Travel Blog

Duck Red Curry (kaeng pet bpet)One of my favourite Thai dishes is the red curry with duck. It is also sometimes served with pineapple. This dish is quit expensive in the restaurants. This is a street food version which we bought for 25 baht. It tastes good, but as far as meat goes, you get what you pay for! I usually add my own meat to help it go further. The red curry is often served with cherry tomatoes and also eggplants. These are like oversized peas and are rather hard.Khee Lek CurryThis is a strange curry dish. I have had eaten it on several occasions but I will never buy for myself. The main ingredient are the leaves of the “khee lek” tree. As you can see, it has been liquidized in a food blender! Other than that, it has red curry paste, coconut milk and seasoned with fish sauce and palm sugar. It was supposed to have beef as well. But, basically what you can see at the top of this dish is all we got! Again, what do you expect for 25 baht. Actually, we were the winner of a lucky dip. I found a shrimp in this dish too! Not sure where that came from unless there were two versions. A warning to people who might be vegetarians. I have actually seen food vendors pick out the meat from a cooked dish to serve to a vegetarian customer!Stir-fried Cauliflower with ShrimpYou cannot really go wrong with a stir-fried vegetable dish. I always order at least one for all meals. This one is basically cauliflower and shrimp. I usually season my stir-fried vegetable dishes with oyster sauce. But this one had fish sauce instead. As Thai people are sweet toothed, they always add some sugar to most dishes. This was 25 baht.Mung Beans in sugar SyrupI am not really that keen on any beans - in particular mung beans. But, I guess you can make anything delicious if you add a sugar syrup to it! A few spoonfuls was enough for me. If you want to cook yourself, just soak the mung beans in water overnight and then cook on a medium heat until tender. Then just add lots of sugar! This was only 8 baht.—————–Sorry for the lack of blogs recently from myself. We have been very busy moving and upgrading websites and servers. I haven’t done any travel blogs for a while as I have been working hard every weekend. Hopefully I will be back blogging again next month.

Noodles on the BoatBoat Noodles is probably one of the most famous noodle dishes. Despite its name, it is not always served on the canals, however you will often see that land based noodle stores still have a boat on display. This dish can be either pork or beef. The most popular noodle is probably sen lek. This version you see here has beef with morning glory. There are no noodles which are optional. The soup can vary quite a bit though it is never that simple like other noodle soups as it has spices. Another notable ingredient is quite often pigs blood. The dish is often served in small bowls for less than 20 baht.Tom Yum Fried RiceThis next dish is a bit of a strange hybrid. It is cross-between fried rice and the popular tum yum soup. Though this version doesn’t have the soup. The basic ingredients are all the same. Like lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, red shallots, straw mushrooms and even my favourite, chili jam (nam prik pao). Unlike normal tom yum, all the ingredients are chopped up fine so that you eat all. It was good but I felt it was a little dry. My other favourite tom yum hybrid is egg noodle tom yum. This fried rice with seafood was 25 baht.Stir-fried Prawns and Sponge GourdThis is a simple side dish which is easy to make. You need to peel and wash the gourd and then cut up into bite size pieces. Fry some garlic in a wok and when it is golden brown add the gourd. Season with fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce and stock. Add the shrimp and keep stirring. This was only 25 baht.Black Beans and Tapioca BallsOur dessert today was “tua dum saku biak” or Black Beans and Tapioca Balls. As in many Thai desserts, it had thick coconut milk and plenty of sugar. I am afraid I wasn’t too keen on this dessert. But, at least I tried. This was only 10 baht. The next time you are walking the streets in Thailand don’t be shy to try something new. Thai street food is not that expensive and is worth experimenting.

Stir-fried Thai Flat Beans (kung pat sa-tor)The Thai flat beans used in this dish are common in Southern Thailand. It is called “sa tor”. This healthy dish which helps to increase your appetite has two versions. One with shrimp paste and this one with curry paste. Other major ingredients include pork, shrimp, garlic and shallots. It is seasoned with fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. This is a good side dish well worth buying to eat with something else. This cost us 30 baht.Coconut Milk and Fermented Soy Bean Sauce (tao jiao lon)The main ingredient of this is a mixture of coconut milk and fermented soy bean sauce. It also has chopped shrimp and pork and shallots and chillies. It is seasoned with sugar and tamarind juice. The fermented soy bean makes this a little salty. It is usually served with fresh vegetables such as cabbage and cucumber. This dish only cost 25 baht.Fried Prawn and Squid in Curry Sauce (pat pong kari talay)I really like the “pong kari” curry powder dishes. My favourite is the soft shelled crab curry (pu nim pat pong kari). Be careful when you order the hard shelled version as it can get quite expensive and is not very good value for money as you cannot eat everything. This version uses seafood such as fried shrimp and squid. I am never that keen on seafood like squid but I enjoyed the curry. I have never tried to cook this but might have a try some time. You basically fry the seafood with some curry powder. Then you add a mixture of milk, chilli paste and an egg. Add some oyster sauce and then chopped onion, spur chili and spring onion and season with pepper. Not a bad dish for 25 baht.Banana in Syrup (kluay kai cheuam)Our dessert today was delicious as usual. As you know, I don’t normally like bananas, but Thai desserts with bananas are often very tasty. For this one, water is mixed with some sugar and put in a pan to boil. Then some lemon juice is added. The heat is then lowered and peeled bananas are put in the pan and allowed to simmer for about five minutes. The topping is some coconut milk which has a dash of salt. This was 25 baht.

All of the students at my school took part in the annual Wai Khru Ceremony today. The students presented their teachers with flowers and said “thank you” to them for giving them knowledge. In return, the teachers gave them a blessing which the students believe will give them good luck for the coming academic year. The flowers given to the teachers are symbolic. Dok Ma Khue (eggplant flower) stands for respect because when the tree is blooming its branches bend down in the same way a student pays respect to their teacher. Ya Praek (Bermuda grass) stands for patience or perseverance because although the grass looks wilted it is still very much alive. Khao Tok (popped rice) stands for discipline because the rice is placed in a pan together and heated up to become popped rice. The Dok Kem has the same name as the Thai word for needle. So it means the student will be sharp-witted and brainy. The ceremony always takes place on a Thursday towards the start of the academic year. Thursdays are considered to be auspicious for teachers.You can listen to a audio streaming of the Wai Khru Poem recited by one of our students at www.SpokenThai.com.