Street meat

Obviously, 'street meat' could mean many things in Thailand, but in this case, it refers to the various kinds of meat, primarily skewered, that you can find on the streets of Bangkok. Now, I've been avoiding talking too much about food. There are plenty of bloggers who write obsessively about food out there and, while I certainly enjoy my food, I find all of the foodporn and armchair restaurant critiquing and quixotic quests for the most authentic variations on a particular dish kind of annoying. I don't really like being told how to eat sushi or why this restaurant doesn't serve 'real' pad see ew or what a close-up of every dish you ate last night looks like. But that's just me.

Anyway, back to street meat. When I was staying at the Marriott, I found a street cart vendor I particularly liked. She sold skewers for 5 baht each (about 17 cents) of various meats, my favorite being thin pork in a Thai BBQ marinade. I would walk by, see how much change was jangling in my pocket, and purchase some protein-on-a-stick. This is what it looked like:

So, it stands to reason that when I moved to my new apartment, I had to find a new purveyor of my new favorite snack. My friend, Damon, who lived in Thailand in the same neighborhood before, clued me in to a guy that he went to. The description he gave was a middle-aged man, usually in a blue shirt, selling his meats somewhere on Soi 11.  Oh, and that his Thai nanny agreed that it was the best street meat she had ever had. Now, there are quite a few vendors on Soi 11. However, after a bit of searching, I found the guy.

I haven't actually confirmed this, but his meat is so good, it has to be him. He cooks his pork much the same way my previous meatmonger did but he takes it to another level by sticking the skewers (perfectly charred) in a plastic bag bath of chili sauce afterward. What results is a perfect harmonious culmination of the four qualities Thais look for in their food: sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. I taste these things a half-hour after I've eaten them and I mean that in a good way (not in a bad way, like the first tube of Thai toothpaste I bought). As you can see, he also sells sausages and some other meats but the pork is king.

I've only been going to him for less than a week, so we aren't on a first name basis yet but I imagine that'll be soon. Or maybe we'll have pet names for each other. It's all very exciting. And it's still 5 baht a stick.