When faced with the complexities of eating breakfast (in Chinatown, Bangkok, Thailand), sometimes ‘simple’ is best.
On Yaowarat Road, in Samphanthawong District, which forms the main ‘stream’ in Bangkok’s Chinatown, street sellers proffer all kinds of ‘edible’ fare from fish maw soup, to ‘kebabs’ with myriad chunks of somethings desperately yearning for plentiful chilli sauces. If, however, like me, you may desire none of these for your breaking of fast, then there are few alternatives.
My last day in Bangkok’s Chinatown (yesterday in fact) I, after mooching along side street after side street, espied a long, brown and white, street ‘banner’. Although I don’t read Thai, the pictures were enough to entice me into a very small roadside eatery seemingly occupied by three elderly Chinese Thais.
I had found what I was looking for.
That was a place selling local (well Vietnamese, actually) coffee, half-boiled eggs (scooped into a cup and had with white pepper and soy sauce) and coconut jam (kaya) on thick white toast (which came ready cut into edible rectangles). In Malaysia and Singapore these places are remnants of the old Chinese (Hokkien or Hakka) eateries, and called Kopitiams.
I had managed to converse with the elderly owner in my very little Mandarin, a lot of pointing and gesticulating and his equally as bad English. Somehow we got by and I got the breakfast I had been desiring.
And, yes, it was a simple pleasure.
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