Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Hope to shovel more of these guys in my tummy later this week. Some friends are coming from Japan, so we are doing an end of year trip to see them in Pattaya, Bang Saen, and Bangkok. Ironically, it’s hard to find good seafood near the sea in popular places here, so we have to scope out good places online before we go. Over the past decade, Google Maps has become the best in gauging places from their reviews, and more importantly, the kind of people posting them.
I’m currently on an extended keto and IF experiment which is turning out very well. Starchy noodles, like my beloved bami egg noodles, pictured above, are off the table.
But I can dream.
I’m not entirely sure if this means what I think it means… Taken at a resort we stayed at on Koh Chang.
This is the shit.
We found the holy grail of crispy pork shops on Koh Chang over the summer. Everybody on that trip still talks about it. We were there to visit students interning on the island, so I was with a couple coworker pals and we brought Max along as well. Tee drove us to Bangkok, where we stayed at his condo for a night, then we set out for a few days of island life.
This was probably the best meal of the whole trip because the prices were cheap (less than 2 dollars a dish) and the portions were huge!
Of course, the place is a total hole in the wall, and run by the friendliest people.
The name of the shop? YUMMY
The last remaining member of our squirrel assassin clan.
Thai soi (street) dogs are mostly chill. This huge concrete lot near our house was supposed to be a fresh market years ago, but before it was completed, there was a huge storm. It toppled the poorly-constructed first market area roof and someone was killed by the falling roof while several others were injured. As it turns out, it was built too low and gets flooded a foot deep for the entire duration of rainy season anyway. This doggo and his friends run around here freely now.
Somebody drove their original Toyota 2000GT through Bangkok traffic to a classic car show last week.
What a legend!
This must be the same car I wrote about being kept in an underground garage a couple years ago: Toyota 2000GT in Thailand
Credit goes to Kai Vorra-asd on Facebook: LINK
Hoi Tod is a Thai dish made by frying mussels (or sometimes, other shellfish, squid, or shrimp) in an eggy batter and wrapping up beansprouts and garlic chives with it. Those in the know usually prefer this dish to Pad Thai. It’s often served as street food, especially at night markets, but there are also small shops that specialize in it.
This particular joint was crowded when we visited at lunchtime on a weekday in a busy Bangkok district, but I thought it was pretty average — I thought it was too stuffed with undercooked sprouts, but that might just be due to my preferences. I’m used to a greasier dish with a more generously seasoned finishing umami punch in the gut. I thought this hi-so version was a bit bland. Also, eating this in a restaurant instead of at a fold-up table on the street means it costs double… However, in the third pic, you can see that they served a whole extra plate of crispy bits on the side, so that almost made up for it.
This is in the refurbished (!) restroom of one of my favorite restaurants in town. After careful observation, I have determined that it’s a MacGyvered pressure plate flushing mechanism that stinks of piss. It looked disgusting, so I just straddled it and stepped on the cleanest part when I was done… So weird.