Southeast Asia (3/13) – Pig Out 2/3

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 5 – Bangkok

Hong’s birthday cake from Park Hyatt Bangkok

Chicken mataba from a tiny vendor at the Tha Chang ferry pier
This is the Thai version of murtabak, which we might like more than the Singaporean version

Our first of many bowls of kuai teow ruea (boat noodles) in Bangkok
We adventured into this noodle shop with no English whatsoever. Unsure what to expect, we ordered 1 bowl to start…

… and then we immediately ordered two more bowls
These flavors were incredibly addicting and this became our favorite thing to eat in Thailand

Neatly cut pineapple and watermelon, and some boba, as our afternoon snack by the hotel pool

Our first Thai iced tea in Thailand

Shrimp cake, stir-fried morning glory (in Chinese restaurants we call it water spinach), and crab curry at Lek & Rut Seafood on Yaowarat Road (Bangkok’s Chinatown)
That crab curry became Hong’s other favorite food in Thailand
I loved the veggies

Morning glory and steamed seabass at Fai-Keaw Yaowarat, a.k.a. the explosive restaurant

Day 6 – Bangkok

Fried dough and kanom krok (coconut-rice pancakes) from Nang Loeng market
The former was merely a truncated version of the Chinese counterpart
The latter was sweet-salty amazing goodness

Morning Thai tea drinks with a rice plate topped with loofah squash, pork liver with chive, and spicy ground pork

The second tasting of boat noodles

Tom yum goong (sour & spicy soup with prawn) noodles at Pe Aor, with guava juice

est cola, the Thai Coke

Thai-Cantonese style roasted duck at Prachak Pet Yang, a restaurant below the Sky Bar featured in Hangover 2

Durian – I think of the Golden Pillow variety
Like most people I know, I hated durian all my life; decided to try it again as a more food-adventurous adult and enjoyed (but not love) it
Thanks Chee Seng for picking it out for me

Back at Lek & Rut with Ariel and Chee Seng for more Thai-Chinese food

Fancy cocktail at Penthouse, Park Hyatt Bangkok’s rooftop bar

Day 7 – Khlong Lat Mayom & Ayutthaya

Boba at 8am from Kamu at the BTS Skytrain station – possibly the best grapefruit green tea I’ve ever had

Eating madness begins at the Khlong Lat Mayom, a floating market west of Bangkok
This was a plate of oyster omelette cooked on a tiny boat

Stir-fried turnip cake from the same boat lady

Coconut ice cream with Southeast Asian toppings, in a coconut shell

Meal #2 at Khlong Lat Mayom immediately followed, with substantial sides of guava and pineapple

Som tam, the Thai papaya salad

Goong ob woon sen, mung bean noodles with large prawns

Mango sticky rice, the staple dessert in Thailand
Took a bit to get used to the combination of fresh fruit, sweet, and salty flavors, but it became addicting afterwards

Okay now we arrived at Ruay Goong Pao, the one restaurant in Thailand, aside from Gaggan, that we had to visit
Its specialty was roasted freshwater prawns. Not ordinary shrimp, but my-prawn-will-eat-your-lobster sized prawns
We dined on a floating platform surrounded by farmed fish (and presumably prawns); farm-to-table doesn’t get any more closer than this

To get the meal started were coconut juice, stir-fried lotus stems and fish cake

Tom yum goong made with the prawns’ claws and forearms. You can’t tell from this picture but the pot was half liquid, half prawn meat

Giga freshwater prawns (2 per kilogram)

Mega freshwater prawns (3 per kilogram)

In the evening, we checked out the food court (Eatthai) at the lower level of Central Embassy and had another coconut ice cream

To conclude, we brought five bags of fruits and a box of rainbow mango sticky rice to chill by the hotel pool

Day 8 – Bangkok-Koh Samui

For breakfast, we followed Chee Seng to Go-Ang Kaomunkai Pratunam and had the Thai version of Hainanese chicken rice (khao man gai)
Like other street foods in Southeast Asia, it looked plain but had a sophisticated and complex flavor profile
It was also my first time having chicken blood jelly

Shrimp noodles on the Bangkok Airways BKK-USM flight

Lemongrass ginger iced tea, the welcome drink at SALA Samui, our beach-side resort

Spring rolls and green curry at a Choengmon Beach restaurant
This island primarily served Western tourists, which you could tell by spotting the carrots and baby corn in the food