Chapter 4 Part 1

Now, onto explaining everything else.  As I mentioned, pretty much everything was cheap.  Most meals were $1 and were actually quite filling…unlike the $1 menu in America we were accustomed to. Even though it was cheap, the problem was finding something we liked.  And if we happened to stumble across it, you didn’t like it for very long because you eat it all the time. 

One Thai place we frequented was a Thai bbq…let me assure you that this ISN’T like what you are thinking.  It’s not barbeque that’s dripping in marinade and sauce.  Nope, it’s not anything like that.  Instead, it’s several choices of raw meat, lettuce, cabbage, and some cooked foods on the side.  You have a “bbq” in the center of the table that is filled with coals and a pot thing of some sort.  It’s domed at the top for cooking the meat and has a trench at the bottom to boil the vegetables.  Not the fairytale I’m fond of but it was a buffet and they did have chicken wings as part of the cooked food…I made sure to fill up on the normalcy.  

The traditional Thai bbq

Instead of having actual restaurants, Thailand is filled with food booths.  People set out their carts, set up table and chairs and are open for business. Foods we ate most days included kao pad (fried rice with fresh chunks of vegetables and whatever meat you wanted in it), ba me (a soup consisting of egg noodles,bean sprouts, etc), san yi hang (hang meaning without juice--so a dry soup with wide noodles, bean sprouts, etc), and moo pat kao tiem prit thai (seasoned pork over rice).  There were a few other things we ate but it doesn't really matter here.

Kao pad ghoon (shrimp fried rice) & sweet and sour pork

Thailand specializes in sticky rice---quite delicious!  It's a certain type of rice put in a weaved basket then set on top a pot of boiling water.  The steam then cooks the rice and makes it stick together.  They also have kanums.  These can be made different ways but all are wrapped in banana leaves.  The ones I loved were sticky rice and bananas wrapped in the leaf and then steamed...it was soooo good!  I loved to get a bunch of these and eat them for breakfast the next day (along with my usual sticky rice and fried pork.)