Traditional Pad Thai with Fixings
Today is my last last day in Bangkok. That means this last entry is the food porn edition. As in every other visit, the last day’s post looks back at the food I ate at our many hospital and clinic facilities. As always, the food was great, orders of magnitude better than what we get at Canadian healthcare institutions. It’s presented better, tastes better and is healthier. It actually is part of the patient’s care plan.
One thing that is a little different in this post, compared to past food porn editions, is a series of slides towards the end showing some of the different food items I saw during a visit to a night market a couple of weeks ago. This market specialized in northern Thai specialties, Thai snack foods and even some exotic non Thai delicacies. There were some crazy items on sale. For example, shrimp heads that are, well, shrimp heads that have been crushed and dried. They are kind of gross to think about, but very good to eat. There was crushed rice made into flower shaped chips. These were very good as well. There were also hot chilli chips. They were hot. It seems there is an enjoyment in crushing things and turning the crushees into chip-like snack foods. Apparently, people everywhere love chips. All kinds of chips. Even shrimp head chips.
Vendors in the night market were also selling exotic white strawberries from Japan costing up to $250 for just a handful. That was bonkers. I was told that they were big sellers. Why? Anyway, one particularly exotic fruit that I had never seen was a banana flower. This is the flower that turns into the bananas we eat. It can be eaten and cooked and was very tasty. Finally, the one ridiculous item being sold at the market was a weird bagel like object. I decided not to give it a try as it looked more like a donut to me. Thai street markets selling food products are always wonderful experiences and this one was no different.
One last thing. I wrote in an earlier post that the first Taco Bell had recently opened in Bangkok, without the beef. I had mentioned that I thought Thai tacos were way better than Taco Bell tacos. I found some. I ate some. They were delicious and at a fraction of the cost, I could have had about ten of them for the price of one mediocre Taco Bell taco. Point made!
That’s it for this visit’s edition of the Bangkok Blog. Until the next time, bon appétit.