Cool off with classic khao chae

WHEN THE thermometer tops 38 degrees, you need to find food and drinks that cool the overheated soul. Thailand thankfully has its own traditional summer refresher in khao chae, and it’s widely available right now.

The chilled rice served in jasmine-scented water with an array of elaborate side dishes both sweet and savoury is a different kind of dining experience. 

The side dishes – like deep-fried shrimp-paste balls, bell peppers stuffed with minced shrimp or pork, and sweet and crispy shredded beef or pork – shouldn’t be mixed into the rice, as is the custom when, say, eating rice soup. They tend to cloud the water and foul the scent and taste. 

Instead, you have a little bit of each in turn, followed by a spoonful of the chilled rice.

Preparing khao chae is a meticulous process, so home cooks have veered away from it over the years, given that meals these days are more easily made. For the most part you have to get out and find a restaurant that’s doing the hard work for you. We’ve found a few places that are happily doing khao chae this month and next, so there’s no need to endure the summer heat without this summer treat.

 

NAI LERT’S PLACE

Surrounded by a dreamily landscaped garden, the restaurant Ma Maison shares the same compound as the Nai Lert Park Heritage Home, the refurbished century-old former residence of Lert “Nai Lert” Sreshthaputra. The revered property tycoon and preservationist erected the twin buildings in glorious teak.

And this is another wonderful place to enjoy khao chae, where the set meal costs Bt390 all this month. 

At Ma Maison the banquet entails the chilled rice in jasmine water with shrimp-paste balls, sweet dried fish, shredded pork, stuffed shallots and stir-fried sweet, pickled Chinese turnips, as well as those stuffed sweet peppers encased in egg.

The restaurant’s name might be decidedly French, but its chefs excel at Thai dishes, using the actual recipes of Nai Lert’s wife, Khunying Sinn. 

Nai Lert (1872-1945) is remembered as a developer but also as the man who ran the ferry and bus services (as well as a shipyard, a department store, a hotel and a taxi company that used imported cars. And he also had an ice factory.

“Ice wasn’t even available in Bangkok until 1905, when Nai Lert introduced it to Thailand,” says Naphaporn Bodiratnangkura, his great-granddaughter. “A connoisseur of food, he began adding ice to the rice to make it truly refreshing. 

“Nai Lert was a true pioneer – the first to import soft drinks from Singapore, which he sold at the Nai Lert Store on Charoen Krung Road, which at seven storeys was the city’s tallest building when it was completed in 1927. 

“He brought in whiskey, wine, beer, ham, canned sausages, coffee machines, sewing machines and bicycles, and the same building also housed his Hotel de la Paix, a European-style bar, along with the ice factory.”

 

MY DINNER WITH JIM

Until May 15 the Jim Thompson Restaurant has a khao chae set for Bt490 that’s a fastidious delight for the eyes as well as the tummy. 

The main bowl contains chilled, fragrant sao hai rice, some of it blue thanks to an infusion of dok anchan (butterfly pea). 

The rice comes with moderately spicy stuffed sweet peppers wrapped in duck-egg batter and stuffed shallots. The shallots, the single-clove variety, come from Ratchaburi and are filled with the sun-dried meat of snakehead murrel. 

Other side dishes are salted fish fritters, sweet radish, fried shrimp-paste balls, spotted eagle ray caught off Hua Hin and sauteed with sugar. 

The meal ends with mango, sweet sticky rice and beautifully carved seasonal organic vegetables. 

 

HAPPILY HALAL

The Al Meroz, Bangkok’s first halal hotel, makes sure the khao chae being served at lunchtime this month at its restaurant Diwan adheres to Islamic strictures. 

The meal – a delightful even for non-Muslims – costs just Bt290. 

The steamed rice scented in jasmine-scented ice water comes with sweetened shredded chicken, beef and fish, fried shrimp-paste balls, sweetened shredded turnip, fried chilli stuffed with shrimp mousse, and charmingly carved finger root and green mango. 

For dessert there is a dish of mango with sweet sticky rice, a perfect ending to the experience.

 

FRESHEN UP

Ma Maison is on Wireless Road. Call (02) 655 4773 or visit the “Nai Lert Park Heritage Home” page on Facebook.

There are Jim Thompson restaurants on Soi Kasemsan 2 (02 612 3601) and Surawong Road (02 235 8931).

The Al Meroz is on Soi Ramkhamhaeng 5 off Ramkhamhaeng Road. Call (02) 136 8700, extension 4305, or visit www.AlMerozHotel.com.