In the US, Italian food has a lot to do with dried pasta and California tomato paste. In Japan, French food is a steak with curry and American food is rice noodles with a hamburger patty, topped with a fried egg. In France, Japanese food is canned tuna on a bed of rice, and Chinese is spaghetti with soy sause. But what is Chinese like in Thailand? Well, there are two ways to find out. You can go to Bangkok’s Chinatown, where a significant portion of Southern China resides, or you could go to Man Ho, a restaurant best described as ‘Chinese tribute’ at the Marriot on Sukhumvet.
Which isn’t to say it isn’t good. The menu claims an Excellent Hong Kong chef and they aren’t kidding- at least about the ‘excellent’ part. The deep wood décor would make any Chinese emperor or comrade glad that he decided to stay at the Marriot. Everything possible is silver, and when that can’t be accomplished, in porcelain, and the waiters can’t replace the plates fast enough.
So what are the tip offs? Well, first off, the waitresses, despite wearing identical pseudo Chinese dresses, bow thai- style (hands pressed together, thumbs pointing at chin, nose, or eyebrows) to you upon entering. This would be like going to a German place and having waiters in full lederhosen perform a complicated Chicago gangsta handshake for you. There are other subtleties. Like the sake martinis, and the tobiko-covered dim sum. In fact, by the time your food arrives you’re already half tempted to just ditch this Chinese pretense and order up from the distastefully named ‘Tsunami’ Sushi bar downstairs.
Anyway, authentic or not, the food here is damn fine and about as different from Chinatown as you can get and still be cooking with soy sause. There we crunched through shrimp around baby corns, pork dumplings, and fish, hot and crispy and oily and fresh from the putrid river. Here, we started with a plate of sautéed oysters covered in peppers and then moved on to steamed rice dumplings frilled with greens and more greens. Next were scallops in a tarot dumpling, the outside fried to a fluffy crispiness that dissolved at a touch. That sounds great till you realize that this made them impossible to pick up, by the time they reached the mouth they were barely a pile of crumbs. Tasty crumbs.
We had one of the better roasted ducks I’ve had- Cantonese duck is lighter on flavor than Peking, but it’s also lighter an the thick layer of subcutaneous fat, and anyway, there was a dish of plum sause to dip in. And lasty, following The Man Who ate Everything’s advice to always order a dish you expect not to like, we got a pigeon in five spice seasoning. ‘Poor man’s duck’ was AMG’s masterful summary-the taste is gamier than chicken but not as tender. Like duck that has been run through a rough meat grinder once. Besides, the surprisingly organic-looking head stares at you with accusing, char-broiled eyes while you eat.