For all of you foodies out there, I wanted to sum up our experiences with the food here. My apologies that the previous posts have been so light on culinary content, but it was my intent to put it all in one post.
After first arriving, we stuck to some foods we knew our stomachs would handle alright. Personally, I have an iron stomach, with the one exception being dairy products. Lucky for me, there is really no dairy here to speak of. Almost all of the milk is soy milk and there is not really any cheese, save for imported (read: expensive) stuff. This may sound terribly disheartening to us midwest folks, but its actually hard to think of fried rice or thai noodle dishes smothered in cheese. For some reason, it just doesn't seem like it would work.
Anyways, our first couple meals were simple thai fried rice or fried noodles. The fried rice is actually super good, and way different from your run of the mill chinese restaurant stuff. It usually includes about half rice and half veggies plus meat, along with a lime wedge and cucumber slices on the side. Most often, a small condiment tray which has 4 glass jars filled with spicy thai chilies in oil, sugar (or palm sugar), a dark sauce (soy sauce but lighter in color), and ground chili powder. This is brought to you to season your dish to your liking. I am told that it is a common misconception that Thai cuisine does not include sugar, and you are somewhat laughed at if you omit any of the four toppings.
As we continued travelling, I was literally shocked at the variety of street food offerings. You can grab anything you could imagine, from fried dough balls (not quite donuts, but close) to fried chicken, noodle soup, delicious meats on a stick, you name it. Its relatively challenging to interact with these vendors, as I have yet to run across one who speaks any english at all. This has made street food a challenge for Christie, unless it is obviously vegetarian. That did not stop me from diving head first into the world of street cuisine :) A common sight in our trip is me standing in front of a vendor cart with my trusty Thai phrasebook trying to stammer out a legible order, with some Thai women laughing in the background. Even so, I have really really enjoyed the street food, and so has Christie when it has been chicken or meatless. Our favorite meal of the trip was Khao Soi - egg noodles in a spicy red curry broth topped with crunchy fried noodles - from a street vendor.
(we didn't take this photo - ours didn't turn out)
Another street vendor dish I enjoyed was fried chicken (just like home), with a wad of sticky rice and spicy chili dipping sauce.... I had this one for breakfast this morning.
Some street vendors sell just small bites, like some we found in Chiang Mai on the sunday walking street. There we sampled some fried banana slices and some coconut and peanut mixtures wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. It was like the state fair, but Thai style and without all the huge sweaty people running around.
Speaking of breakfast, a lot of people asked us before the trip what Thai breakfast is like. Truthfully, I really didn't know at the time. If you popped out of your guest house and looked around on the street, you might think a traditional thai breakfast is an energy drink and a cigarette based on the cab drivers habits. Most of our mornings have been spent in a sit down restaurant, and they usually have a western style menu including eggs and bacon and such, although we stuck mainly to fruit and yogurt. One morning we ordered mangos and sticky rice, thinking it was a breakfast food. At other restaurants later in the trip we found this dish in the dessert menu, so apparently its not a breakfast item per se... But it was really good!
Some of you out there might be wondering what types of bizarre foods we encountered. Southeast asia is notorious for eating things we might generally never consider consuming, and of course I had to try these :) Fruits here are bizarre looking, but generally taste like, well, fruit. We tried rambutan:
Mangosteen
Dragonfruit
Getting into the more bizarre, I tried some bugs one night at a market. I was looking at them for a while, then after a couple beers I had the courage to order up a plate of silk worms and crickets.
The silk worms were actually surprisingly alright, and tasted mostly like salty fried crunchy bits. Crickets however were a little too gross for me. I felt like they were just a mess of legs and wings and didn't eat more than one of them. The merchant was also selling HUGE cockroaches, but I didnt try any:
As for snacks, there was no lack of variety available between street vendors and the old 7-11. Chips came in some pretty wild flavors, including spicy soft shell crab, nori seaweed, and chili squid. Christie enjoyed some chinese style filled buns, which are white dough buns filled with different things like pork or black bean paste.
Overall, we are really going to miss Thailand's delicious food. Every time I was not really full, I ate again because I didn't want to miss any opportunity to try another dish. Luckily, much of this can be recreated in our kitchen, but it is not as easy as popping out onto the street with a couple bucks in your pocket and grabbing a quick bite.
