Bangkok's Disappearing Street Food (2.7)

(Direct download .mp3)
If you're visiting Bangkok for the ubiquitous street food
culture, you might want to get here quickly. There's seemingly a
war on street food vendors in the city. And that's no jok.

Bear with us this week. Evo's dealing with a
great loss in his family and a broken microphone,
and Greg's a little sleepy from being the dad of a childhood
actor. But that's not what we want to talk about today...
This episode is all about Bangkok's disappearing street
food stalls, one of the city's most famous elements, the
lifeblood of many, and part of the city's undefinable charm. It's
also a perfect time to introduce a new segment on this episode,
one we call Love, Loathe, or
Leave. That is: how do we feel about
sharing sidewalks with street food cards and other vendors
cramping our walking style? Are they and the convenience and
culinary variety they offer part of why we
love living in Bangkok? Do we kind
of loathe sharing our space but can
tolerate the nuisance? Or do we see them as such a danger to life
and limb that we're ready to leave
the country over it? Best line of the
show: "It's called a
side-walk, not a
side-wok, after all."
But there's a human cost to consider: What happens to all
the people -- tens of thousands -- who've made their living
vending on the streets, fully sanctioned and licensed by the
government? We're told the vendors will be provided a new place
to ply their wares. But will they have the same level of
business? And most importantly, what will Greg do for breakfast
since he can't find his favorite jok
dealer? To us, this sure seems an issue of
ongoing gentrification. Suan Lum night market shut down years ago
ostensibly to make way for a development project… that never
happened. And then there's Asiatique, a bright, crowded,
new-but-made-to-look-old destination on the banks of the Chao
Phraya river. Giant eyesore? Fun destination? Or an example of
what the city government wants most of our city to look like when
they mark 250th anniversary of Bangkok
in just a few years? While Greg's
snarky love affair with Bangkok's shopping malls is on
record, neither of us are street food experts.
But Mark Weins from Migrationology
and EatingThaiFood.com
is an expert on Bangkok street
food, so we called him up to get his take.
If you're a fellow Bangkokian, tell us what you think about
this War On Street Food. Or if you've experienced a similar
change in your city, tell us about it. Go to
bangkokpodcast.com and leave a comment. Or you
can Tweet to us at @bkkgreg or
@evoterra. See you next week on The Bangkok
Podcast!