Ung-aang Talay. It looked like an octagonal cake of snow-white tofu, but tapioca flour had been mixed into the bean curd to give it a sticky, chewy consistency. Getting a spoonful away from the dish and into the mouth required a certain amount of stretching and cutting with the edge of the spoon, but this quality, combined with its smoothness, slightly nutty flavour (peanuts added?) and the sour-sweet-salty, ginger-scented pungency of the sauce poured over it was intensely seductive. Nothing radically assertive or alien here, but a simple dish that Ung-aang Talay and tablemates finished off, re-ordered, and finished off again.
Okinawan soba turned out to be different from the standard Japanese variety in that wheat flour was used instead of buckwheat flour. It had the colour and texture of spaghetti-sized strands of ba-mee, and at Family Restaurant Okinawa was served in a bowl with three thick slices of pork belly, fish sausage and broth seasoned with chopped spring onion and other herbs. It was quite rich and, with all the fatty pork, quite filling, so much so that a single bowlful would make a meal in itself.
The goyarchanpuru, or bitter melon stir-fry, was basically a transplanted Chinese recipe - the vegetable had been fried with egg and small pieces of tofu. But there were also small cubes of what Ung-aang Talay's Japanese-educated friend assured U-a T and Nym were made of Spam, the American tinned pork product that is central to much US cuisine. But how did it get to Okinawa? Did it find its way into Okinawan kitchens by way of the US military base there?
There is no doubt that the US troops were behind the genesis of the hybrid item called taco rice. Like the Tex-Mex favourite its main component was taco filling made from ground meat seasoned with garlic, onions, cumin and chilli powder, but here it was poured over rice rather than stuffed into a taco shell, then garnished with shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes. It was interesting as a kind of Okinawan dressing up of a Mexican standard, but not the main attraction here.
Rafuty was a very close relative of the standard local khao khaa muu: big chunks of pork belly meat stewed to tenderness in a sauce flavoured with what smelled very much like phalo seasonings, garnished with greens. Like the stewed pork leg that we enjoy locally, rafuty is a very heavy and fatty dish, but the pork meat between the layers of fat is so tender and tasty that it's easy to put worries about coronary problems temporarily aside. Anyway, aren't the Okinawans, who presumably eat rafuty fairly regularly, said to be among the longest-lived people in the world?
Sitting on the plate the cuubuirishi looked very much like the seaweed salad served in some Chinese restaurants, but here the plant was fried and served hot. Once again saltiness, sweetness and sourness, all fairly intense, were balanced in the seasoning, and small pieces of pork added variety to the texture. Still, this was not a dish that U-a T would ever order again. Frying softened the seaweed to the point where it lacked the crunchiness that makes the garlicky Chinese salad made of the same plant so appealing, but this is a matter of personal taste.
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The garlic fried rice at Family Restaurant Okinawa was an interesting variant on the version of the dish served at most Bangkok Japanese restaurants. The garlic-flavoured rice was very moist and was made more interesting by the addition of small pieces of vegetables, among them long, thin slices of shiitake mushroom. It was especially good when doused with a dollop of the bottled rice wine sauce spiked with chillies that is among the condiments set on the tables. Try it.
Service was courteous and informative (although the sole waitress on the scene during U-a T and friends' visit spoke little English). Prices were in the low mid-range, just over 1,000 baht for this meal that was more than enough for four.
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Family Restaurant Okinawa
24/1 Sukhmvit Soi 69, Phra Khanong
Tel 02-711-0536, mobile 089-892-3512
Open daily except Monday 11:30am-10pm
Parking in soi
Prices: Low mid-range; two can dine for well
under 1,000 baht
No credit cards
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