My first street pad krapow

I’ve had these ubiquitous meat and basil stir fry rice plates a number of times at various places and this was probably the very first I’ve had on the street. Albeit a street smack in the middle of Bangkok city central where a glance across the road sees the window display of Marc Jacobs at Siam Paragon. So, affordable as it may be, it’s not really cheap as cheap goes for street eats at this particular location.

So how was this particular gai pad krapow? I liked the feisty heat from the chilli and the slightly edgy savouriness from the fish sauce. Again, I’m surprised by how much I liked the steamed rice here. The only thing that struck me as out of the ordinary was that the chicken came in little chunks instead of the usual minced meat.

The salt grilled fish between Central World and Platinum Mall

This was at the stretch along Ratchadamri Road between Central World and Platinum Mall where many people talk about and go to eat their salt encrusted grilled fish. The location was actually a short line of street vendors with their densely packed foldable tables and stools that churned out plates of stir fries, grills and the various commonly available Thai salads. Seating space was elbow to elbow - plagued by warmth, smoke and probably some traffic exhaust, layered with a good measure of humidity.

Suitably atmospheric would be the phrase I'd use to describe the place. Kinda like a dai pai dong in Hong Kong.

The thing to order was obviously their salted crusted grilled fish; with a choice between catfish and tilapia. The latter of which has been in recent year or so lambasted for being worse than bacon and are potential bearers of disease as bottom feeders. Well, here's the catfish anyways. It's simple as peeling back the skin and eating the tender flesh underneath.

While there are some that might be bothered by the earthy (or commonly referred to as muddy) taste of freshwater fish, their spicy dip on the side works wonders in detracting from those said flavours and adds a delicious spicy zing. And man, the rice was good with all that.

Next up were tasty strips of grilled pork neck, laced with what some might consider a brow raising but delicious amount of tasty fat to go with the caramelized exterior.

Stir fried water spinach (or also known as kang kong) with garlic and a bit of chilli. Nothing unexpected there.

And a coconut of juice to drown my sorrows for the order of som tam that never arrived in spite of reminders. Oh well... there is always a next time. Right?

Provence, The Peninsula Plaza, Bangkok

For some reasons, I had in my previous visit thought this place to be L'Occitane Cafe. Seems like it's actually Provence instead. It's a nice little spot of quiet and cool from the bustling crowd and heat of central Bangkok.

Here're some garlic chive dumplings. Very tasty stuff with or without the dip of sweet dark soy sauce dip with sliced bird's eye chilli.

The really outstanding item was their special beef boat noodles. These are called boat noodles as they were traditionally served by vendors on boats along the the canals/rivers of Bangkok. Today, these can also be found in streets away from the waterside as well. In essence, these boat noodles are a small bowl of soup noodles with choice of meat in a broth fortified with spices and blood.

This one has obviously been elevated beyond the boat/street status and into a larger bowl as well, but the method of preparation as I'm guessing, has been largely preserved. The flavours were  both spicy and robust in a earthy savoury manner. Served piping hot. We enjoyed the broth so much that we asked for a refill which the restaurant obliged.

Some tangy spicy wing bean salad. One shouldn't regard Thai salads as a vegetable quota or an afterthought since it is here very often, appetite inducingly tasty.

And for something a little different from the usual Thai stuff, chicken livers wrapped in bacon. In retrospect, this was a mistake. It wasn't grilled as nicely as we would have expected and the red wine sauce was oddly bitter.

Because we had so much food before, it's some sweet mango requested without the glutinous rice. Sweet and juicy they were.

And sugar marinated bananas with texture akin to steamed tapioca. These were accompanied with coconut milk.

Raan Jay Fai, Thanon Mahachai, Bangkok

We've heard mentions of this lady with about five decades of cooking under her belt whipping up not the usual stir fry (not cheap as well if I might add) and so we just had to come to this time capsule of a location (327 Thanon Mahachai, Bangkok, Thailand,  tel : +66 2 223 9384) to try the food. The place isn't exactly Bangkok city centre, but it's located a literal stone's throw away from a certain Thip Samai which is supposedly the holy grail for phad thai. I mean, really? 

That above is their pad khee mao, or also known as drunken noodles. It's actually stir fried rice noodles and that can't really be seen from the picture. The ratio of the chunky ingredients to the said rice noodles are probably 2 to 1.  This stuff was smokey caramelized good if you catch my drift. From the sugars and fish sauce and whatever else that might have added to form that nice browning on the surface of the noodles. A pleasant blend of heat and smokey sweetness with overtones of basil would probably be a good description for the flavours. Oh, those white chunky pieces of meat at the top are neither chicken nor poodle. It's crab. 

That gnarly nugget is their famed crab omelette. Just in case you were wondering, it was a little more than 20 cm across.

And fully loaded with egg and chunks of crab meat. I never thought that I would be crabbed out from this but that was enough flesh to make at least 3 or 4 of those crab cakes from Morton's.

This was described in English on the menu as dry porridge. It was a lot more viscous than most porridges that I'm used too, hearty and delicious. Fascinatingly lightweight in flavours compared to their stir fried dishes and also, loaded with large chunky pieces of seafood. Like!   

Mamacitas Costa Rican Cuisine, Lau Pa Sat

Yikes, I didn't enjoy this casado much at all. The meat was heavily salted and the food was greasy in a not so good way. I'm not sure how much of a representative this is of Costa Rican food since I'm not familiar with them at all.  But I'm pretty sure this stall at least localised themselves with regards to how much they're charging for their food with their given portions while trying to pass the easily available ingredients with minimal skills required with the preparation off as some "exotic" option in the food court.

Everything on the menu seems to be a rehash of a few same ingredients that has been sitting in the troughs; be it the burritos, their chalupas or rice plates. Also certainly did not expect bottled sweet chilli sauce for default condiments. For what they are charging, they could do better than just picco de gallo, shredded lettuce and a sad slice of plantain. I'm pretty sure there's more than a handful of other better ways to spend my money down in Lau Pa Sat. 

Moments before The Age of Ultron

Yeap, a delicious meal before a equally delicious movie from our home grown joint. Of juicy tender fried chicken with thin crisp skin and a soothing milky iced bandung to wash down. The meal that is.

Have you watched The Age of Ultron? I've caught pretty much all the Marvel movies since the first Iron Man and they've mostly been a blast. Well, maybe I didn't like the second Thor so much because of the CG saturation that reminded me more than a little of the last trilogy for Star Wars.

I dug the first Avengers movie. As an ex-comic reader, I can certainly appreciate that these recent years have been a realization of many dreams for many fans. I had especially looked forward to this one because the bonus was Ultron. Or the voice behind it. And as I had been anticipating, an Ultron with the snarkiness of a particular concierge of crime - Raymond "Red" Reddington. James Spader of course. An excellent actor that could recite a line of not so thinly veiled threat while charming the pants off you with that very same line.