All About Food

I cannot believe I have posted a few blogs without mentioning food! I must talk about the food here in Bangkok.

When I landed in Bangkok, I was really excited to get Thai food. There are resturants and food vendors everywhere! Street vendors are the cheapest options for food. Resturants are still cheap, but street vendors is usually 20 baht cheaper. Now to try to describe this food that I see and smell every day!

The streets are a plethra of colors and smells. There are green bananas, red lechee, mangos, pinapples, watermellon, and young coconuts ready to crack open and drink.

It is common to see some one wandering around with roasted corn still in its husks. Cabbages, asparagus, baby corn, carrots, green onions, cucumbers, and bamboo are heaped together in bowls and baskets. Cooked eggs are everywhere in the normal beige, white, and cream colors, and even pink. Sometimes you see whole fish staring at you from a grill, more common are deep-fried fish staring at you from a stall.

Chickens hang in cart windows, pigs' heads sit at the edges of cards, various intestines and livers lay chopped in bowls. Sea food of various freshness lays out for everyone to see (if you are lucky, they are wrapped). This is the stinkiest part of the food, the meat that lays out in the sun--it will make or break your stomach. In fact I didn't eat meat for the first couple of days because the smell killed me.

Everything is served with rice or rice noodles and tiny red chilly peppers. Plus on every table is a basket with the essentials: dried red pepper, chillis soaking in fish sauce, a bottle of fish sauces, sugar, and salt. I am getting sick of rice, but chillied-fish sauce is becoming a staple.

Thai food is quite unique that is for sure and it is really, really good. However, I am getting really tired of fried food and rice. I gave up the other day and went to McDonalds (it is really popular with the teens here). What an experience! They have a pork burger that is spicy and delicious. ALso they serve this sweet chilli sauce with the freanch fries. Also they have a tuna pie--it looks like it is deep fried. I am not brave enough to try this.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the drinks! There are tons of drink stands around here! Smoothies are popular--however Bangkok smoothies are flavored shaved ice. One place serves real smoothies with yogurt (we are regular customers). Juice and water is every where of course. I have yet to recieve drinks in the bags, but they always give you a plastic bag caddie for your drink. Iced coffee and tea is big here. The iced coffee is really sweet and fatty--they use sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk in their coffee or tea.

I am finally learning the Thai words and jestures for saying no carrots, no shrimp, no corn, no chicken, no milk. I have been really good about not eating chicken, but that other stuff creaps in easily-- every couple of days my stomach and head go baserk--like today.

I still didn't do the food justice, but at least you have some idea!