Order This: BKK Chef Sungeun Mo on the Dish That Nods to a Thai Street Food Legend

Chef Sungeun Mo leads the kitchen at BKK, the third-floor Thai restaurant that’s part of Her Melbourne, also home to Music Room, Her Bar and Her Rooftop.

The CBD restaurant is small but has a huge open kitchen where Mo and the team consistently pump out food inspired by many regions in Thailand, not just Bangkok (the city whose airport code the restaurant is named after).

Broadsheet called Mo to learn the inspiration for four of her favourite dishes on the BKK menu right now.

Kangaroo Laab. Photography: Courtesy of BKK

Kangaroo laab, green peppercorn and wild ginger

Mo: Laab’s a very common Isaan dish, but I wanted to use a unique protein. At one of the jungle restaurants [Laab Ton Koi] in Chiang Mai we tried raw buffalo meat laab with cow bile and it had a very strong jungle flavour. I thought kangaroo would be nice with that kind of flavour.

We’re using a lot of makrut lime leaves, wild ginger – it has a stronger flavour than ginger – and then all the herbs and Vietnamese mint, which is also very punchy. There’s a sharp flavour in it, which is normally found in jungle-style food.

Gai tai nam. Photography: Courtesy of BKK / Parker Blain

Gai tai nam

Underwater chicken
Mo: A long time ago, one of my Thai friends cooked for us in an Airbnb while we were on holiday together and that’s the first time I heard about gai tai nam. And then I learnt more about it in cooking school.

The teacher cooked it in a pot that’s normally used for sticky rice. So I got the big [sticky rice] pot [for BKK]. When I bought it, the lady at the shop was like, “Do you want the top?” and I said, “No, it’s okay, I only need the bottom.”

So you put your marinated chicken with lemongrass, makrut lime leaves, galangal, turmeric, chilli and a lot of coriander roots and things like that in the pot with the steamer, and then you put a pot or bowl filled with ice-cold water on top of that pot. Then when you’re braising the chicken, the water evaporates and the steam hits the cold bowl and then drops back down.

This dish is only available at dinnertime and must be pre-ordered via the BKK website. There is only one serve available per day.

Bu pad pong karee. Photography: Courtesy of BKK / Parker Blain

Bu pad pong karee

Dry soft-shell crab curry with egg, milk and Asian celery
Mo: I got it from Jay Fai. This recipe is from her restaurant [Raan Jay Fai].

Broadsheet: She’s very famous.

Mo: You can’t describe her as just being famous. She’s a god. We went to her restaurant, there was a long line, but we were lucky enough to only wait half an hour. She doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Thai so we weren’t able to have a conversation, but I watched her working.

She looks like a 70-year-old grandma, but she was so strong. And the way she worked was so organised. She works really clean.

Fermented sour pork sausage

Mo: Fermenting food is a little bit of a dream among all chefs, and fermenting a protein is a pretty wild thing.

In Chiang Mai, we drove an hour or so out of the city centre to Sai Oua Brick House – a street food vendor on the side of a road. The shop sold only sai oua [Thai pork sausage] and a handful of accompaniments intended to be eaten with your sausage: sticky rice, green chilli paste, red chilli paste and fried pork rinds.

Each of the seven sausages on offer were made by seven different families in nearby villages – each used different types or cuts of meat, different spice mixes and chilli variations. We ordered one of each of the sausages on offer and got comfortable on a nearby table with owner Anungt and his son.

Anungt ushered us towards our minibus as he spoke in Thai to our driver. Then he jumped in the front seat and was taking us on a tour around the neighbouring villages. We stopped at five of the makers’ houses and shops including his family home, where his wife sat outside roasting spices to be used in the next batch.

What we do [at BKK] is mix pork mince with glutinous rice, keep it at a certain temperature and then leave it for a couple of days. Because we’re doing it the traditional way, it’s not a strong sour. It’s more a flavour behind the meat.

This dish is coming to the menu in June 2024