Street food, Bangkok

Shall start my Bangkok post with the street food we had for this trip.....

I'm lucky to travel with a group of friends who enjoys food as much as me, so we managed to eat quite a fair bit of street food this time round :). Had some thai fish cakes..This version was more like fish balls...guess it was easier to eat while on the go.

Some grilled meat balls...

Rather bland to eat by itself, you'll need some chilli sauce (unless you wanna eat it with the bird's eye chilli and sliced ginger..)

Some street food are really colourful.. We decided to take the plunge and took a package of the fried quail eggs. Tasted exactly like chicken eggs, just that with loads more cholesterol.. yikes!

The local fried banana fritters..The batter's more fragrant as there's coconut milk in it. Lots of sesame seeds too.

Wanted to try the local ice cream with bread when I saw some locals buying it...

You can choose the ingredients to be in the sandwich...sweet glutinous rice, nata de coco, pineapple cubes..And topped with coconut ice cream. Not that nice though as the ice cream lacks flavour. Was just plain sweet.

Some bite size fried chicken..Crunchy on the outside, the meat was tender and juicy. We had the deep fried prawns too. Not as nice and I've forgotten to take a shot of it..hehe

Tried the thai fried crullers too..Sucky. I prefer malaysia yau char guai.

My fave and must have every time I'm in Thailand...The grilled squids...Smokey on the outside; springy, sweet and juicy on the inside. Have it with the ultra spicy and sourish sauce. Delicious.

Grilled chicken..

Tasted somewhat like satay chicken (without the peanut sauce), the chicken was well marinated. Only trouble while eating this was that they didn't debone this chook.

Grilled catfish tasted exactly like those in Malaysia...

Yes, ikan keli. Yummy when we have it hot; the sauce was pretty good too.

This snack was really scrumptious...

There's sweet flavour (with yam bits) and savoury ones with spring onions...

Cooked in halves, it's stuck together when it's almost cook. So we get a sorta flattened 'ball' shaped snack. The center was still creamy and every time we bit into the centre, the warm filling oozes out and it's fantastic!

Lastly, my favourite local ice cream...

Served in half coconut shell, the young coconut flesh was scraped out and topped with very creamy and rich homemade coconut ice cream. The ice cream had bits of peanuts and jackfruit. Real bliss having this. Found this little gem very near Pantip Plaza.

In case you were wondering, no, we didn't eat all of this at one go. We had it in a span of a few days. :p

Street food, Hanoi

Most unfortunately, we didnt have much time to explore street food in Hanoi as we went for trips and didnt really have much time to sample local street food. Just a few stuff we ate there..

We were walking down the streets at Old Quarter.

It has been drizzling the whole morning and we were cold and rather miserable.The mouth watering smell wafted through. We looked around and saw a petite old lady making some omelette. We ordered one immediately. She cracked some eggs and mixed with some chopped local veg and fried it immediately on her makeshift stove-basket. We waited patiently..and we were rewarded with a very scrumptious omelette. It was very fragrant, cooked to the right texture and dip in the lime+fish sauce, it's just great :) But one of our faves in Vietnam would be Bun Thit Nuong, directly translated as noodle+meat+grill.It's dry rice noodles served with grilled pork patties, grilled pork and fried spring rolls. The meat patties tasted wonderful, somewhat like a mix of mince char siew and bak kwa. We love it to bits! The fried spring rolls, though yummy, was not as good as the patties..

How we eat this? Mix some rice noodles, meat patties, spring rolls and fresh veg together and makan! Dont drink the soup/ sauce though. It's salty if taken on it's own..It's just to complement the noodles. Wonderful stuff, please please try this when you are in Vietnam..This was one of the stalls we had Bun Thit Nuong. Which serves one of the yummiest meat patties..

We had the vietnamese chee cheong fun..

The rice sheets are cooked fresh, when we ordered..and these smooth sheets are filled with mince meat and sliced wood/ear fungus. Served with a some fried shallots and dried shrimps.Dip in their sweetish salty mildly spicy fish sauce for the perfect simple breakfast..Nice.

We also had lotsa fresh bagettes with pate and eggs..To date, am still wondering why I didnt take a single picture of it. Oh btw, it's near impossible to find a bagette stall in Hanoi while its ubiquitous in Saigon..

Bangkok Food

I wont be introducing on a particular restaurant/eatery in this post, but on the food I have managed to eat when I was in Bangkok. Some are really good, make sure you try too! Beef noodles- you can pratically find this dish everywhere in thailand. Very popular, what you get is thick beef stock, noodles of your choice and "types" of beef. Not my favourite, i find the stock too salty and sweet at the same time. Prefer Vietnam's version Duck noodles- you can find this quite easily too. my favourite noodles coz i really love duck. Same method as the beef noodles, served with duck broth, your choice of noodles and 'types' of duck (parts). yummy. I have taken duck rice too previously and it's also good :). different frm Msia's version. Mixed pork part noodles- actually i dont think i find this in many places. but the BBQ pork looked so good (it was glistening under the lights, beckoning me to order it.. i swear!), could not resist having it. I chose egg noodles (which is different frm Msia's version). Very 'airy' sort of noodles, soaks up the sweet spicy sauce well. But need to eat it fast,coz it tends to get soggy (thats when its icky!). I had this at MBK food court, near Siam BTS. Thai mixed rice- Yup, thai's version of chap fan. As thai people loves pork, most of their dishes are pork dishes. You can try mixed rice almost everywhere in Thailand, at foodcourts, shops etc. As you can see, i had pork, pork and pork. freaking carnivour. but this is good stuff, do try. Pork patty and sweet sour bacon/pork thingy. Had their aubergine and veg too. fantastic. Fried kuay teow (flat noodles)- Looks very similar to Msia's version. You do find small stalls that does fried kuay teow along the road side. I had mine at Robinson's foodcourt while taking a break frm shopping. Dont ever try that stall. Sucks. Big time.

Pad thai- Another ubiquituous dish that you can get in Thailand, a must try. Sweet, spicy, sour all rolled into one, gives full satisfaction if you get a good cook preparing this :p. I had a really nice one at a restaurant (popular amongst the locals) along Menam Chao Phraya, near the new bridge (sorry mates, didnt take down the restaurant name). Or jien- Or I think its called or jien in Thailand too.. That's how we ordered it anyways. Exactly the same version as Msia's. But was served without any sauce (?!?), so not as satisfying as Msia's. Grilled bananas- Not to be mistaken as the famous air dried honey soak banana frm Chiangmai, those we get from Bangkok were grilled dried and drizzled with honey. Very different, but not my fave. Do give it a try though. Green Mango and sweet fish sauce- I am not sure why I never knew about this snack of that many times I've been to thailand. Well, better late than never! Thanks SL for introducing this really fantabulous snack to me. You can get it from most of the fruit stalls, foodcourts, etc.. this is really really yummy. Sliced, crunchy green mango dipped in the fish sauce-palm sugar laden dip. Though my tolerance level for sour food is extremely low, this green mango is so good, I can't stop eating it! Chopped chillies and dried shrimp for the final perfect touch to this snack. Must try!

I didnt take pictures of these, but I did try...

Mango and sweet sticky rice- Too famous. Dont need more explanation. Must have when in Thailand! Better than those served in Msia anytime. Prefer with mangoes than durians

Grilled squids- Can get this along the road, these squids are grilled so nicely, so sweet, springy and dont have the "fishy" smell. Have it with their spicy greenish chilli sauce, OMG! shiok!

Grilled sausages- Not so good since the last time i had it in bangkok. basically this is mince meat with chopped shallots & coriander, made into sausages and grilled. Eat with the same sauce as the grilled squid.

Grilled meat slices- Ok, this snack look so unappetising that you may not want to try. It's cut into strips like fries and thread together using some leafy twiggy thing (else it's skewered with bamboo stick). You choose which "string" you want and the stall owner will grill it for you, on the spot. Absolutely scrumptious, this tops my list of grilled street food. Well marinated, taste like char siew, but different.

Hope you'll try some of these dishes/snacks when you do visit thailand as I did! Bon appetite :)