Fullboy - Thailand - Korat - Fried Eggs, Sausages and Strange Soup

It was finally time to say goodbye to Brynley, a giant amongst men! (Thanks for another great time!!). We also had to say goodbye to Ayutthaya as we travelled on to Khao Yai Rainforest. As with Khao Sok rainforest, the food here was unspectacular. We actually ended up visiting a Tesco and buying a crusty loaf of bread with some German meats and Philadelphia cheese which was probably the food highlight of this area. The menu at our guesthouse stretched as far as fried rice, banana pancake and sweet and sour pork, nothing wrong with any of it but just not worth writing about.

After coming face to face (nearly!!) with wild elephants in the rainforest, we moved on to a fairly large city called Korat. We were only stopping over briefly here as we gradually wormed our way up the country. There was some interesting food to be had and I was excited to see lots of sausages being cooked at the street food stands. Supposedly the area is famous for sausages and I got stuck in straight away. The sausages looked similar to a Toulouse sausage and tasted quite salty and garlicky. We checked out the night market later on and found lots more sausages and other tasty snacks such as crunchy, fried chicken skin, very similar to pork scratchings and very delicious, especially the intermingling deep fried lime leaves. As we only snacked at the market I was still a little bit hungry so upon returning to our hotel, we stopped off at a busy little restaurant next door. Melissa ordered an intriguing fried egg salad (the first time either of us had seen this on a menu) and I opted for the innards soup, as it seemed to be their speciality. I’m a big fan of offal since living in Korea and have no aversion to eating strange bits of animal. In this case I think there was liver, kidney, brain, heart, intestine, tripe and other stuff in this rich, robust, meaty, and very manly soup. Melissa’s fried egg salad was a perfect blend of crispy fried egg that was cut into small pieces and mixed with fresh, crunchy salad leaves, sliced onion, tomato and finely chopped chilli. All in all we were very impressed with our food during our flying visit to Korat.

Fullboy - Thailand - Ayutthaya - Fun in the night market

Melissa, Brynley and I arrived in Ayutthaya exhausted from our long nights in Bangkok and wandered aimlessly around the streets hoping for a hotel to find us and reel us in. I had a specific hotel in mind but our collective willpower at this point was low and to have to look at maps and follow directions involved way too much effort so we decided after a short period of time that we’d done enough walking and settled for the nearest hotel. Relieved to have rid ourselves of our backpacks, we had a simple lunch, had a rest and headed out to the local night market for some dinner. With Ayutthaya being a fairly small town, we weren’t expecting much of a market. We had to walk quite a way from the centre of town to find the place, asking several local people for directions along the way until finally we could see a glimmer of lights at the end of a long dark road. The road seemed to be a favourite hangout for the stray dogs of the town and you never quite knew what they were going to do when you walked past them. Some were lazy and wouldn’t bat an eyelid, others would growl and grumble, one decided that he’d confront us and barked and snarled viciously as we crossed his path. We all just continued to walk, albeit a lot faster and with hearts and mouths, hoping that this vicious doggy wouldn’t attack us. Fortunately it turned out he was all bark and no bite and we all made it to the market in one piece. There was a narrow path with stalls lined up on either side for as far as the eye could see. Hungry from our walk we checked out some of the stalls at the start and immediately I was in heaven as I had found the holy grail of beer snacks, pork scratchings!!! What a find!! We grabbed a table immediately, bought a bag English style pork scratchings and a bag of the quaver looking pork scratchings which I guess are the more American style ones. All we needed now was a few beers… alas the stall didn’t sell them. Me and Brynley had to run the gauntlet past the stray dogs again to a nearby shop, bought some beers and Sangsom, and ran back, eager to get stuck into our snack. What a combination!! Ice cold beer followed by a salty crunch of skin all brought together by the porky tasting fat that envelops the inside of your mouth. Heaven!! However, we didn’t want to spoil an evening of eating so we saved some scratchings for later and went on the hunt for some more tasty treats.

















The stalls went on and on and the food on offer looked great. Our plan of action was to walk to the point where the stalls ended, keeping an eye open for anything that took our fancy, and then walk back and buy the food. This seemed to work in theory but we couldn’t resist sampling some of the snacks along the way. Brynley set the ball rolling with some devilish coconut cakes.
Then we were lured to another stand selling some sort of herbal, medicinal whiskey which we downed with aplomb and followed it up by eating a sour fruit dipped in salt that looked very similar to a chickpea. Next were some very strange looking eggs, similar in style to a scotch egg except the outer layer was fried, minced fish as opposed to sausage. There were two types of egg, one of them being of the standard yellow yoked variety, the other having a frankly disturbing looking black yolk. Still, as disturbing as the black yolk looked, my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try the eggs. The eggs were chopped up into pieces , dressed with chopped up spring onions and a dash of spicy sauce. They tasted good, the black yoked egg tasting a lot richer and eggier than the yellow yoked egg. I later learnt that black yoked eggs were a Chinese delicacy called century eggs, eggs that are coated in a mixture of mud, rice and clay, buried in the ground for up to three years, and allowed to go through a chemical cycle that makes them edible again. My dad informed me this type of egg was recently eaten by a ‘celebrity’ on “I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!”. Supposedly the ‘celebrity’ said it was the worst food she’d ever eaten. I told my dad I must have only eaten a half century egg then because the egg I ate tasted very similar to a normal egg. I’m sure a lot of the negativity surrounding the taste has to do with the colour of the yolk as black yolk is usually associated with rotten eggs. Also, the area surrounding the yolk is slightly gelatinous so the texture is different to a normal egg. It’s all mind over matter!!












The snacking continued deep into the night as we munched on pancakes, sausages, and spring rolls. Melissa was snacked out and had to go to bed but Brynley and I decided to take our big bellies and herbal whiskey to investigate the second food market. We arrived and it was a far more formal affair than the first market with more areas to sit down alongside the river. I decided to try frog with green peppercorns, mainly because I was drunk and I’d never tried frog before. The plate of food arrived and the frog was predictably full of bones, crunchy and tasted like chicken. There was an overwhelming number of green peppercorns, hundreds of them! They were in clusters of around twenty to thirty, like bunches of mini green grapes. Eating them caused a peppery explosion inside the mouth and there were far too many to finish. If eaten carefully, peppercorn by peppercorn, they had a pleasant, almost floral taste. Brynley and I were finally defeated and we decided to call it a night.

















The following evening, after an excellent day cycling around ancient temples, we all went back to the first night market because it was just so good and we decided to have a bit more of an informal sit down meal as opposed to gorging on snacks. We started with an eggy radish cake, similar to the one we had in Melaka, one lady cooking up plates of what looked like messy omelettes to the hungry queue of expectant customers.
We had to wait a good few minutes as she was so busy which is always a good sign. The eggy mess mixed with spring onions was comforting and enjoyable and after finishing this we went back to the start of the market for our main course, only to find that the man had sold all of his salt crusted fish!! We managed to find another lady selling fish and we bought some pancakes and a stuffed banana leaf to accompany. The fish and pancake were good but there was a surprise as I opened the banana leaf. I assumed it would be filled with rice, as I have had before, but you should never assume anything with a stuffed banana leaf. After unravelling the layers a pink, very raw looking piece of meat appeared before me. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it…. Should I eat it? Are you meant to take it home and cook it? The locals sitting next to me seemed to be giving me assurance that it was fine to eat. I tentatively took a little nibble and found the taste to be not so bad, similar to a salty Parma ham. Brynley and Melissa cautiously picked off a little and again, they didn’t find it to be too bad. But… there was just that ever present doubt in the back of all of our minds that we were eating raw bacon and this just wasn’t something we were used to. I left a little of the meat, it was very salty and rich tasting and the oniony looking pieces running through the meat were actually chewy pieces of rind. We managed to find some yummy, multi flavoured cream filled cakes (chocolate, coconut, vanilla, strawberry, etc) and a bag of coke (the sweet sugary type) to wash the saltiness away. If there was one thing we learnt from our feast it was to be wary of the stuffed banana leaf, because just like a bag of Revels, you might end up with the coffee one!

Fullboy - Street eats in Thailand - Phang Nga and Bangkok

Phang Nga

It felt reassuring to be on the mainland. The islands were fairly touristy when it came to eating and you saw the same things on the limited menus in many of the restaurants. It began to remind me of ordering food from a Chinese Takeaway in that I would look over and over at the menu and then just stick with something which I know I’d enjoy. I was excited at the prospect of visiting some of Thailand’s local food markets and sampling some authentic regional food.

Our first mainland destination was Phang Nga and although still surrounded by sea, this was our first experience of a real town in Thailand. Although small in size with a population of around 8000 people, the town had a day and night market. We were lucky to arrive on a night that hosted a special market in which traffic was closed off on the road in order to allow people to gather to eat, drink and watch live music performances. The atmosphere was great and the food on show looked amazing. We found a table with a couple of plastic chairs and sat down amongst the few hundred other happy diners. The food that tempted our taste buds was a fish that appeared to be covered in a salt crust being cooked slowly over hot coals on a barbeque. Melissa went to get some beers and I went to get the food. I ordered one of the big salt crusted fish and one fish that resembled a mackerel. We sat down and were given a tray of fresh herbs and leaves to accompany the fish. The lady at the food stand slowly peeled back the salt crust of the fish to expose the mouth wateringly moist, succulent meat. Herbs, lime leaves and lemongrass stuffed inside the fish infused the meat with a gentle aromatic flavour. Fishy delishy!! It made up for the time when I tried (and failed miserably) to bake a fish in a salt crust! I just managed to get salt all over the fish so that when we tried to eat it you ended up with big mouthfuls of salt in your mouth, one for the bin! I blame the terrible electric oven anyway, could never get it hot enough. The mackerel type fish was good but totally outshone by its larger cousin. The sweet basil, mint and coriander were an interesting accompaniment and refreshed the palate nicely.

















Bangkok

The name of the city alone conjures wildly differing visions from person to person, some love it, some hate it. I couldn’t wait to make my own mind up as to what Bangkok was all about. After our relatively peaceful last week sailing around islands, exploring caves and trekking through the Khao Sok rainforest, it was time to hit the bright lights of the big city. We decided to kill some time and make some distance up by getting a VIP night bus (complete with stewardess!) from Khao Sok to Bangkok which took around 10 hours. We closed our eyes to get some sleep in our fancy bus with big comfy chairs and opened them again in Bangkok. It was about 5am when we arrived but the city was already pulsating with a vibrant energy. We stepped off the bus having been woken from a deep sleep by our stewardess with a paper cup of hot, milky, sweet coffee and our senses adjusted from tranquil rainforest mode to capital city mode. We got off the bus and followed the smell of hot BBQ roast duck to a small Chinese restaurant where we sat and had another coffee to complete the process of waking up. We had arrived!!

After a day of rest, our first night in Bangkok was going to be made extra fun by the arrival of our good friend Brynley. We met him on Khao San road, let him put his bags away and immediately proceeded to drink bucket after bucket of strong mixed alcohol and catch up on lost time, What happened next was definitely a result of too much alcohol, we decided it would be a good idea to eat…. BUGS!! We shouldn’t turn our noses up really, many people in Asia see bugs as a nutritional, protein filled snack. They’re probably a lot healthier than your average pack of cheese and onion Walkers crisps, whether or not they’d be as tasty was another matter. The lady selling the bugs had a wide range on offer; scorpions, grasshoppers, beetles, crickets, grubs, etc etc. I decided the black scorpions looked the scariest and most impressive and paid the bug lady about 20p for the pleasure of eating one. Filled with Dutch courage I put the whole scorpion in my mouth and crunched away. They weren’t bad at all!! I think the fact they were fried obviously helped with the taste as all I could really taste was the oil they were cooked in. So successful was my first taste of bugs that I was eager to try another one. This time I chose a grasshopper that was as long as my middle finger, paid the bug lady some more money, put the whole thing in my mouth and crunched away for a second time. After my initial grimace, it started to taste pretty similar to the scorpion, although I do say on the video that it tasted of grass which I think was more of a drunken observation. I got it into my head that grasshoppers ate grass, therefore they should taste like grass. I don’t really know what grasshoppers eat, I’ll wiki it. Brynley joined in with the fun and munched away on a grasshopper, thoroughly enjoying it and Melissa, who is squeamish at the best of times, gobbled up a scorpion!! We even started eating the grubs, not out of bravado but because we were hungry and enjoying a little bite to eat. I couldn’t pull Melissa away from the grubs, she still insists they taste like French fries! Still, if someone offered us a bag of crisps or a bag of bugs, I think we’d go with the crisps. Check out the videos of our drunken, bug eating fun in Bangkok.

click here to see me and Brynley munch on a scorpion and a grasshopper
click here to see Melissa devour a scorpion

(p.s. after googling ‘what does a grasshopper taste like‘, many others have reached the conclusion that they do in fact taste like….grass. This has taught me to trust my drunken observations)




















The next day, our heads were predictably hazy but we still managed to get our sightseeing done, although we were very happy when we were finished and sitting down for some lunch. We stopped at a little street stand opposite where we were staying that displayed an English sign that read ‘Chicken gravy‘. We were in the ‘anything will do’ mood and weren’t really expecting much but what arrived were succulent pieces of chicken smothered with a wonderful, aromatic, thick gravy that had notes of cinnamon, star anise and peppercorn with a side portion of steamed rice. It again goes to show that if you trust the look of a street food stand, you generally cannot go wrong with the food and more often than not, the food tastes far better than what you would eat in a restaurant.
















After an atomic afternoon nap we were ready for night out number two. We met up with Brynley and decided to venture out into the historic Chinatown district in search of a delicious dinner. Our tuk-tuk ride there was an adventure in itself, swerving in and out of the traffic and watching the busy world go by whilst being mesmerised by the flashing lights fitted inside the carriage The driver dropped us off in the heart of Chinatown, colourful neon flashing all around and we walked down the busy street in search of some tasty food. We meandered down side roads and narrow alleys, occasionally stopping to chug back a few strong Chang beers until eventually we decided to stop and eat some food at a busy looking roadside street stall. After parking our rears onto small blue plastic stools our job of ordering was made easier by the fact the stall only served one thing so we ordered three of their soups and three large Chang beers. My eyes were drawn to the ‘kitchen’ area and the scrumptious looking pile of pork with its golden brown, crunchy layer of skin. A portly Chinese man with a big medallion hanging around his neck was flattening and slicing the pork belly with his butchers cleaver in a perfectly timed mechanical motion. Our soup arrived and unlike the usual noodle soups we have become so accustomed to, this soup contained thick tube like noodles that slightly resembled penne pasta. The meaty broth had a wonderful peppery taste and was filled with chopped up pieces of pork belly and cabbage. The pork skin still retained a wonderful crunchiness and was so yummy that we managed to translate to the waiter that we wanted a whole bowl of the crispy pork belly pieces to munch on whilst we finished our beers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Happy!!!
















On somewhat of a meat high and slightly intoxicated, we continued our journey around Chinatown’s exciting, buzzing streets. We passed many weird and wonderful shops selling all manner of dried foods, teas and Chinese medicines and plenty more restaurants and street food stalls, all with their own unique smells and sights. We decided to eat again at a restaurant we had walked past earlier that had all manners of pre-cooked foods displayed on metal plates. Even more intoxicated with ‘Sangsom’ whiskey and beer, we were slightly confused as to how we ordered and a waiter who spoke a little English explained to us to just choose a few of the dishes that we wanted. I was left with the task of choosing for everyone and tried to pick a nice balance of fish, meat and vegetables so I chose what looked like pigs liver with bean sprouts, some Chinese sausage, chicken in sauce, fish in sauce and sautéed spinach. We were given two generous bowls of hot steamed rice to accompany our food. Everything tasted pretty good but….. .. it was all cold, not something our foreign palates are really accustomed to. For a start you wonder how long the food has been sitting around, particularly the chicken, and secondly, eating semi cooked pigs liver, stone cold is just not as nice as eating it hot. However, hunger prevailed and we polished off pretty much everything with ease. Out of curiosity I asked the man who helped us with ordering why everything was cold, his reply was “if you wanted it hot you should have said”. You live and learn!!
















We returned to the Khao San Road area after our Chinatown adventure and partied into the early hours. Our third day and night was largely spent recovering from our two previous nights. Feeling a little jaded and exhausted, we were all looking forward to our escape from the city into the quieter, more peaceful confines of Ayutthaya, temple capital of Thailand. We all had a ball in Bangkok though and it’s a great, fun, safe and exciting city. The food was delicious and I felt like I was starting to get a taste of the real Thailand. We boarded our train to Ayutthaya, I bought a stick of dried squids from an old lady to munch on and off we went. Goodbye Bangkok!!

Fullboy - Thailand - Ko Lipe & Ko Lanta - Christmas on the Beach!

Everyone knows the Thai islands; white sands, amazing blue waters, and some of the best seafood in the world! I love seafood but back in England I never really ate that much of it due to it being so expensive. If you wanted some good fish you always had to go and pay a lot of money for it at a good fishmongers. In Korea, fish was more reasonably priced and a lot fresher as it was kept alive in fish tanks until just before you ate it, but never have I tasted seafood as fresh, cheap and delicious as in Ko Lipe, a small island in the middle of the Andaman Sea and destination of our Christmas break.

We arrived by speedboat to Ko Lipe, an island truly in the middle of nowhere, small enough to walk around by foot and surrounded by oceans filled with an abundance of marine life. We settled in to our bamboo hut and went off in search of our first taste of Thai food in Thailand. First impressions of the food were great, we tried the ubiquitous pad thai, a Thai version of stir fried noodles garnished with crushed peanuts and fresh lime juice that seems very popular with travellers because it’s cheap, simple and fills you up. Red and green curries were also everywhere on the menus, and were always delicious, especially if you chose the seafood option. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such large quantities of seafood served onto your plate. In England you’re lucky if you get three or four king prawns if you order anything with king prawns in, here, you’re looking at twenty to thirty king prawns! If we’re surrounded by ocean, we order seafood, that’s our new rule.

Our first seafood bonanza was on Christmas day and we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood BBQ for Christmas dinner. We walked up and down the beach past many formal, busy, slightly stuffy looking restaurants with tables and chairs packed tightly together on the white sand and were beginning to feel a little despondent because this wasn’t exactly what we had in mind for our romantic Christmas dinner but we were finally rewarded when we passed a rather informal, relaxed looking eatery with bamboo mats laid out on the sand and soft, bed like cushions inviting us to sit down. After making ourselves very comfortable I walked up to the smoking BBQ to see what fish was cooking. The gigantic stripy tiger prawns immediately caught my eye so I chose them first followed by a couple of squid and two generous mackerel steaks cut fresh from the silver fish’s meaty torso with a barbecued corn on the cob to finish things off. I sat back down with Melissa and we lay back on our cosy cushions and reflected on our first Christmas day in the sun. The food arrived and the prawns immediately excited me because they were so huge!! My clumsy hands haven’t got a clue when it comes to shelling prawns, that’s always been Melissa’s job, so I passed the plate over and she skinned them in seconds. The thick, fleshy meat inside tasted sweet and mouth-wateringly delicious, a Christmas day treat. The squid was wonderfully tender and slightly char grilled around the edges and the mackerel steaks were meaty and cooked to perfection. Rounded off with the sweet corn on the cob, a papaya salad and a few beers, this was a Christmas dinner we’ll remember for a long time.
















Waking up in our bamboo bungalow on the beach to the sounds of the ocean was very fulfilling. The only things we really had to think about were what we were going to eat and drink for the day. To be honest, the choices began to get limited, maybe because we were eating so much and had exhausted most options on the menu but who are we to complain when the seafood options were consistently great. One of the non-seafood meals that stuck in our minds was a ‘yellow’ chicken soup that Melissa ordered. Not really knowing what to expect and true to the menus words, a watery, yellow soup arrived at the table. The soup was crisp and clean with subtle hints of lemongrass, garlic and spices and definitely unlike any soup we’ve tasted before. The colour of Melissa’s tongue after the meal certainly suggested that turmeric was present. I really liked the rustic approach to spicing and flavouring the soup with very roughly chopped root ginger, lemongrass and possibly fresh turmeric root, definitely something we’d eat again.


















Southern Thailand’s cuisine tends to be liberal in its use of coconut and chilli and is unique to the rest of the land. There are dishes found here that cannot be found elsewhere in the country. An example of this is the Massaman curry, also known as ‘Muslim’ curry or ‘Southern’ curry. The dish is characterised by its generous use of coconut and potatoes. I chose the prawn massaman and was rewarded with a bowl of spicy coconut soup with large chunks of potato and even larger prawns. The prawns and potatoes went really well with the spiced coconut soup and made for a warm, comforting and substantial feed. On the same evening, Melissa ordered prawns with sweet basil. Contrary to my belief, sweet basil tastes nothing like the Italian basil that you find commonly in the supermarkets, in fact it has a really aniseedy taste. I knew the two herbs were different but I didn’t realise how different. This surprised me a bit and made me wonder whether or not the Thai restaurants in England actually use the sweet basil or the Italian basil in their soups.

















A dish that is as liberal in its use of chilli than any dish I have ever encountered is the notoriously spicy Tom-Yam soup. After living in Korea for two years, we like to think that we have a fairly high tolerance for chilli. The Tom-Yam completely caught us by surprise though! I would say that apart from eating whole chillies, this was definitely the spiciest thing I’ve ever tasted. The broth had a very hot and sour taste and I later learnt that all of the ingredients in the broth are boiled making for a very healthy soup. I ordered the seafood Tom-Yam and again was amazed by the sheer volume of seafood in my bowl. There were giant prawns, a fillet of fish, squid and shellfish in a rich, spicy broth, all for just over a quid. To say it made me sweat is an understatement and yet at the same time it was more bearable than trying to eat a really spicy Indian curry which tends to have more of a long burning effect. With the Tom-Yam, the heat from the chilli hits you fast but also goes away fairly fast. I think its down to the type of chilli used in the soup, the small Thai red chillies are powerful, pack an instant punch and subside a little quicker than the standard green chilli. I love chilli and the Tom-Yam is definitely a full blown, fiery blast of endorphins to the brain.
















Ko Lanta

On New Years Eve we decided to move to Ko Lanta. Alcohol overtook food as number one priority for the night and we got suitably plastered and celebrated New Years Eve on a beach, very drunk, watching lots of fireworks and dancing around whilst drinking buckets (think bucket and spade) of strong cocktails. We navigated our way back down the beach to our accommodation (this took hours!) and have recollections of warming up food in a microwave of a 7/11 shop at around 5am and then proceeding to spill it all over the floor and then attempting to clean up my mess…. Needless to say we woke up in the morning with stinking hangovers and really needed something stodgy to soak up the mess in our stomachs. So what better way to enter the year 2010 than with….. A FULL ENGLISH!!! I imagine that when travelling, one of the first things a Brit would miss is a Full English or even just a proper bacon or sausage buttie. Unfortunately when travelling in Asia, you’ve probably got more chance of being eaten by a tiger than you have of finding a good Full English. We entered the ‘Brit Café’ and first impressions were good. The ’Brit’ advertised proper Cumberland sausages, the biggest pitfall of an Asian Full English. Most of the sausages I’ve encountered have been pathetic, shrivelled up excuses of meat that I’ve had to force myself to eat. The better sausages have been smoked sausage and you don’t eat smoked sausage with a Full English!! Also the bacon is mostly of the streaky variety with lots of fat and not much meat. Hopes were high when we saw the tick list with every possible item you could think of that makes up a Full English. I checked sausage, back bacon, two fried eggs, hash brown, mushrooms and grilled tomato. What arrived was a joy to behold, I was lifted from my fuzzy hangover into a state of euphoria, 2010 had arrived! I’d have been more than happy if I was served this breakfast in England, everything was cooked to perfection. It was cooked by the Thai wife of the Brit running the café and it was definitely the best Full English I’ve had outside of the UK. It was so good we thought we’d go back to the café a few days later and see if she could pull off the ‘Sunday Dinner’ (roast lamb of course). Again, we were in for a treat, the only sad thing was that we would probably have to wait until October to for another one!


























Links, addresses and useful information

Paradise Cottage Resort website click here

For Koh Lipe's official website where you can book more accommodation click here.


For the best hangover cure known to man, try the full English at the Brit Cafe located on Prae Ae, Koh Lanta. Just ask a rickshaw driver, they should know.