Farewell to Thailand and its fine foods

Oh Thailand-  how sad it is to leave. To say goodbye to new friends, familiar faces of locals I have interacted with, sights both seen and unseen, and oh, how I will miss your culinary cuisine! In this final entry about Thailand I will brag of other amazing foods that I have eaten and have not yet mentioned. Due to my excessive eating habits, not all meals will be recognized, but know that each taste was savoured with joy and will forever be remembered in my heart and my taste memory.

Breakfast- a great place to begin.

In my last week I found my favorite way to start my day. I found a cute cafe that served relatively good iced cappacinos and an amazingly simple meal. This was my take on the dish and how I will attempt to recreate it:
An omlete of just an egg fried hard and fast without much scrambling of the egg so that some areas are of soft yolk, but fried hard enough so there is a bit of a crispy outside. It is then cut up and placed on a plate with a raw vegetable salad that has soaked in the juice of lime, tomato, and garlic. The shredded veg consists of carrots, celery (with the leaves), Italian parsley, white onion, and fresh chili pepers.

There are some fruits with a wide variety of uses, and luckily, one which is easily accessible when I return home-Bananas! Most of the bananas consumed in Thailand are baby bananas or "sweet" bananas. They can be found deep fried in batter and dipped in honey or palm sugar, cooked on the street in a Roti, cooked in coconut milk, turned into bread, as well as wrapped in sticky rice and then steamed in a banana leaf.

I also enjoyed this "banana roll" off the street at the Sunday Night Market- a banana wrapped as a spring roll, deep fried, and sold for the equivalant of about $0.33.

Switching tastes up a bit. There were several other authentic Asian restaurants around for me to enjoy. When at school, I ate Vietnamese dish Pho almost daily, was thrilled to eat Indian food in its several course glory, and when I saw a special Japanese dish-Okonamiyaki offered on the street, I had to have it! Okonamiyaki is like the lovechild of a pancake and omelete, a meal of many layers and cooked on a flat skillet. The first layer is batter, followed by lots of shredded cabbage, ramen style noodles, meat or seafood of some sort, a fried egg, then topped with a

salty sauce, mayonnaise, and green onion. Beleive it or not, but this is edible with chopsticks! If you don't beleive me, ask Deniz who witnessed in astonishment with her fork in hand.

 

 For the 5 weeks I was in Thailand, I was obsessed with eating noodle dishes! I loved wide noodle dishes similar to those I can find in the states- Drunken noodles, Pad See Ew, and Phat si-io, and others. I also however enjoyed my noodle dishes in other fashions. As my friend Karen who I visited in the Ukraine (look forward to reading about that soon) can atest, this dish is relatively easy to prepare. I attempted with a packet of ramen noodles, added vegetables, an attempt at a poached egg (Thank zou Karen) and curry paste to the broth.


And for the fianl courses-
I found a recomendation online to eat at a place called the "Funky Dog Cafe." True to the views of others, the food was delicious, the ambience unique, and the owner/Chef/artist was a rather inspiring fellow. He shared some beautiful words with me and 2 even lovlier meals, one being the yellow currry, the other a "mystical" tomato curry. I will attempt to make the tomato curry by adding sun dried tomatoes and cashews to my curry

paste. I (and Deniz who awaits my success) can only hope that my taste memory is strong enough to match the beauty and perfection that this tomato curry left dancing on our pallets.

Thailand, I miss you already. I thank you for all the opportunities you presented to me. I can not wait to bring my memories of you into my kitchen and massage practice, and to share you with my friends, family, and clients.

                           ~Sawasdee~