Bangkok Food Pics

(above pic - John & Tessa digging in at the weekend market, Chatuchak)

Street food in Bangkok is very colourful. It is no wonder that many of the city girls are ram rod slim - they seem to survive on the mango / prawn salad sold every which way you turn. Mike saw them tossing baby prawns which were still alive into the rojak concoction of sauces and vegetables. Somehow, it seemed a bit gross to see the live prawns jumping about (somewhat cruel like the way drunken prawns are cooked) but still when you taste the vinegar based salad, it is really delicious.

We also tried (the word is tried) to buy some fried insects but after hemming and hawing, we found we really didn't want to eat any of it, so we ended up not buying any. The street vendor and her husband just nodded in amusement.

(below pic) I walked past this man with a sort of ice cream trolley and took a double take when the colourful array of food drew my attention. I went back and stared into his steaming basket and realised it looked very much like our 'siew mai'. Decided to pick one tiny basket and went to look for my kids who were picking out some jeans at a nearby shop. We took one gulp each and I knew I had to run back to get more. The most delicious Siew Mai I've ever tasted! (no, we didn't get any stomach upset at all). He was located in an alleyway near the Indra Regent Hotel and the pasar malam shops surrounding it.

(below pic) Someone recommended that I eat Pigs' Trotters when in Thailand. Up till then, I had no idea it was all that popular. I mean, Pad Thai or Tom Yam soup yes but Pigs' Trotters? I did see it on our first day there and and it was simply delicious! Ate it about 3 or 4 times in all. It's sold as commonly as Chicken Rice or Char Siew Rice is sold in Singapore. Definitely has vinegar in it.

Also to die for are the dried wanton noodles (if you stare hard enough in the above pic, you should be able to locate the bowls of wanton noodles!). They are very generous with their portions of dumplings. They do not give you a spoon though and probably because if you order the dry ones, they do not supply a bowl of soup to go with it. When Mike ordered one to be packed back to the hotel, the lady actually (without our prompting), packed a styrofoam bowl, chopsticks, spoon, two packets of chilli; one green and one red saucy thingy to go with it and all for 25 baht (less than S$1.50). Oh, BTW, you can order a small bottle of coke for 10 baht (about S$0.50) to go with your noodles.

(above pic) We also visited the famous Floating Market Damnoen Saduak and I had delicious beefball noodles there! I think I ended up paying a bit more than a whole bunch of kids in school uniform but it was still reasonable. My kids refused to eat anything soupy there because they saw the boat hawkers washing their bowls in the river. They were convinced the water for the soup came from the river too. That's Singapore children for you. Actually, the soup tasted a bit grainy (sandy) and the colour looked a bit like the river's too but what the heck, I don't really want to know the truth! All I know is it was so tasty!

(below pic) Here's a delicious box of BBQ prawns which Mike had 'Tar Pao' back to the hotel room for me.

Now your see it..... (addendum: Ho ho...so my kids read my blog! They pointed out several grammatical / typo errors like 'your see it', which obviously should be 'you see it'. I'm usually a stickler for good written English but somehow, I don't spend a lot of time proof reading my blog entries - sorry about that!)

(below pic)

Now you don't!

The damage? 100 Baht (About S$4.50)

Throughout our trip, we were eating and munching as we walked along the streets or wherever we went. We didn't even get any tummy upset until.....we moved into a FOC hotel provided by the TAT and ate the buffet spread. How ironic!