Hot Clams!

I went over to my uncle's place and he cooked us some clams.

He cooked these with basil and some chilies. They were super hot, but we couldn't stop eating them because they were so good!

A meal for bears.

We were going out to this club called Muse, it's located in Thonglor area. Thonglor is like a rich Japanese people area.  It's one spot in BKK where the most Japanese people own their condos in.. after Sukhumvit area.  So basically everything in this area is expensive. I was starving and we had no choice because I didn't want to get wasted early so we stopped by this Thai restaurant, unfortunately, I can't remember.. I think it was something to do with bears. It's weird. Their food was okay....

I ordered baked sesame chicken.  I know the photo is kinda sad.

Hot Basil

My grandma took me and Ian out to lunch. She took us to this place called Sri Ruen or something. I ordered the glass noodle soup, it was good. Ian's lunch was much much better than mine.

He got the shrimp basil noodle. This was really tasty but a little too spicy. They fried the basil so it was super crunchy. 

Harvest Moon

Every year on Nov. 12th people here celebrate Harvest Moon day. They have carnivals here and it's crazy. They float these things called "Kratong" in the rivers/pools/any surface of water. You're supposed to light a candle, make a wish, and then float it.

 

Some are made out of banana trees/leaves and some are made out of crackers. 

These ones are made out of crackers so it's good for the environment and you get the feed the fish at the same time. Most of these ones catch on fire in the middle of water. Kinda funny to watch. 

So we get there, it was CHAOS. SOOO many people. It looked like an outdoor house party. We couldn't even walk because the streets were so packed. The best part about this was.... they had SOOOOO MUCH FOOD EVERYWHERE!!!! I apologize for poor quality photos, it was very difficult to take photos when people were pushing me from every direction. 

We got these because we were starving when we got there. These were fried rice noodles with vegetables. Eh... it was just too greasy and it wasn't that good. 

I just thought this was some SERIOUS grill action. 

I didn't get this, mainly because these fruit drinks were served from open containers. 

I think these are meatballs, no idea... 

These are like... muffins? Well, the texture is similar but they definitely don't taste like muffins. They're kinda like mini cakes. ...And I don't know why they are green, they don't taste green though, they're good. 

Scallion pancakes. 

Fried fish cakes. 

uhm... birds? 

Grilled squid-- eh this was really bad actually, they didn't grill the squid long enough because I guess they were in a rush since so many people were waiting. This tasted and smelt fishy...REALLY NASTY.

We found these bugs... yeah... don't they look delicious? So yeah I guess people eat these, I couldn't stare for too long because I didn't want people think I was being rude since I wasn't gonna buy any. 

Lots of sushi here, mostly fake ones. These sushi looked totally unnatural. I've never seen the green or yellow sushi before.. hmm... 

These looked a bit more legit. At least they were individually wrapped. 

These are cute, they all have these sweet bean stuffing inside. They coat the outside with gelatin, shaping them in forms of other fruits. These are good. 

These are grilled meatballs, apparently. Would you trust these? I wouldn't... 

This was nuts. Check out how they make these Takoyaki --octopus cakes. They were so fancy they put shrimp and other stuff in them too! 

Squid Man's Tan

Over by where I live there's this fresh market/food market. It's like a long strip of just food. Most of them are pretty well known and most people travel pretty far just to come get food from the little carts that are stationed here. One of my favorites is this squid man. This man comes with his cart at 4pm every day and has been selling grilled stuff on skewers for 20 years now.

I caught him at 4pm on the dot because if I come after business hour (when people get out of work) the line would be too long.

I know they don't look super sanitized. But imagine if they were clean, you think they'd still be any good?? I think not. Some food are better with some grime. Oh and I know it looks like he has very little food to sell for the whole shift. It's crazy because I thought about his food running out before, and how big of a crisis that would create. This little cart looks shitty but he has a cooler/fridge at the bottom of his cart!!! 

This is his money making (charcoal)grill. Not so sure why he only has one when he gets so many order at once. Those are the squid I ordered on skewers, the rest... I think they call those red things 'hot dogs' here and the white ones are meatballs or something. The hot dogs look so gross though. 

After they are completely grilled, he dips them into this SUPER spicy sauce. It burns the crap out of your mouth but it's so good you can't stop eating. 

Mos (def best) Burger

Ever since I got here my brothers have been bragging to me about this burger place called Mos Burger that finally opened up in Thailand at this huge mall called Paragon. I never wanted to try it because I wasn't a big burger fan.

This coaster came with our drinks, Ian took one home because this was so cute! This place definitely made me happy through food. I can't deny that. 

Their fries are the best fries I've had in Thailand. Since it's so difficult to find good fries here in this country. They can definitely compare to Chik-Fil-A fies, and those are my favorite. 

My brother ordered a regular cheese burger, this was pretty good. I know this looks like a McDonalds burger but imagine the Mc D. burger that tastes 1000000 times better. yeah... 

 

I ordered shrimp fillet burger, this was honestly the best burger I've ever had in this life. Every single bite I could feel the little shrimp swimming on my tongue. This was SOOOOOOOOO good!!!!! 

Ian ordered some special cheese burger. This was really really good too. I took a bite and when the red marinara sauce touched my tongue it was like an explosion of taste in my mouth. I'm not over exaggerating. He also said that this was the best burger he's had in his life and he's American born. 

My brother mentioned to me that this place is usually really really packed and people wait around forever for their burgers. Because they make each burger individually, so each of them is fresh and very VERY SPECIAL. OMG, I am now a Mos Burger fan. Another thing, these don't taste like juicy fat burgers, and no, you can't taste the fat or feel fat eating these.

Japanese Hamburgers Kill

My mom makes these killer Japanese Hamburgers. It's weird because when I think of hamburgers I think of burgers and just solid juicy beef patty in between rolls but these are like meat blobs but they aren't juicy like fat American juicy. 

These burgers are sooooo different than anything I've had. We top it with Japanese katsu sauce, they go so well together.  For the skinny people, these are not juicy fat burgers, they are so lights when you eat them you don't even think you're eating burgers (that's what the Japanese diets are for). 

Glass Noodle Salad

I was craving something refreshing so I made myself some glass noodle salad.

I kinda like the tanginess + spicy with little pieces of calamari. It's really really easy to make and it's super light so you don't feel like you're eating something heavy. This will totally benefit you if you are trying to get skinny or trying to stay skinny.

There's One Thing My Mom Can Own Me In

Her Gyoza, that's the term we use to call dumplings in Japanese.

Everytime I make these people freaking love them but every time my mom makes them I feel like she owns me every time. Anyway, she puts ginger in hers, you can't really taste them but apparently the ginger enhances the flavor of the stuffing. I absolutely hate ginger so I refuse to put them in when I make them. I'm sure I'm not alone with the whole ginger hating thing. 

The BBQ Here

This meal was quite simple. They call this the BBQ here. I guess it's the idea of grilling on the mini grill not like how people normally grill burgers on their grills outdoors in the US. Instead of making burgers on the grill and taking them away when cooked, we sit there by the grill and eat the food right there and add more onto the grill. 

To prepare for this meal is pretty easy, because you cook as you eat. 

There's udon, Enoki mushrooms and 'King Oyster' mushrooms I wrote about in the previous post.

So in the middle is like an island where everything gets cooked dry, and all the vegetables drown in the soup around it. This is quite delicious 

Giant Mussels

I found some ginormous mussels at the supermarket today. 

Apparently these are the Swedish mussels. They are the biggest mussels I've ever seen. They normally aren't that big. 

These are baked in butter and topped with sauteed coriander.  This was so intense because I couldn't just bite this thing in half so I had to eat the whole thing. It's like one big bite of mussels. This was so good but since the mussels were so big I couldn't eat more than two, it was just too much. 

 

Giant Fungus

My mom likes to buy these mushrooms, I'm not so sure what they are called but they come in a pack of three because they are so big. 

These don't taste mushroom-my though, I know a lot of people that hate the taste of mushrooms but these aren't like that at all, I suggest you try them before you say you hate all the mushrooms. They are so fat, one can fill me up easy.

PS. I found this image on google and apparently that thing the boy is holding is a mushroom. I'm not saying mushroom above is the biggest thing in the world but it was huge... not this huge though. And uhm... this one below does not look tasty, would you eat it?

New AC's Birthday!

So our crazy friend, Mint came over today with a birthday cake... not for anyone but for our new air conditioner! We told her we got a new air conditioner and I guess she was very excited for us. So she went over to Bread Talk to get us a blueberry mousse cake. 

 

It says "new air conditoner" in Thai. So she got the cake people to write "Happy Birthday Miss New Air Conditioner... Thaiyanont" I asked her if she got a weird stare from the people at the store and she said when she handed them the paper they looked at her to confirm that this was for real. This cake was soooo good. The fruits were fresh and the mousse was just soo fluffy I felt like I was eating clouds. The only bad thing about this cake was that there were little fruits so not everyone got a slice fruits on it. That created chaos for a little.  

Extending Visa For My Alien

Ian and I had to go to the immigration place today to extend his visa for 30 more days. The area we went to was called Lumpini. I've never been in the area and it reminds me of the Wall St. in NY. It's really boring and it's full of foreign business people. We walked by this building called Life Center. It's like business building with food center on the ground floor. We stopped by there to get some lunch because they had all these cute restaurants there. The place we chose was called Yum and Tum. 

I ordered Larb with noodles. It's spicy chicken salad with noodles mixed in with it. 

Ian ordered shrimp and cucumber salad. This was better than my dish but it was just alright, nothing special. This place had an awesome atmosphere the price was descent, inexpensive. The food looks way better than it tastes though. I honestly think I can make better salads then these. 

Kiss the Cook

Since I'm not working YET and I have a lot of time on my hand, I cook a whole lot here. I'm also learning a whole lot from my mom. Today for dinner I made wonton soup.

Making chicken wontons from scratch is actually not as hard as that might sound. I got these wonton sheets and wrapped the marinated ground chicken and used shitake mushrooms to make the broth. It's pretty simple and it's healthy.