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.

Create a standard bingo card using various items from the list below. Fly to Bangkok. Arrive any time, day or night. Walk one block in any direction, crossing off items as you spot them. I guarantee you that someone will have won before you even get halfway to the scary mob at the bus stop.
Things on a stick:

• Fish balls – Pale, rubbery, fish balls.
• Deep Fried Meat dumplings – in a crispy wrapper with sweet chili
  sauce

• Whole Squid – Roasted over an open fire. Variation: dried squid.
  On a a stick

• Sausage – Just what it sounds like, but squishier
• 
  Chicken satay – watch out for the big old chunks of fat that
  are this item’s profit margin.

• Whole half chicken – Boned, flattened between two sticks of
  bamboo, and held over an open fire

• Giant fish – Looks like a fish popsicle. Don’t eat the
  fins. Or the fish.

• Corn on a stick – I’m not really sure why this has become
  a mainstay of Thai street food.

Things in a bag

• Soft drinks – A seller pours the drink on the little bag filled
  with ice and give you a plastic straw to drink it with, thereby negating the
  point of his keeping the bottle to recycle it. Useful as a water balloon in
  an emergency

• Fresh orange juice – Salt added. Made from tiny little oranges.
  You will never drink that garbage from Tropicana again

• Roasted peanuts with sesame seeds – Usually sold out of large
  baskets balanced on yolks carried over the shoulders by tiny little men

• Deep fried banana chips – Light and crispy, or covered with
  salt and sugar

• Muffin and cream roll-ups – Exactly what they sound like
• Chili sauce– Careful of unwrapping, or beware the spicy rubber band
  of doom

• Broad beans– They’re better in the shell, not too bad without. Fried
  in oil and salty.

• Tempura sweet potato – Tasty, but sits in your tummy forever
• Little round honey cookies -Yep
• Fresh doughnuts in sugar, in peanut oil – Greasier than you’re used
  to

• Bread crusts– For the catfish, not for you

Things in a big plastic bowl

• Deep fried potatoes – Look out for the huge metal shield being
  used as a frying pan
  
• Pad thai omelet – A noodle omelet. Really good. Surprisingly.
  Add sugar and chilies, and maybe some lime and peanuts
  
• Noodle soup – Clear broth with fragrant green leafy veg, nice
  thick noodles, and sliced pork. Add sugar and chilies, and fish sauce.
  
• Different kind of noodle soup – Sweet broth over fish balls,
  plasticy fungi, (see ‘things on a stick’)
  
• Beef broth thick noodles – Or thin. who’s keeping track.
  
• Rice and duck – Or chicken. Or pork.

Things inside other things

• Bamboo sticky rice – I really don’t have a clue how this is made,
  except they crack the bamboo open with a hatchet
  
• Sticky Rice with mango in banana leaf – Apparently they teach how
  to origami these things in home-economics classes here
  
• Sticky rice with custard in banana leaf – Also
  
  
• Coconut – Chill it in a bucket of water.Hack off the top. stick in
  a straw.
  
• Deep-fried Sticky rice – Yes, in a banana leaf
  
  
• Rice pancake – With coconut and fructose. Don’t just use sugar or
  all the other pancakes will laugh at you
  
• Mini pancake – With bean paste, hot dog, or custard
  
• Banana crepes – See above. Bigger, with a banana

Things on Ice

• Tasteless gelatin deals – with red beans and coconut milk
  
• Fruit – sliced, served with a skewer
  
• Sweet coffee – sweet coffee. condensed milk not optional

Things

• Scorpions – Deep fried and battered
  
• Cicadas – Likewise
  
• Grasshoppers – Stir fried with chilies.

It

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