How is it possible that Toronto and Montreal do not allow food trucks (in public) because of health and safety concerns, and yet billions of people eat street food every day in hot countries with looser food safe policies?
Well thankfully here in Bangkok the shackles of non-accessible street food do not exist and we are free to explore the local gastronomy and let our hip fly, sometimes to the dismay of our tummies. Ironically, because most people here seem to eat street food at least once in a while what we are doing is completely mainstream and not really hip at all. There seem to be many hip places however, identifiable by the youngins or contemporaries depending on which one of us you're talking to, though they seem somewhat out of our 35Bht (1$) a meal budget. McDonalds seems to be an especially popular choice where you can enjoy an iced coffee for twice as much as in Canada in a super snazzy booth.
But let's pretend that you don't know any of this and continue on as if we are experienced foodies and you were reading this blog because you follow our food adventures with keen interest, secretly wishing that you were cool enough to have your own food blog. In other words, pretend for a moment that you're Amy. We would show you amazing pictures of all the food we've eaten taken with our Hipstamatic app and then provide quipy reviews.
Unfortunately we cannot provide any pictures for a few reasons. The first is that we keep eating the food before remembering to take a picture. The second is that we thought the hip thing to do was take pictures with our new SLR camera, but that has meant we cannot load the photos onto our blog because we don't have access to a computer because we are on an iPad... And so the mystery as to why Hipstamatic and Instagram have become so popular is solved.
What's the saying again? EPIC FLUNK?
Instead we will provide a list of what we've eaten and a short review, though you probably won't ever be able to find these items because they are from carts on the side of the road, and realistically we don't know the names of half of what we've eaten or the streets we've walked down.
So far we've enjoyed lots of iced espresso. Nessa, if you're reading this 4 spoonfuls of sweetened condensed milk per small espresso serving is about average, and that's after sugar and before milk is added. They go for somewhere between 25 and 50Bht, and are delicious, refreshing snacks.
There is also tons of fresh fruit everywhere that many cart owners are happy to throw into a blender for you, with ice, and for 20Bht more colourful jello shooters! If you're lucky they come in adorable hello kitty cups or if you prefer all drinks can come in a plastic bag which attaches nicely to your scooter! Why BC cyclists haven't demanded the same kind of convenience is beyond us...
On our first day we decided to wander until we found food, and two hours later got up the courage to buy something and had some kind of fish cake/fish ball noodle soup even though a local translated "no meat" for us. But fish isn't real meat anyway, and after being ground up and mixed with some kind of gelatin it stops being fish too! It was delicious.
Another highlight has been vegetarian spring rolls outside of the Grand Palace, which Alyx's Godparents will be happy to know we went to, fighting the urge to be wanderers, and instead joining the herd. Sweet chilli sauce or "cock sauce" here is not what many Canadians eat by the jarful, and after tasting this sticky deliciousness you would never go back. Also spring rolls come with a stick which makes you feel like you're eating a popsicle!
We found some Som Tam, which is a papaya salad, in a university food court Amy had read about on a foodie blog, while taking shelter from the rain. It was alright, but the search is still on for a better version because it is a big deal here and we want to understand what all the fuss is about.
Also had some Pad Thai which we thought would be called just "Pad" here but turns out its not! It lived up to its reputation though, and came inside an eggy omelet wrapper which was unexpected.
Tonight we go to Pat Pong, or the red light district, for some casual cruising.
a&a
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