Damnoensaduak Floating Market

Little old Thai ladies may look cute and frail, but they're way tougher than your favourite MMA fighter. Seriously, don't ever mess with them. 

I don't think I could ever have too much mango and sticky rice. Anyone know a good recipe to make this yourself at home? 

Damnoensaduak Floating Market, just outside Bangkok, January 2012. 

Village Food (Part 2)

Click here to see Part 1 of what I ate while in Chainat, Thailand.

After a couple of hours to digest our earlier (and massive!) meal, we were taken to another little riverside restaurant, where our group turned out to be the only customers. The staff had set up our table on a little platform right on the water - very pleasant since the slight breeze helped cool us down after the stifling heat of the day. 

Lots of fish dishes again, as expected from a riverside restaurant. The picture above is of a dish of whole fish, each about 5 inches long, deepfried until crunchy. It's very addictive, I tell you! 

We also had a plate of chicken, some papaya salad, a bowl of jungle curry, and some frogs, served sizzling on an iron plate under a spicy sauce. The frogs were far from my favourite dish, not because of any sort of squeamishness associated with eating frogs, but because of the strange gristly texture. 

The jungle curry, though spicy, was nothing compared to the raw, numbing heat of the papaya salad. Big chunks of chilli and chilli seeds will do that to your tongue. Maybe I'm a masochist, but looking through those pictures makes me want a papaya salad now!

Village Food (Part 1)

Our first two days in Thailand were mostly spent visiting relatives who lived in Hankha in Chainat Province. It was about 3 hours away from the airport in Bangkok, so of course we had to stop at a shack by the side of the road for some fresh coconut juice. 

After that refreshing stop, we were off again, for more food of course. Sitting in a car for hours is hungry work! About an hour later, we stopped at a river side restaurant for a huge meal with the HUGE extended family (long story involving multiple families in multiple countries...). The restaurant looked, well, fairly shabby, to say the least, and rather empty, so I guess I wasn't expecting too much. Of course, I was wrong! Most of the best food I've eaten in Southeast Asia have often been from the dustiest, shabbiest hole-in-the-wall, and this was no exception. Look and drool, my friends...

Gigantic grilled river prawns. Look at the size of those legs! This one almost looks like a baby lobster. The prawns were stored in a pool at the front of the restaurant, and only picked up and grilled when ordered. They were cooked without any seasoning, but came accompanied by a bowl of dipping sauce (fish sauce, chillies and ginger, I think). These were some of the sweetest, juiciest prawns I have ever had, and I was content to eat them plain.

Lots of fish dishes, including fried fish cakes, and steamed fish served in a number of ways. I especially liked the one that came in a fish-shaped dish on top of a heated container. 

A sort of omelette with glass noodles -sort of plain but strangely addictive. 

Homemade steamed cakes with grated coconut and steamed corn (below).

All these items were consumed within my first two, maybe three hours in Thailand. Jealous?

A Dainty Thai Cat

In Flight

Hello, lovers! It's been a while, but I'm back, with plenty more pictures to come. Where was I? Off on a manic two week trip to Singapore - Thailand - Singapore and then back to London last Friday. Just in time too, it turned out, as the snow finally visited on Saturday. I'm still feeling a little jetlagged and getting my head around actually having to do W.O.R.K., but there will be some holiday snaps and a holiday dress up soon.