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!!
No comments:
Post a Comment