We believe great food should be celebrated in its many forms, whether genuinely old and authentic or the good old-fashioned bastardised cuisines of the kind we grew up on in Australia, like Chinese-Australian food, Chinese-American, and so on, which Bangkok-based Adelaide-born chef Jess Barnes calls ‘trashy Chinese’. He loves the stuff and so do we, so we thought it was time to catch up with Jess and get his tips to eating ‘trashy Chinese’ in Bangkok.
We just spent a week in Bangkok covering the Grand Gelinaz! Shuffle and chef René Redzepi and team Noma’s takeover of chef David Thompson‘s Nahm Restaurant. If you haven’t heard of the Gelinaz! Shuffle, it’s a global foodie event that requires some of the world’s best chefs to fly halfway around the world to cook in a surprise kitchen for a night. Diners don’t find out who is cooking their food until the end of the evening. It was a blast.
While in Bangkok we caught up on lots of new restaurant openings since our last trip (more on those soon) and got to a fun pop-up at cabaret-style bar-club Maggie Choos called Big Trouble in Little China. A collaboration between Opposite Mess Hall owners, chef Jess Barnes and Tim Butler (head chef at Eat Me), and chef Blair Mathieson, who helmed the Quince restaurant kitchen, where Jess was head chef before opening Opposite.
At Big Trouble in Little China, Blair is cooking what Jess describes as ‘trashy Chinese’ food. As there was a small group of us (my best friend and her sister-in-law had just visited us in Siem Reap and were unexpectedly passing through Bangkok so joined us), we got to try everything on the tantalisingly-short menu – a DIY tick-off menu the length of the usual Friday night specials menu on the inside of the photo albums that served as Chinese restaurant menus when we were kids.
Everything was super-delicious and some dishes sublime. Great drinking food that we washed down with great cocktails. As we’d expected. Opposite Mess Hall has been one of our favourite casual Bangkok bar-eateries since it opened in 2013 and Jess’s food is fantastic: sharing-style plates of idiosyncratic flavour combinations that for us are quintessentially contemporary Australian: often unexpected, sometimes odd, yet they always work, and always leave you wanting more.
‘Trashy Chinese’ by Jess’ definition is the Westernised Cantonese food that he grew up on, the food that is still possible to find in Chinese restaurants in Chinatowns, city suburbs, and coastal and rural towns across Australia – and in ‘same same but different’ forms in the cha chaa tengs of Hong Kong, where it’s called ‘Soy Sauce Western’; in cities around Asia with old Cantonese communities; and in Chinatowns right around the world.
For sophisticated Australian foodies, it’s the food we all ate before we understood that Chinese cuisine is regional; before we knew what Cantonese, Sizchuan, Fujian, and Hunan cuisines were. It’s the food that influenced the chefs cooking contemporary Australian cuisine, and before that modern Australian food. It’s the food that lingers in shopping mall food courts across Australia, that influenced chefs like Jess; the food that’s become a guilty pleasure for many. Hence the affectionate ‘trashy Chinese’ moniker.
Some dishes we try at Big Trouble, like Special Fried Rice, evoke delicious childhood memories. But in name alone, not flavour. The food at Big Trouble is far too good to be labelled ‘trashy’. We wish the food at the suburban Chinese restaurants that our families took us to as kids had tasted this good!
Highlights on the Big Trouble menu include gently-spiced sea prawns stir-fried in hot chilli paste (B400); a choice of very moreish tempeh or pork belly bao with Sriracha mayo and kimchi (B120); heavenly bone marrow dumplings with horseradish, ox tail and cheek broth (fantastic value at B300); crisp barramundi fillets with celery, ginger, spring onion, rice wine, and soy (B400) (which was possibly the most Chinese-Australian of the dishes, yet still not trashy); a wonderful ‘General Tso’s Rabbit’ of buttermilk fried rabbit with chilli and peanut; a damn fine Drunken Chicken with bamboo, corn, chicken crackling (B250); and a wonderful duck fried rice with organic egg, turnip cake, lap cheong, and kale (which I plan on recreating in our Siem Reap kitchen the second we’re back home).
We just had to catch up for a chat with Jess about trashy Chinese food, Big Trouble, his favourite Chinese restaurants in Bangkok, and his tips for experiencing the Old Bangkok Chinese neighbourhoods, Bangrak and Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown.
For more interviews with locals from Bangkok and beyond, chefs, artists, designers, and the links, see our Local Knowledge series of interviews with local experts and insiders from around the world.
Chef Jess Barnes Guide to Trashy Chinese Food in Bangkok
Here’s chef Jess Barnes guide to trashy Chinese food in Bangkok.
Q. What’s trashy Chinese food?
A. Trashy Chinese is just our take on bastardised Chinese food. It’s not meant to be authentic. It comes from our experiences and travels, the things we like to eat, and versions of things we ate back home. We do our best to use quality ingredients and practice solid technique but it’s jovial. It’s meant to be fun.
Q. Did you eat Chinese as a kid growing up in Australia?
A. We ate a lot of Viet-Chinese in South Australia – sweet and sour pork, salt and pepper squid, pippies in XO sauce, beef and black bean, that type of shit.
Q. Did your mum cook Chinese at home?
A. Mum was a terrible cook so dad or myself did most of the cooking. My dad taught me how to make a decent fried rice, which I’m still trying to work out.
Q. Did your family have a favourite local Chinese joint with a Lazy Susan that they frequented on Friday nights?
A. On special occasions we would go to a Chinese restaurant called the Prince Room. I fondly recall fried ice cream, wondering how the fuck they pulled it off. Ha! Ha!
Q. Are you a fan of Bangkok’s old Chinese neighbourhoods like Bangrak and Chinatown?
A. I’ve been living in Bangkok for almost six years now and always in Sukhumvit, so trips to Chinatown are always exciting and I feel a million miles away from the cacophony that is my ’hood. As a young backpacker years ago I was excited and disgusted by Khao San Road but knew it wasn’t the real Bangkok. To find that, it takes time to dig beneath the surface.
Q. Best trashy Chinese food in Bangkok?
A. A few of my favourites…
Boon Pochana – open late, the food is not too greasy, not too spicy and great portions. Love the pan-fried soup dumplings here. Chefs love this place. 152/8-9 Silom Road, Silom.
Yong He Dou Jiang – amazing dumplings, mutton soup, fried chrysanthemums, and house tofu. I don’t like the stinky ass century eggs. Yukky. It’s under BTS Chong Nonsi.
Crystal Jade – I like the one under the Erawan.
Da Bai Bao Dian – These buns in Chinatown are so good.
Q. Some favourite spots to eat in Old Bangkok, Bangrak and Chinatown?
China House – fancy dim sum at the Mandarin Oriental, Bangrak, which is nice for a treat.
Jae Fai – half on the street with a shop-house, Je Fay is very special. I’m not a big seafood eater, but the crab with curry and egg, and the crab omelette are the best in town. 327 Maha Chai Road, Phra Nakhon
Roti Mataba – Roti Mataba on Phra Athit Road, Phra Nakhon, has been around for years and is always great.
Sala Rattanakosin – this restaurant is great for dinner and drinks with a spectacular view of Wat Arun.
Q. If people only have time to try one Chinese dish in Bangkok what should it be?
A. Splurge on the suckling pig at Tang Jai Yoo in Chinatown. 85-87 Soi Yaowaphanit, off Yaowarat Road, 11am-2pm & 5-8pm.
Q. Things to buy in Chinatown?
A. I’m a sucker for pomegranate juice and hot chestnuts on Yaowarat Road. I also like the Indian Quarter in Phahurat for spices.
Q. Food aside, your top tip for Chinatown?
A. Check out the night markets on the weekends; the Thieves Market is particularly interesting.
Q. Your top Chinese cooking secret?
A. Learn how to season a wok correctly and always use clean oil – covers a lot of bases.
Q. So what’s cooking at Big Trouble in Little China?
A. Blaire is a good guy and a great chef. The menu is very simple at the moment but we plan to step it up this week with a few more items like: octopus, ink and black pudding fried rice; Tim has this awesome tripe and short rib dish he’s doing which we will adapt to a kimchi hotpot; cumin lamb buns made in house; and we have a local organic and sustainable prawn supplier now, so we will do some chicken and prawn dumplings with black vinegar; and crispy leeks, saffron, lobster, and chorizo congee.
The original Opposite Mess Hall on Sukhumvit Soi 51 has now closed and Jess is now helming the kitchen at Lady Brett, Thonglor. Look out for ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ pop-ups at Maggie Choo’s.
