Southeast Asia (4/13) – Pig Out 3/3

Southeast Asia 2018

Peninsula City Hopping
Pig Out 1/3
Pig Out 2/3
Pig Out 3/3
Hong Kong Déjà Vu
Unfinished Business in Singapore
Exploring Kuala Lumpur
Week-Long Birthday in Thailand
Wats in Bangkok
Bangkok Food Scenes
Ayutthaya Road Trip on a Full Stomach
Vacation Within Vacation on Koh Samui
Farewell Thailand

Day 9 – Koh Samui

Breakfast at the hotel: fruits, congee, and the green juice hiding the worst pad thai ever behind it

Another American-Thai lunch. Delicious like the best Thai food you can find in Southwest Virginia

Premium mango sticky rice from Fisherman’s Village (Bophut Beach)

Bophut night market: quail eggs

Bophut night market: grilled rice cake

Bophut night market: octopus leg

Cocktails on the beach, at Coco Tam per recommendation by our hotel
The venue was nice, the view was good, the weather was perfect… but damn mosquitoes!

Day 10 – Koh Samui / Koh Tan

Iced coffee at the breakfast buffet
Looked awesome and tasted fine. Sweetness level a bit short of the “Thai iced coffee” level

Hotel breakfast buffet: fruits and pastries

Casual American-Thai lunch under a shack on Koh Tan
Quite tasty for a multi-course meal on a near-uninhabited island

Dinner was at Krua Bophut in the Fisherman’s Village, also per our hotel’s recommendation
Unlike the other food options on Koh Samui, this restaurant served authentic Thai dishes
This was soft shell crab curry

Som tam (papaya salad)

Steamed snapper with chili lime sauce

We found dessert back at Choengmon Beach near our hotel: cocktail and more mango sticky rice

Day 11 – Koh Samui-Bangkok

Hotel breakfast… including mango sticky rice in a jar and a super clear tom yum broth

This was a very liquid meal with two juices, an iced coffee, and water

Second round of soupy food; the clear tom yum was surprisingly tasty

We felt blessed once again to have a full hot meal on the short Bangkok Airways flight back to Bangkok
The duck red curry was honestly better than most of the restaurant food we had on Koh Samui

Back in Bangkok and feeling rejuvenated with street food!
This was a tiny order of vegetable samosa at Khlongsan market

I ordered for one skewer of octopus tentacles to be grilled
“One?” the vendor asked
“Yes, one,” I confirmed
As soon as I bit into the spicy & tangy dressing, I regretted not having ordered five

In the back corner of Khlongsan market, we found kuai teow ruea (boat noodles) again
It took some effort to get the message “we’d like two bowls please” across to the shop owner, in part maybe because they sold multiple types of noodles and we had no clue how they differentiated. But man the tears of joy…

Khao man gai the chicken rice. This plate in Khlongsan was… well, not worth trying again

More fruits to help with the digestion (assuming they could fit in my already full stomach)
All this beautifully cut and bagged fruits for $2 USD!!!

Hong’s birthday cocktails at Millennium Hilton Bangkok’s 360 Rooftop Bar

More mango sticky rice. What else did you expect?

Day 12 – Bangkok-Taipei

Hotel breakfast buffet as a Hilton Gold benefit that we negotiated to be added to the reservation last minute
Unfortunately, Millennium Hilton failed pretty hard on their food selection

The least tasty noodles we had on this entire trip, at the Hilton breakfast buffet

Some mochi off the street that we never finished

Well since I finished all the fruits from last night, gotta get more guava now

Creatively-named halal restaurant, “Muslim”, in Silom near Sky Bar
Beef mataba, daal curry, mutton biriyani… I’m a bit unwilling to admit this but I think they’ve got Singapore Zam Zam beat

Packed up, checked out, and back at the Khlongsan back corner for two final bowls of boat noodles (and Ochaya teas) before crying our way to the airport

Pro-tip to spend down remaining Thai baht… coconut and mango sticky rice in the airport food court

And… fried shrimp heads. Not the most Thai kind of food but whatever

Our Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Taipei served some beautiful Thai dishes
The other courses were alright, but the chili-lime-scallion-onion dressing on the left was heavenly. I licked my plate clean before doing the same to Hong’s serving

Coconut ice cream + mango + green (pandan?) sticky rice

We arrived at my childhood home in Taipei at midnight. Still stuffed from the full ~~day~~ two weeks worth of food run
Mom had rode her bike for half an hour to get me hot grass jelly because I mentioned craving it a while ago
It was yummy as the best dessert in the world. It was also the taste of home and taste of Mom’s love

Day 13 – Taipei & Return Trip

After a rather short nap, my parents agreed to accompany us for one last Asian street food run – the traditional Taiwanese breakfast
We ordered a bunch of stuff and I ate half of them
Parents wouldn’t let me pay

— Okay we’re officially done with Asia by this point —
— You may skip the rest of this page to avoid my snobbishly dramatized fit over the end of this vacation —

These were some gourmet items served in the Eva Airlines “Royal Laurel” cabin. I don’t feel like captioning them