Vacation is never about healthy food!

When on vacation, forget your diet and just dig in.

The best way to experience the culture is to do as the locals do. Eat what they eat is the best advice I have ever received and I have never refused it... to an extent.

My favorite places to eat are not high-end restaurants but hole-in-the-wall eateries and street carts that line the main road and the small sois in the CBD.

One such place is Hai Som Tam restaurant on soi Convent. The locals simply refer to it as Som Tam Convent. This is where I had my first (and so far, the best) som tam. I loved it so much that I repeatedly mentioned it in many of my posts.

I arrived the night before Songkran so the Pinoys were on holiday and had a couple of days of get-togethers involving mostly Pinoy food. Not bad, except I was here to escape all that! Durnit.

Babawi ako, shempre! So yesterday, I had a feast with Momsie and Popsie on the last holiday this week. Thank heavens Hai was open.

Thai-philes, drool away!

 

Tilapia roasted while encased in salt - juicy and not salty at all!

In Thai, fish is pla. So you can say this dish was salt-encrusted tilapla. Ay, corny... Uhurm! Moving on:

Thubwan (sp?) - barely-cooked pork liver. Those are mint leaves.

Kha moo yang - roasted pork neck.
Sinfully delicious. That green dip is AWESOME!

Squid and shrimp with ramen-like noodles. I don't like this one, but Mom and Pop scarfed it down.

som tam kai-kem - papaya salad with salted duck eggs.
This is LOVE!

khao niew - sticky rice. On the background is that insanely delicious dip I will most certainly be copying!

Heaven on earth: Roll some khao niew into a ball, dip in som tam dressing, LAFANG!
 

Tonight, I'm going out in search of Khun Chao and his lovely roti - with camera in hand - on soi Phiphat 2. Wish me luck!

What To Eat in 8 Cities - all in a day

I kind of like being here in BKK with Momsie and Popsie. It's my chance to pretend I'm their only child, harhar!

The three of us went to Terminal 21 yesterday - for a photo shoot, what else? Oh yeah, and to have some late lunch too.

Terminal 21 has a food court on the San Francisco Pier area (5th level). It sells most Thai street foods in a sterile mall environment.

kway chap (sp?) - roasted pork, offal, boiled egg, and sheet noodles in pork broth

 

oyster orsuan - tiny oysters cooked in what feels like gawgaw mung bean sprouts and egg

 

I forgot what this is called but it is essentially boiled and fried pork skin - think unpuffed, soft, and tender chicharon

One word: meh.

Mas madumi, mas masarap. That's not to say street food is dirty (really, now?) but I do think the flavors are more alive and robust when you eat it in the grottier places. There's more culture in it, too.

The saviors of this meal went unphotographed: the slushies. Momsie had a berry-banana blend, Popsie had two(!) glasses of ma muang (mango) shake, while I had a guava-grape tomato-strawberry-carrot and God Knows What Else shake. It was gooooooood!

Tomorrow is another day of hitting the streets with my baht in one hand, and a camera in the other.

Pinoy Fiesta in foreign soil

When Pinoys get together, there are three things that are consistent in those gatherings - regardless of location. This is true even in foreign soil: karaoke, inuman (imbibing alcohol), and food.

Lots and lots of food.

To wit:

pansit bihon chock-full of sahog

 

sweet pork barbecue

 

calderobo - the bastard (and yummy) child of adobo and caldereta

  

lumpiang Shanghai - na wala naman sa Shanghai

There was also sinigang na ulo ng salmon at hipon. Or maybe I should have written HIPON. Do you agree?

 

Major major hipon! The orange thing, not the girl in white =P

There were also not-so-Pinoy stuff but I have no complaints. Everything was awesome!

apple and raisin crumble - so good!

 

grape tomato, basil, mozarella, and prosciutto bites - I had five of these. Not sorry!

 I also stuffed my face with five servings of my favorite Thai dessert: khao niew ma muang!

mango with sticky rice: sweet, salty, sticky, juicy, and extremely satisfying

I am SO glad I have six more days here in Bangkok. I will attack street food next... if only going out didn't mean getting wet and having to wash out chalk from my hair!

Bangkok Eats: The BKK Food Trip

Popsie works in my favorite Asian city (so far): Bangkok, Thailand. He lives smack dab in the middle of the CBD (central business district - think Makati or Libis or Ortigas).

I love it here! What's not to love about living in a condo on the top floor with breathtaking views of the city, food all around and around the clock, fresh fruit and vegetables for a few baht (THB 1 to Php1.3 threabouts), wonderful shopping, a few minutes walk from the nearest BTS (similar to our LRT/MRT. In BKK, the MRT is the subway), and did I say the food is great?

My favorite Thai food is not pad thai, kai thot, or tom kha gai. It's that salad of grated unripe papaya, carrots, long beans (sitaw) dressed with nam pla (fish sauce aka patis), lime juice, sugar, a bit of water, grated lemongrass, sliced kaffir lime leaves and dried shrimps. The one food that haunts my dreams and one I ate everyday during my recent visit to the city.

Enter the som tam. Oh, and did I mention this usually costs just 30 baht? I told you food is GOOD here!

Clockwise from top: (1)plain som tam from Som Tam Convent (Day 1), (2)som tam from the kai yang place on Phi Phat 2, (3) on my last day, a plain one also from Som Tam Convent, (4) Another one from Som Tam Convent ,this one with salted duck eggs for Day 3,

I love the harmony of flavors as they crash into each other on my tongue. All at once it's salty, sweet, sour, spicy - even when I request "mai sai prik, kha!" (Please do not put chili). It's inevitable that some of the chili from the last batch will make its way into my serving.

I kid you not when I say I ate for four days straight, sometimes more than once a day.

Of course it's not the only thing I ate. I had the freshest and juiciest rambutan I have ever had in my life. Their "hairs" still green, their skin a vibrant red... all to the tune of 30 baht (about 40 Php) per kilo. I also stuffed my face with the sweetest, most luscious mangosteens this side of Asia, an absolute steal at 35 baht per kilo (around 50 Php). Try getting THAT here in Manila. Popsie has several suki in the talat (market) so he can pretty much count on a discount when he goes to the market Saturday or Sunday mornings.

There is also a sweet-salty-sour-spicy pork rib soup that we enjoy at Som Tam Convent (Convent road runs perpendicular to Silom). I like this with the sliced pork liver with mint. The liver barely cooked, the mint complimenting the creaminess of the "meat"... all paired with kao niew - sticky rice stuffed in a woven basket. This is best eaten with bare hands - roll into a ball a and dip into the sauce of either the pork liver or the som tam. Pop in mouth and enjoy!

som tam, pork belly with mint, pork liver with mint, sour spare rib soup

I got my sweet tooth from Momsie so it comes as no surprise that we sugar coma-ed with each other - with my scoop of berry yoghurt and midnight chocolate from Swensen's and my mom's favorite: McDonald's vanilla twist dipped in chocolate.

More sweets: there are vendors that sell very thin crepes to be filled with fairy floss. Et voila! Tuck in!

Buy two bags of crepes and a pack of fairy floss, place on plate, fill crepes with floss, roll up and eat!

I will need to go back again before the year is over. My July stay was only four days (so hard to go on leave), whereas I was there for three weeks over Christmas/New Year 2009. I want to take Jeni there... maybe in time for Song Kran.

Happy Eating!

Too Much Food at A-venetto (MOA)

Jen and I aren't really into eating in moderation (especially me). So it's no surprise that when we go resto-hopping, this is the usual scene: she hands me the menu, I order, the food arrives, we stare bug-eyed, we eat, we eat some more, our eyes bug out, we give up, we pay and have the leftovers wrapped up for midnight snacking.

Same scene unfolded over at A-venetto's Pizzeria located near the (huge) stage/auditorium-esque structure of Mall of Asia.

I have fond memories of A-venetto. Back in high school, I used to hang out at their Visayas Avenue branch with my chatmates from the dalnet,#up channel (yeah, mIRC is so yesterday but it was a great place to meet friends! Some of them are still my dearest friends, but I digress). In college, I hung out with my PT berks and with my M.A.-mates a few years later.

But now that I live nearer this behemoth of a mall, it is this branch that I frequent.

Enough chatter, let's eat!

The anchovy pizza. Lots and lots of pizza!

The anchovy pizza is everything I want in a pizza. It has enough cheese for that satisfying hint of creaminess but not enough to be cloying (I am not as fond of cheese as Jen is); the saltiness of the anchovies all but melted into the rich tomato base and the crispy-chewy crust. The garlic is not visible on this pizza (in the olden days, I used to see the teeny tiny pieces of garlic underneath all the toppings) but I get enough of the caramelized sweetness. With more than a few sprinkles of dried chilli flakes, two slices of this monster was no match for my gut! Bring it on!

While I was busy snarfing my second slice of pizza, the poultry arrived. Rather it was the basket of buffalo chicken wings.

Six pieces = four for Jeni and two for me. No leftovers with this one!

This was just ok. Nothing spectacular. While it lacked the salty-spicy-sour-sweet-party-in-my-mouth appeal of some of my favorite buffy wings (try the one from Brooklyn Pizza. Delish!), Jen devoured four pieces in a flash. Being the consummate chicken-lover (she'll grow wings soon, I swear!), she needed no encouragement! I, however, held out for the next dish...

Oil + garlic + seafood = one mighty good pasta dish!

Shrimp + squid + olive oil + a bit of cream + pesto + a kick of garlic = two plates of yum-o pasta. Though the noodles were not as al dente as I'd like them to be, the sauce was its saving grace. It was light enough not to overpower the delicate flavor of the seafood but heavy enough to coat the massive portion of noodles without getting lost in taste-ation. The cream gave each bite a pleasant mouthfeel while the basil and olive oil kept it from being too... cloying. Y-U-M.

We also had a blah tossed salad, but what the hey! The greens balanced out the not-so-imaginary fat in the other dishes. That aside, Jen and I waddled out of the resto with our midnight snack. Off we went for dessert.

Two weeks after this pig-out, we brought Jen's parents and two brothers to the same place. A week later, we brought my two sisters to the same place and ordered the same exact stuff but with two extra orders of chicken... I still got the tossed salad. Old habits die hard.

The Porcine Party

This was a very long time coming but it was finally realized: Jeni and I were able to roll off the bed and make it to the wet market in time. In time for what? In time to get liempo for grilling!

Jeni has been craving inihaw na liempo (she loves pork) for the uber-longest time and I was always too busy (or too tamad) to hit the market for the said meat cut. I usually wake up too late and end up seeing only pork chops (too dry for charcoal broiling) or kasim (would make good adobo though).

So one weekend (a long time ago...), Jeni and I found ourselves awake at 5:30pm... giving us the chance to snag the coveted piece of meat.

So after firing up the grill, we grilled the...eggplants. Actually, the eggplants came later.

Mainit na mainit na talong...

This was the star of the show:

Ang baboy naman nito!

I made ensaladang inihaw na talong with minced onion, diced tomatoes, a splash of kalamansi and Tita F's (Jeni's mom) home-cooked bagoong with HUGE pieces of pork meat and fat. Jeni's family enjoyed it and wiped it off as soon as it hit the dining table. I didn't get any pictures of the finished products... hahaha!