The Footpath Files

Stories

  • A Signal from the Past: The Story of Wireless House in One Bangkok

    A Signal from the Past: The Story of Wireless House in One Bangkok

    In the shadow of Bangkok’s most ambitious megaproject, a green-and-white anomaly lingers. Painstakingly resurrected from memory, Wireless House threads a forgotten past into the city’s relentless march forward—quietly reminding us that even amidst soaring ambition, history still has a place. Read more

  • MI KROP: It’s the Telling that Leaves the Best Taste in Your Mouth

    MI KROP: It’s the Telling that Leaves the Best Taste in Your Mouth

    I get it. Food and storytelling are as inseparable as salt and pepper. This explains why nothing ever quite tastes as good as our memories tell us it did. But if you’ve ever found yourself trapped in the Kafkaesque theatre of a 21-course dinner where the telling holds your tasting hostage, you may understand the… Read more

  • KHAO CHAE and the Curious Case of Dining Etiquette

    KHAO CHAE and the Curious Case of Dining Etiquette

    Watching Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman trying to navigate the Byzantine intrigues of cutlery etiquette is one of those cinematic moments that strikes a universal chord. Who among us hasn’t faced the daunting prospect of a formal dinner, or at the very least, a foreign one—staring down cutlery of unknown purpose and provenance, each piece… Read more

  • MASSAMAN: A Loving Defence of Brown Food

    MASSAMAN: A Loving Defence of Brown Food

    “Instagram can make a cook despair,” Nigella Lawson once penned in her customary mellifluous prose for The Guardian, a sentiment she expanded into an entire chapter, “A Loving Defence of Brown Food,” in her book Cook, Eat, Repeat. She was, of course, alluding to the omnipresent influence of social media over our collective taste buds,… Read more

  • SOM TAM: Knowing How You Like Yours Pounded

    SOM TAM: Knowing How You Like Yours Pounded

    To the uninitiated, Som Tam (ส้มตำ), even in its most basic form, might seem like an eccentric concoction: shredded green papaya, tomatoes, snake beans, garlic, chillies, lime, fish sauce, and peanuts, all pounded together in a mortar and pestle with the fervour of a percussionist on a caffeine high. Invariably translated as Papaya Salad, Som… Read more

  • The Series: 25 Essential Dishes to Eat in Bangkok

    The Series: 25 Essential Dishes to Eat in Bangkok

    For some years now, one of my guilty pleasures has been The New York Times Style Magazine, otherwise known as “T.” It’s the Gray Lady’s decidedly glossier offspring, deliciously glazed with page after page of eye-candy, alongside adverts for overpriced shoes and faintly ludicrous watches. Amidst its many affectations and indulgences, my favourite is the… Read more