Mmmm... Open-faced club sand wedge

Foooooooood

Gaeng Massaman at Kian's

So far this week, teaching has been... teaching. Things are going relatively well, some classes are better than others, and sometimes I have a great time. Other times, not so much. For example, Wednesday morning was terrible, but the afternoon was great. Oh well, and as the Thai’s say, “Mai bpen rai”.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while about the food in Thailand, and what I’ve been eating on a regular basis. So here is my insight into Thai food. I’m realising also that, fortunately, Thai food is one of my favourite cuisines, and I think I know why. It’s like they took the best from several cultures: delicious stir-frys, scrumptious soups, and fantastic curries. These are all foods I love at home, and here they are all SO GOOD.

For breakfast, I normally eat bread, nutella and banana OR a whole-grain cereal I found. Nutella here is relatively expensive, but it was on sale the other week at the Big C so I bought a couple large jars. Worth it! Cereal is also relatively expensive here, but damnit, I wanted to eat something with whole wheat and limited amounts of sugar. You don’t find a lot of whole wheat or fibre-rich food in Thai cuisine, so I eat my fancy cereal. Woo!

Lunch is eaten at school. The school has quite a large cafeteria, although here it’s called a “canteen”. Every week, I exchange money for plastic tokens, which you can use at the canteen/cafeteria, or in the small school shop, where you can buy snacks, drinks, school supplies, and other odds and ends. For lunch, typically eat the noodle soup. This soup consists of rice noodles, various flavours that the lunch ladies add, bean sprouts, morning glory, and chicken or pork. They also have beef sometimes, but it doesn’t look especially encouraging. You don’t find a lot of beef in Thailand, as there are few cows. Cheese is even rarer. You can find small blocks at the Big Cs or Tesco Lotuses, but they are expensive. They also have a bunch of other dishes, like fried chicken, omelettes (very big in Thailand), and various stir-fries and/or curries. I mostly stick with my noodle soup, for it’s very tasty.

 

Lunchtime is from 11:00am to 11:50pm. Most Thai people get up quite early to get to work or to drop their children off at school. Most students arrive at school from 7:30am to 8:00am. So lunch generally happens earlier than at home. Most days I’m finished teaching by 1:30pm: needless to say I usually get hungry in the afternoon. I’ll normally have a snack consisting of Thai yoghurt, Thai chips or cookies when I feel like junk food, or fruit. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the fruit here is amazing! In the market, there are several fruit and vegetable stands, where you can buy just about anything. My favourites include watermelon, rambutans, Thai mini-bananas, pineapple, and mangosteens. You can also buy strawberries (which aren’t as sweet as back home), oranges, dragonfruit, grapes, and other mystery fruits. I LOVE rambutans. They are also just fun to buy because they look so crazy. As you can see below, they are bright redish-pink, and have lots of hair things. To eat them, you have to crack open the skin with your fingers, and twist it apart. Then you eat the fruit, and spit out the pit. I think it’s mostly the process of eating them that I enjoy.

For dinner, I go to the restaurant near the corner of the main street and my alley, Kian’s. This restaurant is in the typical Thai restaurant style – the cook (Kian) has a little area at the front where she does the cooking. Her area consists of a couple portable burners, a fridge or two, counters for chopping, and various other surfaces. You would never find anything like this back home, and most people would probably consider it appalling. But all the food is fresh, and Kian cooks and prepares the food with care. There’s no menu – you can either ask for a specific dish, or Kian will tell you what she has that day. I have a few favourite dishes: Gaeng Massaman (a delicious orange curry with potatoes), Pad Thai, Pad Kapao (stir-fry with basil and garlic), Pad King (stir fry with garlic), Gaeng Sapparot (pineapple curry), and Pad Piawan (sweeter stir-fry with pineapple, cucumber, and others). The vegetables  in the dishes vary depending on what Kian has that day. Sometimes there’s lots of cauliflower, other times, there’s lots of carrots... But everything I tried has been delicious. Most of the time when I go, Kian will name a dish and I’ll go with that. I want to try everything she has! Everything has been very tasty. Usually we order things “Mai Pet”, which means “not spicy”. However, sometimes it still feels like someone has hit you in the face with a brick wrapped with chili peppers. I’ve started asking for thing “nitnoi pet”, which is a little bit spicy. I do love spicy food, but I’m afraid of “Thai spicy”, which is much spicier than home! All the meals at Kian’s are 30 Baht, and this includes water and rice. You can also buy beer and other drinks, as well as various odds and ends she has hanging on the walls. Kian’s husband is normally at the restaurant, as well as her granddaughter, Amy, who is crazy and has an aversion to pants. There are also the other regulars, but I’m not sure who they are. A couple cats also hang around. 

Kian doesn’t speak much English, so our conversations are normally broken phrases of English and Thai, as well as lots of gestures. The other day I was trying to explain that I loved curry, and I think it involved me saying “I love curry... Gaeng!”, giving the thumbs up, saying “aroi” (delicious), and listing the curries of hers I tried. I think I got my point across because she said something and named another curry, which I said I will try next time. She will also ask us where we’re going for the weekend and how the other foreign teachers are doing. Whenever we walk by, we make sure to say hello. It’s nice having such a friendly place to go everyday!

I have yet to try many Thai desserts but I can tell you how much they love sugar and sweet things. Everywhere in the market, you can find pastries, cakes, doughnuts, these jelly fruit things, jelly fruit thing sugar soup, sticky rice and more. I’m not huge on sweet things, so I haven’t been tempted to try these yet, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. There are these cookies I enjoy, which are almost identical to a type of cookies I used to love at home. It’s the vanilla cookie with the strawberry jam circle in the middle. I need to stop buying them because I’ll eat an entire package right there. Mmmm...

On average, I spend 20B on lunch, 30B on dinner, and whatever I’ve bought for groceries for breakfast. So I spend about $3 a day on food – not too shabby! I have yet to try the fried insects and scorpions you can get, but maybe at some point...