I’m currently going through a bit of a drought at the moment. We’re on the island of Ko Chang off Thailand’s south coast, and street food’s been a little thin on the sand. Instead, I’ve decided to spotlight some of the street food I’ve had in the last month or so that for various reasons I’ve left unreported.
A banana fritter outside the entrance to a waterfall near Luang Prabang. These bananas are small and almost potato like in texture. They can well withstand the heat o’the fryer and come out tasting savory sweet ‘n snacky.
This vendor had too choices: spicy or non-spicy. Not wanting to look like a lily tongued farang I opted for the spicy and ended up with something misleadingly familiar. The noodles were almost spaghetti like in texture, and the accompanying sauce looked like Bolognaise in cognito. The resemblance ended there – this thing was stone fire, and the rice cake on top did little to put out the flames.
I had some coconut ice cream in Vietnam and I’m really coming round to the idea of it. The coconut taste is subtle, and there seems to be something extra cooling about this ice cream. The half shell and flag were a nice touch, the accompanying glass of coconut water was undrinkable.
Mini-sausages wrapped in bacon. This one is an O’Sullivan Christmas staple, which is why I found this so exciting. Although the bacon was ok, the sausage screamed everything that is wrong about Asia. With the real thing less than two months away, I shouldn’t have bothered.
We arrived in Bangkok yesterday, and I’m already getting a taste of what makes it so different from the rest of South East Asia. The city is a dizzy mish mash of royal pomp, rampant commerce, lady boys, sex tourists, backpackers, scam artists and traditional Thai courtesy. Crowded, polluted and tiring at times – but never boring.
We’re shacked up in a place in Rambutri, close to the infamous Khao San Road. It’s a bona fide backpacker ghetto, but after experiencing so much commerce-cloaked-in-culture elsewhere, I’m finding something quite refreshing about the brash, in your face-ness of it all. Bangkok has been doing the tourist gig for along time, and it’s great not to feel like I’m stamping on a monk’s toes everytime I walk out the door.
In keeping with this theme, the street food here mostly revolves around large, multi-itemed operations catering exclusively for the tourist market. Eating at these joints tends to go against my usual preference for locally validated, one vendor, one dish setups, but I decided to put my snobbery aside for the night and get stuck in – a case of when in Rambutri, do as the non-Rambutrans.
I opted for a Green Curry, arguably the most famous Thai dish and one pretty expressive of the flavours indiginous to the country; Chilli, lemongrass, galangal, sweet basil, fish sauce and kaffir lime all make an appearence. This one was of a reasonably quality – I would have welcomed a little more coconut milk and it was definitely farang (as opposed to Thai) spicy. Still, for only 30 kip (just over 50p) in the center of one of the most heavily touristed areas in South East Asia, it was pretty damn good.
Across the table Sarah went for another Thai superstar, Tom Yam. In my opinion, this hot and sour classic is one of the most bewitching soups on the planet. It is also very easy to get wrong; the slightest tremor in flavouring and Tom Yam instantly loses the X-factor. Unfortunately whoever made Sarah’s took the Khao San hippy theme a little too far – an excess of chilli oil meant the surface of the soup resembled a lava lamp, with all the attendent greasiness that entails. An altogether less accomplished bowl of food than the one I enjoyed.
A suitably mixed result for a suitably mixed up city.
We arrived in Chang Mai on Sunday, just in time for the wonderful Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market. The Market takes over the entire main street of the old town, and features a wide variety of the usual jewelry, fans, lamps, souvenirs etc.
And food. I’d heard that the Thais love to eat, but this literally blew me away. The market is home to the most diverse and well executed street food I’ve yet to encounter on this trip – think London’s Borough Market without the gentrification.
Even in a month of Sundays I wouldn’t have been able to tackle everything I wanted too. Here’s a quickfire machine gun round-up of what I did.
All aboard the good ship omlette. These little banana leaf boats held a precious cargo of egg and slivers of red onion. The omlette was cut into chopstick friendly cubes and nicely salted, if a little cold.
Fried quails eggs take me back to Xi’an. In Xian, Quails eggs are cooked on skewers then rolled in cumin and chili powder. Here, they simply pop them in a Styrofoam box and sprinkle with pepper and soy sauce. Either way, its hard to find fault in these little mouthfuls of rich yolky goodness.
Fried noodles were cheap, nicely cooked and customisable. The idea is to grab a punnet then feel free to add as much chili, crushed peanuts, soy sauce, beansprouts and green onions as you can handle.
I did and this happened. Although it’s not going to win any beauty contests anytime soon, this was a tray of pure awesomeness. Crushed peanuts and noodles is a killer partnership, and those sliced pickled chillies brought a delicious vinegary kick to the table.
The obligatory pork skewer. These ones had been coated with a sweet glaze. By the time I got there they were cold. OK-ish is probably a suitably non-committal way to express my almost complete lack of an opinion.
The styrofoam container it came in probably had more nutritional value than this deep fried chicken skin. Glasgow’s deep fried mars bar have nothing on this stuff. I had to stop eating halfway through to give my arteries a fighting chance. I also had to finish the lot.
Street Sushi! There was actually loads of these stalls, with prices ranging from 5 – 10 baht a piece (10-20p.) Not the best sushi in the world, or possibly even Chiang Mai, but a real novelty.
Finally. German sausage and mashed potato. Yet another example of the multiculturalism of Chiang Mai’s street food. A little on the pricey side for what you got (around 50p) but a good end to a great wander.
