Spread those wings and fry

When my wife and I are in Bangkok, we eat at mall restaurants, local Thai favourites, and at roadside stalls.

- VIR SANGHVI

My son, however, goes off to Bangkok's many Michelin-starred restaurants, is friends with all the top chefs and has very fancy meals.

But even my son forgets all about Michelin stars and top chefs for at least one meal. That's when he queues up at a stall for a portion of Khao Man Tod. Khao Man Gai is the more famous version of the dish. It comes from Hainan in China. In Singapore, it is so popular that they sometimes drop the Hainanese and just call it Singapore Chicken Rice.

If it is made properly, then the chicken should be gently poached with herbs and the stock then used to cook the rice. All over Asia, it is served with different sauces, but Khao Man Gai, the Thai version, has the best (ie spiciest) sauce.

The Thais also sometimes fry the chicken. That is the version we eat in Bangkok and it's called Khao Man Tod. (Tod just means fried in Thai.)

If you give me a choice between the best Hainanese Chicken Rice and a mediocre Khao Man Tod, I will choose the Khao Man Tod. That's not because I don't like poached chicken. It is because I think chickens were born to be fried.

The idea of frying chicken that has first been battered or breaded turns up in most food cultures. The most famous, of course, is Southern Fried Chicken from the US. It was treated as a signifier of Southern pride, and each state had its own version. Chicken Maryland was served with pineapple or banana fritters, the Kentucky version was made in a pressure cooker (as fans of KFC know) and so on.