Noodles with a creative flair

THE CHIANG Mai art collective known as Yonyang: Retracing Aesthetics and Friends has continued its “aesthetic business art” project by opening a noodle shop next to its successful bistro Krua Khun Kan at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. You get performance art with some pretty yummy food.

Krua Khun Kan offers Japanese cuisine, but Good Tiew Johnny Be Good specialises in kuay tiew rua. You can have your noodles with pork or beef, in soup that’s murky with blood, in tom yum or enhanced with pickled bean curd. 

These aren’t street noodles, though, so instead of Bt30 you’ll be paying Bt100 for a bowl. The portions are bigger than at your neighbourhood stall, however, and much attention goes into the details for the right balance of ingredients, flavours and textures. 

Yonyang co-founder Silwat “Jung” Ramyananda is the chef. He’s half-Japanese, so his noodle broth bears the distinctive flavour of kombu, the Japanese dried kelp that ensures umami – a natural savoury taste – plus mirin, the rice wine. 

Jung learned his kitchen craft at Hatena in Osaka, Japan, a bistro that he and his younger brother ran for 13 years, serving Thai food. Jung moved here and opened another Hatena on Chiang Mai’s Nimmanhemin Road (that conversely served Japanese food), but sold it when he shifted to Bangkok. 

 

 

So who is this Johnny Be Good?

“Johnny is a nickname of Rirkrit Tiravanija, the internationally known Thai artist who has cooked Thai dishes at galleries around the world,” says Jung. 

“Yonyang and Rirkrit collaborated on a noodle shop in Chiang Mai in 2009 as a part of an art project and sold the noodles for Bt99 a bowl – or Bt5,000 in a sculptured bowl that Rirkrit signed. But that place was only open for three days. Now we’ve made it a real business, in a permanent location.”

Jung deplores the sweetness that predominates in Thai food these days, “even som tam with fermented fish! I don’t add sugar to my broth. The sweetness comes from the pork bones and turnips. If you want it sweeter, you can add sugar yourself.”

Good Tiew Johnny Be Good doesn’t limit its guests to noodles. You can order from the Krua Khun Kan Japanese menu as well. That adds to the selection some compelling Japanese street dishes like Aesthetic Salad, which is a big bowl of diced tomatoes, cucumber, red cabbage and lettuce with sashimi, all topped with dried bonito and nori and shoyu sauce. There’s also a nice rice dish with fried pork and oyakodon – a chicken-egg-and-needle mushroom concoction in sauce.

 

IT’S THAT GOOD

>>> Good Tiew Johnny Be Good is on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, opposite the MBK mall. 

>>> It’s open daily except Monday from noon to 8.30pm. 

>>> Call (081) 595 0562.