Since I am heading to Krabi in a few hours’ time, it is appropriate that I write about the awesome dinners Mell and I had during our visit to Bangkok last February. Something that I shouldn’t have waited so long to do, but there’re just so many things and so little time, oh well!

this guy sells a few types of typical Thai dishes

Our first dinner at Bangkok was infact our second night there, after a long day at the city, we came back to our hotel at Reflections Rooms and decided to dine right by street next to the hotel lobby. I ordered two plates of Pad See Yew for dinner.

Pad See Yew, with plenty of chili padi if you need them

The pad see yew is basically fried flat rice noodle with vegetable, egg, pork (sometimes substitute with chicken or beef), and vegetable. Fish sauce, soy sauce, and pepper are also among the ingredients that made up this dish. I’ve had pad see yew quite a number of times, and this must be one of the best tasting I’ve tried yet.

The dinner was around 70 baht, water was free.

a stall offering variety of dishes with rice

After having a pretty tiring first day at Chatuchak, we decided to try the other stall right next to the first one we ordered pad see yew from. This is one of the many stalls that littered the streets offering a wide variety of dishes that goes with rice. They only have 2-3 tables set up by the pavement, I guess most of their business are the drive-through type.

long bean with chicken, and seafood tomyam

We ordered a bowl of seafood tomyam, and with some sign language mad skills, I managed to also ordered long bean with chicken to go with two rice.

The tomyam was so good! Very sour, spicy, and full of that authentic tomyam that is so tough to find outside Thailand. Though the ingredients were nothing luxurious (some small shrimps, a bit of squid, mushroom, ginger, green onion, shallots, chili padi), the overall taste was just superb.

yes, the tomyam were spicy!

The chicken with long bean too was a very tasty dish that goes really well with rice. Though not quite as hot as the tomyam, this vegetable dish too came with green pepper (jalopeno?) and some chili padi. The base had a strong taste of fish sauce that worked well with the chicken and provided good contrast to the tomyam.

Everything came to only 110 baht, again, ice water was free.

fried egg, squid with cabbage, and tomyam

We went to the same place again for the third consecutive night cos the food was just so good. This time we asked for (by pointing and sign language yet again) fried egg that looks and tasted much like our local telur dadar; a squid and cabbage dish that for once, isn’t really something spicy, but pretty tasty nonetheless; and of course, the very same tomyam again.

It costs a something like 140 baht this time, and oh so delicious!

another stall further to the west of our hotel

Tragically, when we went back to the same place on our last night at Bangkok, we discovered the hard way that the stalls are closed on Mondays. We then walked a few minutes to the west of our hotel (still on Pradipat Road) and chanced up upon this other hawker stall that offers similar type of foods. As usual, my super limited Thai and some hand gestures came to rescue.

tomyam, pork with brinjal, kangkung with chicken

We ordered tomyam with fish, a pork dish, and a kangkung with chicken to go with rice. The tomyam was different this time, a bit more sour than previous, less soupy, and a lot more spices. I feel that I prefer the previous version but some might like the intensity of this one.

Cooked with sweet sauce, peppercorn,  basil, and a type of brinjal, the fatty pork slices soaked in the flavor and made the pork dishes rather delicious. As for the kangkung, well, it wasn’t very different from what we get here, but did provide a contrast to all the meat dishes we had.

If I remember correctly, this meal was around 200 baht. A bit pricier probably due to the fact hat we had more meat dishes.

map of Reflections Rooms Hotel

Address:
Outside Reflections Rooms Hotel
224/2-18 Pradipat Rd.,
Samsennai,Phayathai,
Bangkok 10400 Thailand
GPS: 13.790110,100.545947

Tags:  bangkok,  hawker,  mellissa,  pad see yew,  spicy,  street food,  Thailand,  tomyam

Posted by KY | 31 Comments »

Last Friday was a semi-working day sandwiched Hari Raya and the weekends, the sort of Friday that isn’t at all black. Since traffic would be relatively light, my ex-colleagues decided to drive down all the way to KL and meet me for lunch.

The initial plan was for Wong Meng Kei Siu Yoke at Pudu, but we decided to go for Ngau Kei Beef Noodle at Tengkat Tong Shin instead after discovering the siu yoke place was off fort he day.

Ngau Kei is in operation for decades

I was still in college the last time I had beef noodle from Ngau Kei, no prize for guessing how long ago that was. While many new restaurants such as Bermuda and Onion has sprung up around the area, the old Ngau Kei is still exactly the same as the first time I dined there, the stall itself and a few tables by the corridor under zinc roof.

For lunch, I ordered a mixed beef with dried noodle while my slightly less adventurous friends asked for beef balls soup with dried noodle. I tried to ask for an extra bowl of beef tendon, but unfortunately there wasn’t any stock available, so tragic!

beef noodle, yum

Since it was a rather busy Friday lunch session, we had to wait for quite a while before food was served. The beef noodle itself though, was very fine and blends perfectly with the ground meat. The soup was light but sweet, the beef balls firm, while the tripe and meat were tender and very tasty. The entire thing tasted just as well as I remember.

Ngau Kei is walking distance from Lowyat and Bukit Bintang

Our four bowls of noodle and three glasses of iced tea came to RM 21.50. Five bucks for a bowl of very tasty beef noodle, I can do this everyday!

Address:
Tengkat Tong Shin,
Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.145360, 101.706630

Tags:  beef,  beef-noodle,  ben,  francis,  hawker,  street food,  wai ken

Posted by KY | 37 Comments »

Some of you might have heard about the famous yau char kuai (油炸粿, you tiao) stall outside Chow Yang at PJ SS2, or have even tasted it. Well, passing that super busy stall for the Nth time, I finally tried something from there when Suan’s friend Pinky was in town.

sizzle, sizzle

It was after a heavy lunch that Suan decided to check out the much talked about stall. We squeezed ourselves to the front and tried to order some of the famous yau char kuai. Unfortunately, we had to give up the idea upon hearing that waiting time for yau char kuai is 40 minutes.

However, the owner was making fried glutinous rice with dough thingy (I don’t know the Chinese name), and we could have some in for a mere 5 minute wait. So we thought, why not?

hot, sweet, delicious, and yummy (no pun intended)

We took home 6 pieces of this fried glutinous rice with dough thingy, and boy it was really good. Imagine sweet and slightly sticky glutinous rice wrapped by the slightly salty dough with the texture of good doughnut. I think my explanation failed to do justice to the taste, but Suan, Rachel, and Pinky all love it too.

the stall opens at night, expect long wait

I think I gotta try their yau char kuai next time.

Address:
Jalan SS 2/6
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.116862, 101.617377

Tags:  chow-yang,  glutinous rice,  hawker,  rachel,  SS2 SS3 SS4,  street food,  suanie

Posted by KY | 48 Comments »

One of my main aim going into the Bangkok trip was to taste some of the weird and wonderful foods the land of smile has to offer, something that is very difficult or impossible to get from Malaysia. This of course, would be the infamous deep fried worms, insects, and alike.

for a few ringgit, we got all these wonderful snacks

I was expecting fried insect stalls to be on every street corners. In actual fact, they are not very common. We weren’t able to locate anyone selling this for the first couple days of our stay. It was only on the 3rd night at Bangkok that Terence managed to buy a plastic bag full these weird and wonderful food from the streets near Pantip Mall (the one that is famous for selling Amulets, not the IT mall with the same name). Myself and Dree were overjoyed!

McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries

Inside the goody bag there were worms, crickets, grasshoppers, dragonflies, praying mantis, and of course, those little fried frogs in whole. Not knowing exactly how to start, we first arranged them into McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries combo meal. A couple minutes staring at these creatures, we decided to bite the bullet bugs and go straight to it to get the maximum taste instead.

having a feast!

I attacked the worms first. I don’t know if they were just worms or some insect larvae, but the slightly yellowish exterior sure looked a lot more inviting than the dark brown insects laying next to them. As it turns out, the worms were actually pretty good, slightly crunchy and tastes a lot better than the bee’s pupae I had in Vietnam. They were seasoned with salt and some spices, I believe.

my god, we were so proud of ourselves!

Next in line were all the different types of bugs. It was a bit weird chewing down grasshoppers, crickets, and so forth, but actually they too tasted quite ok, very crunchy and tasted a bit like having deep fried small prawns with shells on. Again, it was a little salty and slightly spicy. The different bugs basically tasted the same except but with slightly different textures, you can make out the long arms of praying mantis and the grasshopper’s legs in your mouth, neat.

naturally we finished the whole serving

The more difficult part of the snack attack session though, were the frogs. Unlike the familiar big fat frogs served in Malaysia, these are tiny frogs the size of fifty sen coins. They come with everything intact except for innards, so you get the whole head, the eyes staring at you, the legs, spines and all.

We threw it into our mouths and start chewing off, amazingly there were actually pretty tasty! Crunchy with slight taste of meat, it goes well with the seasoning and not too salty like the bugs. Once you get over the fact that you have to chew the entire head, it was all good!

Of course, we finished the entire serving and like little kids we just finished their vegetables, we were proud. If you’re going to Thailand, this is a must-have!

Tags:  bangkok,  bugs,  deep fried,  eats,  fine dining,  frogs,  insects,  street food,  Thailand,  worms

Posted by KY | 62 Comments »