Tsukiji

For a larger version of this image go here.

While on a recent visit to Tokyo, I spent four mornings exploring and taking photos of Tsukiji, the world famous seafood market. The highlight of the market for many is the famous tuna auction, which in the last decade has actually become a huge tourist destination. During each of my visits there were at least a hundred or more visitors, standing in the way, taking photos (often with flash, although very large signs asked that people not do this), and posing with the fish. Tiny forklifts are constantly buzzing by at breakneck speed, and the floor is very slippery--clearly not a place for tourists. Being Japanese, the bidders and auctioneers involved in the market were typically polite, but I could sense their frustration. In recent years this madness has reached tipping point, and there's word that since April this part of the market should now be closed to tourists.

As shown above and below, there are several expansive rooms lined with fresh and frozen tuna:

From about 5-6am the potential buyers carefully inspect the tuna, making notes:

looking closely:

and often tasting and smelling the tuna (spitting the meat out on the floor, to my surprise). When inspections are done, a bell rings and the auction takes place:

The highest bidders take their wares off to the interior of the market to be cut and prepared:

This was fascinating, but there's a lot more at Tsukiji than tuna. The entire market covers several cold and wet warehouses:

encompassing virtually every kind of seafood imaginable, from beautiful shrimp:

to crabs:

and fish:

Apparently the entire market is slated to move to another part of town in the next couple years, and will, I've heard, not be as open as the current one.

The entire photoset can be seen here.

Phuket Town

It didn't take me long to discover that, unless you're a fan of mediocre Swedish food or bland Thai/Asian, you'll find little of interest to eat on the island of Phuket. The exception to this was Phuket Town, by far the most interesting and atmospheric place on the island, and virtually forgotten by the hordes of tourists who cling to the beaches. I was surprised to find that many of the traditional dishes you'll find there are nearly identical to those of Penang. This may not come as a big surprise to those familiar with history though, as there was apparently a great deal of trade between Phuket and the former Straits Settlements of Penang, Malacca and Singapore, and all of these areas were populated by similar Chinese ethnic groups.

And it is Chinese cuisine, often with a Southeast Asiann twist, that constitutes much of Phuket Town's traditional food. An example of this is mee hoon, a noodle dish known in Penang as bee hoon:

As well as lor bak:

Deep-fried porky savouries served with a dipping sauce almost identical to that which tops the Malaysian dish rojak. The bits at the top of the plate were nearly identical to hoy jor, and were really delicious.

There was pretty good dim sum:

And another interesting dish of Chinese origin, although I don't recall having seen it in Penang, is something called oh taao:

Somewhat similiar to hoy thawt or or suan, this dish combines chunks of taro, a batter, tiny oysters, egg, a deep red chili and a greenish garlic sauce, and my favourite part, crumbled bits of deep-fried pork rind!

There's a palpable Muslim influence in the city, and on several occasions I had some very tasty roti, both as a savoury breakfast (served with a small bowl of curry), or a sweet snack:

Just outside the city, Ko Sireh is also home to the island's biggest fishing port:

where every morning you can see heaps of interesting looking fish (and on one occasion, three very large sharks!) being unloaded. Not far from the fishing port I found a cool little cafe that served Thai-style coffee and lots of old-school sweets and snacks:

Despite how the look, many of them were just as savoury as they were sweet, and made a wonderful breakfast.

And lastly, if you're looking for something a bit more formal, you can't go wrong with Siam Indigo:

a restaurant housed in an beautiful 80 year old Sino-Portuguese building that does some excellent Thai, Thai-influenced and locally-influenced food.

The entire photoset can be seen here.

A different kind of curry

I’m currently in Tokyo, so this is what my curries will be looking like for the next few days. I love this city and am here taking photos at Tsukiji, the world-famous seafood market, for a magazine article. Will post some pics from that, as well as some of the fun food I had in Phuket just before coming here, soon.

In the meantime, do any of you who read this thing happen to live in Tokyo? I’ll be here until the 2nd and since the language barrier has largely limited me to eating things such as the above, I’d be more than willing to meet up for a real meal. My email can be found at my Bio/Contact page.

Tokyo, March 27 & 28, 2008

At a smoking area, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

Paper lanterns line a street in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Public awareness, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

Shinjuku reflected in a bus window, Tokyo, Japan.

The greatest

Throwing around superlatives can be a scary thing, but I think I'm justified in this case. I've been to many, many restaurants in Thailand, and have eaten some pretty amazing food, but Bangpo Seafood particularly stands out in my mind. I knew something was special about it after my first visit over a year ago, and wrote quite a few good things about it, but have always been keen to go back and see if the restaurant was really was as good as I thought.

Well, after two recent visits, my initial impression was right, and I think Bangpo Seafood just might be my favourite restaurant in Thailand.

This informal beachside restaurant located on the northern coast of Ko Samui serves the local dishes of the island. This means lots of seafood, including some unusual ingredients such as waay, a type of small octopus, sea urchin roe and flying fish. Coconuts, a major crop on Ko Samui, feature in several dishes, including khaao man, rice cooked in coconut milk with a pinch of salt and dried green beans. This is the house carb, and apparently was how people on Ko Samui used to prepare their rice. And as with southern Thai food in general, veggies also play a large role, especially in khoei jii:

Shrimp paste pounded up with coconut meat, shallots, chilies and crab, smeared on the inside of a coconut shell then grilled over coals and served with local herbs such as young cashew tree leaves. This dish is given to everybody who walks in the door, and is far from being a throwaway appetizer. I'd be more than happy with a few of these and the previously mentioned coconut rice.

The first dish I ordered was plaa hoop ping:

Flying fish (plaa nok en) that is splayed, coated with a coconut milk/plack pepper/turmeric mixture, then grilled. The result is smokey, salty, oily--everything you'd want in a fish dish.

Yam saaraay:

A Thai-style 'salad' of a local variety of seaweed, which included sour mango and cockles, and oddly, peanuts.

The owner didn't exactly have to twist my arm to convince me to try two of Surat Thani's famous oysters:

Served Thai style with accompaniments of naam phrik phao (a sweet/spicy chili sauce), lime, deep-fried crispy garlic and shallots, seafood dipping sauce and pungent krathin leaves. Despite how impressive they look, I found this the least interesting dish I ate at Bangpo Seafood. The oysters were simply too big, too tough, and had little flavour.

There was also plaa insee phat chaa:

Mackerel stir-fried with fresh herbs. Very oily, as you can see, but the mixture of green peppercorns, krachai (Chinese key--a ginger-like root), garlic, Kaffir lime leaves and fresh fish was outstanding.

And these are just the dishes I ordered. While I was wondering how I could possibly consume all this, the owner's wife brought out a couple more dishes for me to try, including tom som waay:

a soup of a kind of small octopus made sour by the addition of tender young tamarind leaves, as well as several tiny deep-fried fish that one eats in one go, head and all.

And you know what? Other than the oysters, it was all outstanding.

So if this isn't enough to convince you to hop on the next plane, I don't know what else I need to do. However, a brief word of warning: apparently in the same area there are a couple identically named restaurants serving inferior food. If you aim to go to this one, be sure to make certain that you're at Ta Khoe's (the owner, pictured at the top of the post) restaurant.

The entire photoset can be seen here.

Bangpo Seafood (Ta Khoe) 6/4 Moo 6, Mae Nam Ko Samui 077 420 010 lunch & dinner

What are all these tourists looking at?

  Dancing ladyboys along Thanon Bangla, Patong, Phuket, of course:

Art at work

Reproducing famous works of art at Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui.

A work of art

Lunch at an unidentified curry restaurant, Ko Samui. Isn't food beautiful?

Vendor, Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui

This pic makes me smile. She was originally from Bangkok, is a housekeeper at one of the big hotels at night, and by day is a vendor on Chaweng. Buy something from her if you see her!

Damn Spicy

After several days on Ko Samui, I officially have no more reason to bitch about the lack of local eats. While staying on Lamai beach I discovered a stall at nearby Talat Dao that sells a variety of khanom jeen, curries served over fresh rice noodles.  This is possibly the most common dish in southern Thailand, and is served at all times of day or night. Khanom jeen can also be got in other parts of Thailand, but what makes it different down here are the types of curries served and the toppings. Southern Thais like their chili heat, and the innocent looking, typically yellowish curries you'll see here are some of the spiciest in the country. The one pictured above is called naam yaa plaa (pictured above), and is a fish and coconut milk-based curry particular to the south. As with all types of khanom jeen, when you order you'll simply get a shallow bowl with a handful of noodles and a ladleful of curry. It's your job to top it with the fresh herbs and veggies held in vast trays on the tables. These herbs typically include a couple kinds of basil, young cashew nut leaves, phak chee lawm (an herb almost identical to flat leaf parsley, pictured above) cucumbers, long beans and a couple types of pickled veggies. It's all for free and you simply take what you like, rip it all up and mix it into your noodles.

Another very southern type of khanom jeen is kaeng tai plaa, literally 'fish kidney curry':

I think this curry, which also includes crispy bamboo, grilled fish, long beans, and a type of sweet potato-like local tuber, is about the spiciest thing humans were meant to consume. As if that wasn't enough, it's also extremely salty.  After eating it I was still feeling the burn a good 20 minutes later. Honestly though, it wasn't all that unpleasant. Have you ever eaten anything so spicy you actually felt a bit... well, high?

Breakfast on Ko Samui

I've been on Ko Samui for almost a week now, and although finding real Thai food is not impossible, it can be something of a struggle. While on Lamai Beach I had a handsome meal of bangers and mash, was tempted to order pizza ('Chef from Naples'), and one night ate dinner at, uh... a Swedish restaurant (falukorv med stekt potatis och äkta svensk senap!). These were all satisfying, but I was still longing for something... local. I finally found it the next morning at Lamai's morning market. There I had a breakfast of sweet Thai tea with a Thai sweet (pictured above--name forgotten). Sweet, yes, but Thai. More to follow...

Na Thon

I'm on Ko Samui, doing the photos for Lonely Planet's upcoming Ko Samui Encounter guide. I have a big fat list of places I have to shoot, but the good thing about doing this job is when I come across something interesting I can usually just shoot away. This happened when I was taking photos of Na Thon, Samui's main port. It was sunset, and several ships had docked and were unloading fish:

A bit later, the remaining natural light mixed with the fluorescent and tungsten lights of the boats to create a pretty cool effect:

If you look closely, you can see that they are filling the boat with ice, which also added an interesting element to the pic.

TV

Recently the Dutch television programme The Taste of Life was in Bangkok. I took them around town for a day, and even feature in part of the show! Apparently the video can be seen here, but I'm on the road and have yet to find a connection fast enough to accommodate streaming video. If you're blessed with amble bandwith take a look and let me know how silly I look.

Dinner in paradise

I'm currently on Ko Pha-Ngan, a beautiful island in southern Thailand. At the moment, the water is clear, the weather sunny and I'm having a great time with old friends. There's only one downside: the food is bloody awful. Actually, that's a bit too strong. The food here isn't unsanitary, or rotten or even that badly prepared. It's just phenomenally bland. A boring, uninteresting approximation of Thai food for gastronomically timid foreigners. To make things even worse, every restaurant on Haad Yao seems to have the identical menu, and they staunchly refuse to vary from this. Among the more bizarre things that I've been served is something called Haad Yao fried rice (pictured above), rice fried with ketchup and chicken, and wrapped in a thin omelet. You can opt for the classic Thai dishes, but unless you're a fan of limp, salty 'kana with garlic', greasy phat thai, or milky tom khaa, you're screwed.

Our only saving grace at this point has been a streetside som tam and grilled chicken stall about three kilometres up the road.

The proprietor is from Buriram, and makes papaya salad just the way I like it: sour and spicy. If you go to the same area in the morning, you'll even find, believe it or not, authentic southern Thai food such as khanom jeen. Unfortunately a taxi ride there (actually a seat in the back of a truck) costs more than the meal, so what would be a dirt cheap meal anywhere else in the country becomes an exorbitant splurge here.

In a couple days I'll be crossing over to Ko Samui, home I'm sure to even more quasi-Thai food, but also the location of Bangpo Seafood, a beachfront restaurant serving authentic Ko Samui-style Thai food that, despite having eaten there only once, I still count as one of my most memorable eating experiences in Thailand. Can't wait.

Maps

View Larger Map A while back, I started showing the locations of the places I mention in Google Maps. As some of you pointed out, the maps were written in Thai--not a great deal of help to most of the people who come here. Fortunately, in glancing at my Google Map today, it appears that it now includes both Thai and English. So, please take a look, click on whatever looks good, and hope this tool helps you find it!

Welcome!

  You've undoubtedly been re-directed here from RealThai, my former Thai food blog. Thai food fans don't despair just yet--all my previous entries have been moved here, and I'm still living in Thailand and the bulk of my entries will continue to emphasize Thai eats. However, I'm doing a lot more traveling these days and wanted a more general forum from which I can share my food discoveries. I also like the idea of a 'hub' of my own work, and if you've got the time to explore the site a bit, you'll also find a Photo Blog, my portfolio, as well as my Bio and a few examples of my published work.  Update your bookmarks and enjoy!

Welcome!

This is my first post at my newly-redesigned website. I'm still learning how to post and use some of the new functions, so it's something of work in progress. Once I get everything ironed out I'll start publishing RealThai here and you'll be able to check out all my blogs, as well as a portfolio of my work and samples of my published work, all at one convenient hub.

Until then, the pic above was taken in the old district of Songkhla, in southern Thailand. I'll be posting more from southern Thailand, as well as other places I've been lately, soon.

The deep south

On my most recent trip I spent a week in three of Thailand's southernmost provinces: Songkhla, Pattani and Narathiwat. Due to a violent insurgency that's been brewing since 2004, there's not a lot of folks visiting these parts, but there's still a lot of interesting things to see...and eat.

Every big city in the south has a night market. Hat Yai's:

featured a few stalls selling curries, grilled seafood and khanom jeen (fresh rice noodles served with curry). There were also several stalls selling kai thawt hat hai, Hat Yai-style fried chicken. However where it concerns the local dish, the residents I talked to consider Kai Tod Daycha, with three branches around town, the best:

Hat Yai-style fried chicken differs from elsewhere in its spice-laden marinade, and Daycha served the eponymous bird over fragrant yellow rice, or with a side of som tam (papaya salad).

In addition to Muslim-style food, there are also lots of ethnic Chinese in the south, and at a cafe in Hat Yai I had a wonderful bowl of ba kut teh:

pork ribs cooked in a herbal broth and served with sides of rice and deep-fried bits of dough. And yes, that's an entire head of garlic there in the broth.

Moving south, Pattani also has a much smaller, but still interesting night market serving a mix of Thai-Muslim and Chinese dishes:

The city also has one of the most vibrant morning markets in the region:

Most people in Pattani are ethnic Malays and there were more conversations in Yawi (a Malay dialect) than in Thai. In addition to language, breakfast is also very different in Thailand's deep south. Undoubtedly the most popular morning meal in these parts is khao yam (pictured at the top of this post), rice, often cooked with a type of purple flower, and topped with a bunch of finely-sliced herbs, roasted coconut, and a type of fish sauce called budu. The thin red strips are a kind of flower called dawk dala.

Another ubiquitous breakfast, especially in Muslim areas, is roti, a type of crispy pancake associated with Thai-Muslim cooking, and often served with a curry dip:

Thai Muslims really love sweet food, and will often put a tablespoon of sugar or three into the dip. In fact, despite southern Thai food's reputation as the hottest regional cuisine in the country, I found that many dishes featured sweet as their leading flavour. In Songkhla they like a dish called tao khua:

thin rice noodles and deep-fried crispy bits swimming in an insanely sweet sauce.

After a meal like that, I rarely felt a need for dessert, but really fell for khanom kho:

These are soft balls of dough and coconut meat surrounding a tiny cube of raw sugar. The combination of the soft, fluffy outside and the crunchy inside was amazing.

Ayuthaya (again)

I've been on the road quite a bit lately, the reason for not having posted in while. However I've recently become the owner of an intimidatingly black MacBook, so you can expect some mobile blogging in the near future.

My first trip took me once again visit Ayuthaya. I'm always happy to go there for fresh air and the chance to explore, but the excellent Thai food has also become a good enough excuse in its own right. I've already mentioned it here and here, so by now you know that if you visit Ayuthaya, you must eat at Baan Wacharachai. This time I wanted to try something different, and asked the locals about the best place to eat kuaytiaw ruea, 'boat noodles', a dish associated with the city. I was enthusiastically pointed in the direction of an open-air restaurant across from the ruins of Wat Ratburana called Lung Lek ('Uncle Lek'):

Lung Lek's noodles here must be among the most intense bowls I've ever consumed. There were the usual condiments on the table (fish sauce, dried chilies, sugar), but none was necessary--the noodles were already thoroughly spicy, sour and sweet. The beef variety (pictured above) contained a few slices of very tender stewed beef along with lots of unidentifiable bits, and the pork combined par-boiled pork and meatballs. Both contained a handful of par-boiled phak boong (sometimes known as 'morning glory', a green aquatic veggie), crispy rinds and a dose of blood. After a bowl of each (they're small and cost 15 baht) I cycled just up Thanon Chee Kun to Paa Lek ('Aunt Lek'), another recommended noodle joint. Paa Lek's noodles (pictured at the top of the post) were slightly more attractive, and judging by the crowd (and the wait) more popular, but I felt they lacked the intensity of the previous shop's. Sweet was the leading flavour here, and I'm not a big fan of bean sprouts.

I've previously mentioned roti sai mai, candy floss wrapped up in thin pancakes. On this trip I had my sights set on another Ayuthaya sweet fav, khanom babin:

Tiny pancakes of sticky rice flour and coconut meat. When done right they're just a tiny bit crispy on the outside, and soft and sticky on the inside. And they're usually not too sweet either (a rare trait among Thai sweets). Khanom babin can be found in abundance at the market located directly behind Wat Phramongkhon Bophit.

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