Story ran in The Advocate, The American Press, Times Picayune, The Examiner
“An oasis in the midst of chaos,” said Brian, submerging a French bread crust deep into his Cajun crawfish bisque. The bread surfaced, steaming and brick red, and with his elbow on the bar, Brian circled it to cool in the air, seeming to offer it one last look at the world: the square bar, the two big rooms, the Mardi Gras masks and cane-backed chairs.
This Louisiana-styled “oasis” was the Bourbon Street Restaurant, but the chaos outside was neither New Orleans nor Baton Rouge but Bangkok, Thailand, a city of roughly ten million people, every one of whom seemed to be out on the town that night.
Brian chewed as he dipped a second crust, his eyebrows working in happy tandem with his jaw. “The biggest problem with this place,” he said, waving the bread head-high, as if circling the wagons, “is explaining to a cab driver how to get here.”
I sympathize with Brian. My first venture to Bourbon Street took four hours in a taxi to be delivered to a vast empty lot before winding up right back at my hotel. But with my garbled Thai and English (which might fairly be called “Tanglish”) I had given the wrong address. When my Thai-speaking concierge gave the driver directions, it was only 15 minutes away. My fault and a poor start, I thought, for a journalist on assignment.
My job, as I understood it, was to authenticate, however informally, this Louisiana cuisine in the midst of Southeast Asia. But here again, the address problem: I live in Tennessee, not Louisiana. I know corn pone and collard greens but claim no authority in matters Creole or Cajun. What I needed was an expert whose taste buds I could trust.
I had introduced myself to Brian in the hope he was Cajun, or at least from Louisiana. But in fact he was Canadian, and though he may be expert on, say, maple syrup or moose pot pie, he was of no help to me.
My own bowl of bisque arrived—steamy, delicious, and as packed as an airport elevator with crawdaddies. These are raised in Thailand, as are most all of Bourbon
Street’s spices, foodstuffs and staff, including Chef Prawing Suksom—she has been with the restaurant almost since it opened in 1986.
In 1982 proprietor Doug Harrison left his native New Orleans to work in oil field engineering. “I went to Singapore for a 90-day job,” he had told me earlier, “and have been living overseas for 22 years now.” After stints in Malaysia, Indonesia, Spain, and Dubai, Harrison took some time off in Bangkok and began considering the restaurant business when, “I got hungry and started missing mama’s food.”
But Harrison only took action after a USA Today article hinted that Cajun food was passé. “I threw the newspaper up in the air,” he says, “and before it hit the ground I had my mother on the phone asking her for a River Roads Cookbook, a case of blackened redfish seasoning and some cast iron skillets—the rest is history.”
And a successful history at that; just over half of his customers are businessmen, ex-patriots, and diplomats—what Harrison refers to as his “culinary League of United Nations.” He loves it when his clientele hanker after his Riverboat steaks and gumbo, some returning years later to tell him, “It’s just like I remember it!”
Still in need of Louisiana inside advice I sauntered down the end of the bar to meet a bald and strikingly tall man. “Sorry, I am from Birmingham… But not the one in Alabama!” he informed me with British precision. No luck here. In England a hushpuppy is a shoe.
Harrison considers it a high compliment that some forty per cent of his Cajun fans are locals. The Thais’ favorite is Harrison’s grilled Riverboat Chicken, slathered with a spicy Bar-B-Q, a New Orleans river pilot recipe. “Thai people are very adventurous with their food,” he explains “Thai food is spicy hot with chilies, where Cajun food is spicy with spices and not so much just chilies. So it is similar but very, very different.”
Similar, sure. But a Thai Cajun/Creole chef? Harrison says it is his New Orleans roots and Chef Suksom’s expertise that together have grown their repertoire and reputation. Plus, he says, “There are enough cookbooks out there… And if you have eaten enough of it you can tailor it around your own tastes. Down south in Louisiana we say we don’t eat to live, we live to eat. And that was certainly a passion of mine when I lived there.” This approach earns Bourbon Street top ratings in Thailand and in such international media as Newsweek and ironically, in USA Today.
Still, what I needed was an official Cajun taster, a Creole critic, a genuine Louisianan who knows a fais do-do from gumbo. Across the large bar sat a deeply tanned man in a black leather vest with tattoos spilling down his arms—small charts of a personal history. A multitude of earrings glinted against deeply tanned skin. Here, I was certain, was a bayou biker who, as the song goes, was raised on shrimp and catfish and mammy’s good gumbo.
“I am from Switzerland,” he said heavily, and with this I gave up, left to count on my own Cajun critique.
I returned to my stool just as my boiled crawfish platter arrived, a pile of steamy, pink bodies with little black eyes like a crowd of sunburned tourists ogling through sunglasses. Together with a side of etouffé and a cold Singha beer these made a mouthwatering feast, a veritable flavor-fest as good as any Louisiana food I had ever tasted. Anywhere.
The League of Nations has failed. Canadian, English, Swiss, … none could say if Bourbon Street’s fare was authentic Louisiana down-home cooking, if Bangkok and Baton Rouge have this one delicious thing in common.
As for Doug Harrison, he has no doubt. And I, for one, believe him.
