One of the things I love most about Thailand is their hawker foods. It is true that they serve excellent tomyam, pad thai, and ladna at just about any corner, but one of my favorite breakfast dishes in the land of smile has gotta be the noodle soup.
noodle soup stall by the road side
On the last day of the trip while off-gassing from diving at Phuket, we went over to a pretty inconspicuous stall right across the street of the budget hotel we’ve been staying at (Baan Suan Place, cheapest room rate at 700 baht/night, next to Phuket International Hospital).
Though there were quite a few eateries of similar set up at the area, but I knew we got the right place soon as I saw those coagulated blood in the jar displayed at the front of the stall. *slurps*
noodle soup with all sorts of ingredients, take your pick!
A few finger pointing gestures and some 10 minutes later, here’s the bowl of goodness that arrived on my table. Big flat rice noodle in subtle yet flavorful clear broth topped with cuttle fish, coagulated blood, liver, pork, a bit of mushroom, vegetable, and even a bit of white fungus.
There’s also a plate of bean sprouts and some basil ala Vietnamese noodle style on the side, and of course plenty of potent chili powder as condiment for those who love it spicy.
when in Thailand, eat like a Thai
The noodle soup costs around 30-40 baht and this place also serves coffee and other drinks at around 10 baht. While this stall is situated at Thanon Bangyai road behind Phuket International Hospital, you can basically find similar stalls at just about anywhere in Southern Thailand (perhaps Central/Northern part too).
Now I wish someone would bring this to our local hawker stalls, Thai food here in Malaysia seems to be limited to tomyam, pineapple fried rice, and the occasional pad Thai only… pity.
Address:
Thanon Bangyai
Wichit, Mueang Phuket,
Phuket 83000, Thailand
GPS: 7.895477,98.365939
I went to Hong Kong for the first time over the last weekends, spent a very happy 4 days 3 nights. Hong Kong is probably the capital of street food that you eat on the go. This probably stemmed from the fact that most restaurants are too packed, and when you have a place to sit, lunch time might have been over by then.
So, here are some of the stuff we managed to try, none of these food requires nor provides table & chair.
fish ball stall that sells more than fish balls
If you watched Hong Kong movies from the 80s and 90s, there’re always scenes of hawkers selling fish ball on portable stalls. These small business owners will push their stalls running away from cops on first sighting.
Well, there aren’t portable stalls anymore but you can find all these stalls on virtually every other street corners. Typical item on the menu will be various types of fish/beef/meat balls, pancakes, beef tripes, and my favorite – octopus tentacles, very yummy! They’re usually priced from around 10 HKD onwards.
yummy grilled meat, innards, and sausage
We stayed at South Pacific Hotel at Wan Chai on Hong Kong island for the first two nights, and there’s this little grill meat place that operates from evening till late that we visited a couple times. There’s a variety of sausages, pig innards, chicken wings, grill duck/chicken/pork, and even abalone.
My favorite was the grilled 3 layer pork, so succulent and tasty! That was around 10 HKD too. The lady will grill the meat (which was usually already half grilled) on the spot when you order.
yummy egg tart with fluffy pastry
Bakeries are abundant in Hong Kong too. We tried this egg tart from a random bakery by the name of Golden Peach Bakery at Wan Chai and it turned out to be better than any I had in Malaysia, better than John King egg tart at Pavilion KL, which I thought was pretty good. The pastry is very fluffy and the content delicious.
coagulated pork blood and intestine
Opposite Nathan’s road at Mong Kok, I spotted this other fish ball etc shop that offers coagulated pork blood with intestine. Of course I couldn’t give this a miss, for 15 HKD I had one of the best combinations of pork product in a little styrofoam bowl. Keep a look out for this if you’re in Hong Kong, not every stall offers this dish.
Haze ordering stinky tofu at Mong Kok
And no Hong Kong trip is complete without sampling stinky tofu. We found this shop with our nose at Mong Kok (directly opposite Starbucks and located at the end of Sai Yong Choi Road).
The stinky tofu costs 7 HKD each and was actually came in a rather big piece, you then add the spicy or sweet sauce on your own. Very yummy, but a clothing clip on your nose might be advisable.
There’re more Hong Kong posts to come so stay tuned!
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
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
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
