Travelfish newsletter Issue 346 : Eating like a local + Craft beer in Southeast Asia (aka drinking like some locals)
Hi all,
This week’s newsletter is coming at you from Pemuteran in West Bali and that is where the photos in this week’s newsletter have been taken (in case you are wondering)—when it comes to Bali, the West is often the Best.
One of these Pemuteran deckchairs might have your name on it. Photo: Sally Arnold
This week we’ve got a soapbox about how to eat like a local, and an interview with the founder of Beer Travelist about how to, well, drink like a local. In both cases, some locals only—please do not get offended if you have never stepped inside McDonalds or had a craft beer!
Good travels,
Stuart, Sam and the Travelfish crew
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Soapbox
Eating like a local
There was a tweet the other day asking people to suggest what their most unpopular food opinion was, and being one with no shortage off unpopular opinions, I volunteered my favourite.
“Want to eat like a local in Southeast Asia? Head to KFC or McDonalds.”
Locally produced artisan salt. Photo: Sally Arnold
It sounds spurious at first glance and I certainly got some feedback along the lines of “are you out of your mind?” but I do believe if you truly want to “eat like a local” one of the places you could/should include is sadly fast food outlets like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Pizza Hut. Here’s why:
People eat all over the joint
As with any country in there world, different people eat in different places—including fast food joints. Outside of perhaps a branch at an international airport, the vast majority of customers will be local. Indeed in centres off the tourism trail, the patrons will be near uniformly local ... as they will be at all other food outlets, because, well, there are no tourists there!
Worldwide people eat at fast food restaurants for many of the same reasons
Working for a few years at KFC pretty much cured me of ever needing to eat fast food again, but I do confess to the occasional cheeky burger. For many of the same reasons as others—ease, convenience, speed, yes ok and WiFi. These work for locals also.
Beachside dining at Taman Sari. Photo: Sally Arnold
Fast food bends to local tastes
Did you know McDonalds had a nasi lemak burger, samurai burger and McRice burger? I’m happy to confess to have never tried any of these, but that’s ok as they’re not there for me, rather they’re there for the locals, so ... if you want to eat like a local what do you do?
Be wary of your preconceptions
Everyone doesn’t eat on the side of the street, nor in the local market. Yes of course, plenty of people do, and I’m not saying this isn’t an important part of the food scene. But it is like when you see backpackers eating pad thai while literally sitting on the pavement on Khao San Road—not in the most feverish of fever dreams would locals do this—yet the perception, that they are “eating like a local” is pervasive.
Just because it is popular doesn’t mean it is good for you
This is a good story by food author Austin Bush about the relative merits of street food—short version: there may not be quite as many (merits) as you thought, but the perception that street food is the best way to eat local fare is a poorly placed one. Of course the same can be said for McDs.
Taxi! Photo: Stuart McDonald
Travel comes in all shapes and sizes
By all means eat on the street, a shopfront, a restaurant or a hotel fine dining outlet, but don’t make the mistake of assuming the fast food outlets are simply yet another example of Western food culture creep (well yes they are, but they have also become an important social and eating venue for locals—especially younger people).
So pop in and at least take a look at a menu and do let me know what a nasi leak burger is truly like—though be sure to try the real thing as well!
Good travels
Stuart
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Talking Travel
Every week we publish a Q&A, this week we’re talking to Brian Spencer, founder and editor-in-chief, Beer Travelist who I met up with while recently in Singapore.
Beer & travel–for some, that sounds like a match made in heaven. What spurned you to start up Beer Travelist?
I’ve realised over the years that in many ways the so-called “good beer trail” is an ideal gateway into many of a city’s best bits—its coolest neighbourhoods, friendliest people, best bars, and often some of its most interesting restaurants. This feels particularly true in this part of the world, where the craft beer scene is still so new compared to North America and many parts of Europe. And, honestly, I saw an opportunity to cover and approach that scene in a way that hardly anybody else does.
Who is a typical Beer Travelist reader?
Our readers are anybody who enjoys a good beer in a fun place, whether locally or while on the road. We believe that good beer is for everyone, all the time, everywhere, and we try to steer readers to just that. As our name implies, we frame our stories through travel, which again I think speaks to a wider audience than industry/insidery stuff geared to hardcore beer people. Of course, we love our hardcore beer folks, too.
You cover beer in countries from Australia to China and you started in Singapore, how do you go about deciding what beer to write about?
We are 100-percent independent media, and we do not publish sponsored content, accept anything free aside from maybe a few beers when we visit a brewery, and only write stories about places/people/cities of our own choosing. If there’s any kind of conflict of interest, we disclose it—a rarity these days.
Craft beers are a relatively new thing in Southeast Asia. What happened to get them started?
In Southeast Asia I think you can point to a few key factors driving the craft beer surge. A really big one is that more Southeast Asians are studying in and traveling to North America and Europe, where they become exposed to all that good beer. They’re big fans by the time they come home, and not only do they want to keep drinking it, but some also decide they want to make it, import it, and/or open a bar that sells it.
Singha=Thailand, Beerlao=Laos, Tiger=Singapore, Bintang=Indonesia, 333=Vietnam, will readers read about these drinks on Beer Travelist? Why not? Are these all bad beers?
No, they’re not “bad” beers, per se. I’ve drank my fair share of them. There’s a time and place for those beers, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a craft brewer who doesn’t drink a macro lager from time to time; some even do so regularly. I think it’s a bit of a misconception that beer enthusiasts, or people that just prefer craft over mass-produced beer, only drink craft. It’s worth noting, too, that there are plenty of bad craft beers; some of them are really bad.
That said, aside from the fact that each of those beers you cited are produced and distributed in the corresponding country, there’s nothing about them that is particularly unique or speaks to any kind of sense of place, which isn’t to say that all beers do that or need to. I mean, aside from very slight variations in taste, those are all interchangeable, mass-produced 5% or less lagers; you could pour Singha into a Tiger bottle and most drinkers wouldn’t know the difference.
We’re more interested in spotlighting, say, a small Thai brewery like Devanom, which maintains the country’s first hop farm and brews some exceptional IPAs, and other breweries doing similarly interesting things with beer.
I was in a hawker centre today and noticed a craft beer kiosk among the food stalls, craft beer plus cheap hawker food seems like a good match, do you expect that to become the norm? A craft beer stall in every hawker centre?
Craft beer in a hawker centre makes a good thing even better, doesn’t it? I don’t think it’ll become the norm, but it’s certainly becoming more common. The Good Beer Company became the first “craft beer hawker” when it opened at Chinatown Complex in 2011, and today I can think of almost ten craft stalls across multiple centres. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if Archipelago Brewery, which is the local “craft brewery” owned by Heineken Asia Pacific, started pushing its bottled beer range into the same general beer stalls that sell Tiger, Anchor, and other HAP brands.
In Southeast Asia where would you say has the most exciting craft beer scene?
It has to be Thailand. As some of your readers probably know, small-scale brewing is illegal there—"small scale” here meaning anything less than a million litres a year (brewery) or 100K/year (brewpub)—but true to the Thais’ unwavering entrepreneurial spirit, Thai brewers are finding creative and, ahem, clandestine ways of skirting that archaic and silly law.
Some brew in Cambodia or other regional countries, then ship the beer back into Thailand as an import—and you can buy some of those beers in fancy Thai supermarkets already. Last year a group of leading breweries got together for a project called MITR Craft, which essentially lets them (and other qualified brewers) brew and sell legally since they collectively meet the minimum volume threshold. The Thai-brewed beer quality is getting better and better, and I can’t think of anywhere better in Southeast Asia to go out for a few beers than Bangkok. There are some really fantastic, Thai-style beer bars worth checking out, including but not limited to the ones we recently featured in our Asia Beer City: Bangkok story.
Without giving away your absolute faves, can you share some of your favourite craft beers across the region? Where should Travelfish beer fans be heading?
Oh, I’m happy to give out some of my faves! It’s hard keeping up with all the latest and greatest releases, though, so it might be easier to name a few standout breweries, rather than specific beers.
In Singapore, a wave of new craft breweries that includes Brewlander, Rye & Pint, Pink Blossoms Brewing, and Daryl’s Urban Ales has elevated the local brewing scene significantly. Saigon is firmly at the centre of Vietnam’s craft scene and is home to some excellent breweries, including East West Brewing Co and Heart of Darkness Brewery.
Getting to know the people behind the brews must make for some interesting characters. Tell us about one.
I did a semi-recent story on Fat Fat Beer Horse, which just recently opened a bigger facility across the bay but started (and still maintains) a space in an old refrigeration plant in Xiamen, China, that used to make ice blocks for fishermen. It’s the last place you’d expect to find a guy like David Krings, the brewery’s German 40-something owner who basically built the brewery by hand across multiple indoor-outdoor spaces spread out between three or four floors. He moved to Xiamen to work in design and to lecture at the university, but somehow fell into making (good) beer without any professional training, and now he’s distilling gin, too. It’s probably the craziest and most unique brewery space I’ve ever seen, and David has all kinds of nutty stories about it. For instance, he claims to have saved the brewery’s neighbourhood from total demolition by getting Fujian’s political bigwigs drunk!
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“Ready to rebuild their lives after two decades of displacement, they found that their original village was within the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve, a 420,000-acre protected area established in 2005 with funding provided by energy giants Total and Chevron as part of a corporate social responsibility programme for the Yadana gas pipeline.”
How selective liberal outrage against Brunei is missing the point
“LGBT rights activists here are not only struggling against anti-LGBT laws. We are also fighting a barrage of laws in the region that are anti-democracy, anti-human rights and anti-freedom of expression. ”
Manipulation suspicions mount in Thailand's post-coup election
“The rules of the election were written in the 2017 junta-backed constitution, which critics said were aimed at ensuring military influence in Thai politics.”
Preserved nam phrik nam phak
Two Thai novelists explore Bangkok’s swirl of remembering and forgetting
“For all its memorable brashness — the chili-laced cuisine, the vicious heat, the excess of tropical botany — Thailand excels in forgetting, a deliberate amnesia that makes history turn, if not in circles at least in cul-de-sacs. ”
Building boom leaves mark on Cambodian beaches
“The city of Sihanoukville was once a sleepy backwater known for pristine beaches. But now, scores of casinos and hotels are under construction, and many more are planned.”
In rural Myanmar, rail lines founder while military spends
“The Saikkhaung line may be old, and its rolling stock well past its use-by date, but services such as the one from Taunggyi are the lifeblood of such rural areas. ”
‘It’s dangerous to go out now’: young, gay and scared in Brunei
“On the ground, young Bruneians say they are less scared of being prosecuted under the new laws than of how they might embolden religious conservatives, and justify acts of hate against them – like strangers trying to run them over in the street, or worse.”
Indonesia’s incredible elections
UNESCO bid not about claiming ownership of hawker culture
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Something to read
Night Sky With Exit Wounds
“Award-winning, 2016-published Night Sky With Exit Wounds is a beautiful collection of often startling poems by Vietnamese-born, American-raised refugee Ocean Vuong. Spanning war, the fall of Saigon, gay love, families and much more, the poems may traverse sometimes familiar ground, but they offer fresh perspectives using language that sparkles as if its very words were diamonds.”
Travel shot
So serene. Photo: Stuart McDonald
Till next time
That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia.
Travel light!
Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team
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