An adventure of convenience with a big tab

An adventure of convenience with a big tab

As the fate of countless Bangkok street food eateries still hangs in the balance, regular customers like many of us can only wait and see whether our daily lifestyle will change.

Earlier this week, City Hall said it would let only two globally famed street food scenes on Khao San and Yaowarat operate while it will either ban or relocate the remaining vendors on main roads in the inner-city area. Now it seems quite certain City Hall won't be able to provide new market places with proper hygiene management for the vendors to be relocated. Mmm, does that mean street food regulars will have to adapt?

Of course, high-income earners and the middle class can still rely on proper restaurants and sometimes opt for rooftop dinners. But millions of Bangkok's low-income residents and cost-conscious people need street food despite its "inadequate hygiene" because it's more affordable.

I found it hard to picture how an average resident would survive and so I decided to experiment and spend a day without street food.

Sirinya Wattanasukchai is an assistant news editor, the Bangkok Post.

My breakfast choice was a branch of a popular convenience store franchise in the prime Ploenchit area. It was tough for me to make the right picks from the hundreds of items on display -- rows of ready-to-eat food, with an expiry date and guaranteed hygiene, dozens of fresh bakery items, freshly cooked choices and freshly brewed coffee right at the corner before the exit. I was in a queue with quite a few customers.

Popular Thai dishes, from khao krapao kai to fried rice, that I normally order from my street food vendors were also available in frozen food boxes. Why wouldn't I take one of these more hygienic choices and forget those offered by vendors who "illegally take over the pavement and cook in the middle of a polluted environment"?

I decided to go for freshly made "creamy omelette on rice" -- a popular choice at the branch with over 100 sold each morning. The creamy omelette rice, with one seasoned egg, was as fresh as the omelette on rice offered on the street and probably cheaper.

I was certain that it would be "more hygienic" than omelettes cooked on the streets. But one thing I was uncertain about was whether it would fill my stomach. So over the day, I had to make more trips to other branches of the convenience store franchise to get a ham cheese sandwich, and then picked a ham cheese croissant sandwich, and a double ham cheese grilled sandwich.

Okay, I took them all. I planned to save some leftovers for brunch.

I tried not to look further because I didn't have the whole morning to decide. Life was full of choices; more sandwiches with sausages or fried eggs, or packs of boiled eggs or some waffles or banana cake. More Thai offers for the palate were on a nearby shelf: Burgers made of sticky rice and deep-fried pork strips.

Other choices, like spaghetti pork balls, pork lasagna or buttered croissants and sweetened condensed milk were too strange for my breakfast.

Once you decide, then life becomes much easier. You don't even need to communicate about what you want to eat (even though you will be asked at the cashier if you want some more pork buns or wanton).

You just need to simply follow the instructions on the food packages -- most produced by a few house brands -- and put them in a microwave and set a time for heating.

If you fancy some fruit, don't bother to look for street fruit sellers who may "not even clean their fruits properly". Fresh banana and sliced apples were also offered to me in sealed packages.

Oh, that tuna sushi roll and grilled salmon onigiri was definitely going to be my late lunch that afternoon. And the steamed egg -- that comes in a small cup seemed to be a convenient to-go choice that no street vendor would want to make for me -- would be my supper.

After checking out at the store, I sat down at a space provided nearby and finished my breakfast.

What a life! I can't think of anyone who understands us -- Thai consumers who hate the summer heat -- so well and puts all kinds of different choices of food under a few house brands in just one air-conditioned shop.

Why should I complain if the street food will soon be banned? We can really survive with convenience stores. I survived that day and paid 237 baht, a little too high for an average income earner, with a little too much sodium in my stomach.

How do you plan to survive your day without Bangkok street food?

Sirinya Wattanasukchai

Columnist

Sirinya Wattanasukchai is a columnist for the Bangkok Post.

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