The other day we received a lovely little comment from our dear friend Courtney asking us for more pictures of FOOD. So, the last day or so we made sure to take a few extra pictures of the many different foods we are trying along with the food markets that seem to be on the corner of every street we pass. Enjoy, Court!
We also encourage all of you, our dear readers, to let us know if you have special requests of pictures you would like to see or things you would like to learn (or, for that matter, things you would like to see LESS of as well).
The food here in Thailand can be summed up in one word: SPICY. Whether it be a simple fried rice, a complex chicken curry, or a hearty soup (which we have nearly every day for breakfast or lunch), it is full of SPICE SPICE SPICE. If it’s NOT spicy enough for you, which is nearly impossible, there are usually two or three kinds of spices and peppers sitting on the table for you as condiments to add to your meal.
We generally don’t eat in actual restaurants because there is ’street’ food everywhere you go. Think of it as little carts of food you would see in Golden Gate Park, or in Cleveland on the day of a Browns game, except more of full actual meals. The cost is much less than restaurants, and from what we see and taste the food usually has fresher ingredients with a much better, and more complex, recipe.
The most common food we come across is the soup. Soup stands are pretty much everywhere you look here in Thailand, and most of them offer the same ingredients which are spread out for your choosing on the little cart. Generally, three meats are offered: Sliced pork and pork meat balls, chicken, and fish, which usually comes as a fish ball. Sometimes if you are lucky you will come across beef but that, my friend, will cost you an extra ten baht. The veggies are usually onion, corn, carrots, broccoli (or the asian equivalent like a bak choy), bamboo shoots (ALWAYS bamboo shoots), and one or two others that we haven’t yet quite figured out what they are. There are usually 3 different kinds of noodles you can choose from. Most of the time you will find things like basil and parsley in there as well, and and then a ton of peppercorn (still attached to the tiny branch). Next to all of these different choices is a HUGE vat of simmering broth. You pick your ingredients, kind of meat, and noodle, and it all gets placed in a big wire mesh ladle, which is then placed in to the vat of broth. After just a few minutes everything is dumped in a bowl about the size of your head, some extra broth ladled on top, and then it’s covered with a sprinkle of sugar, pepper, crushed peanuts, crushed red pepper, lime, and a dash of fish sauce. Though all of the soup stands offer the same ingredients, its the ’secret’ recipe of the broth that makes a certain soup cart stand out. This will run you about 30 baht (just under 1 dollar).
There are also tons of different kinds of fried rice, and I don’t think I need to explain what that is. It’s the easier choice when we are tired and don’t want to figure out what is on the menu. It usually costs about 20 baht, and I haven’t come across any I haven’t liked.
The curries here are absolutely unbelievable. Curries in the States got NOTHIN’ on this curry. It’s just not the same. They are the perfect combination of sweet and spicy (VERY spicy, actually) and you can get any kind of ingredients you can possibly imagine. Double the size of the soup I wrote about above, with double the ingredients and double the complex flavors. I won’t even try to explain what all is in them because it seems like every item of food you can find in Thailand somehow ends up in a bowl of curry. Be careful, though, the spice really makes you sweat. A big bowl of curry will run you between 40 – 80 baht depending on what you order, with seafood curries (absolutely killer in Si Racha!) being on the higher end. ( as this post has gone to print Kevin has found a new style of curry found only in Northern Thailand called Khao Sawy. It was so delicious he will be writing an entire post solely dedicated to this ancient recipe – pictures soon).
Most of the foods here you can find dried or flash fried. Seems to be an easier way to keep food, and to consume it as well. The difference is that most of the dried foods come whole. For example, in Oakland you can get a bag of dried squid that is shredded up and packaged. Here, though, for the most part you get the WHOLE squid handed to you in a bag, and then covered in salts, sugar and spices. Same thing goes for dried pork skins – they are HUGE and come in a bag that cost about 5 baht. We particularly like these. There is also whole dried fish everywhere, which isn’t so much consumed as a snack but used to make the broths of the soup I was talking about above. Dried fruits, nuts, meats, dried everything, everywhere, for very, very cheap. (sorry, but somehow I lost all these amazing pictures on the dried food. the ones below are the ones left. I’ll get more, promise)
The different sweets here are really colorful, and really not all that sweet. I’m assuming we think the deserts aren’t very sweet because they aren’t laden with corn syrup like back home. Usually you find some sort of rice pudding, coconut, and the ocasional chocolate. There is also a lot of tarot in various forms sprinkled with sugar. I’m not going to lie, as soon as I saw a Thai version of a dunkin’ donuts I was all in – I really miss my American sweets, but I’ll get used to it.
A note on beer – We never thought about it but beer here is rather expensive by Thai standards, and we can only assume it’s because they import their wheat and hops (it’s certainly not grown here). A can of beer at a store will run you 30 baht, a little under a dollar, which is pretty much what it costs at home. We don’t drink it much at all because one can costs the same as a full meal, which is just not worth it. When we find the strange Thai liquors we have heard so much about, we’ll let you know.
We haven’t yet ventured in to the ‘crazier’ foods just yet, but they are there and ready when we are ready – roasted grasshoppers, pig snout and tongue, various unidentifiable bugs, all kinds of raw fish that don’t appear nearly as comfortable as sushi. We’ll get there, and we’ll let you know when.
The food markets are incredible. The smells quickly change from nauseating to delectable and back again. We tend to see one thing and think “gross” (which of course we NEVER say, you just smile and move along politely) and see the next thing and nearly yell HOW MUCH? I WANT THAT! Here are few pictures of the markets, with many, many more food pictures to come to keep Courtney and the rest of you foodies satisfied.
And congratulations, Courtney, for being our first friend whose name ended up in a blog post title…..Now go tell Lee and make him jealous! YES YES YES!
Check out our “Foods of Thailand” flickr set:
