We were happy to be in Bangkok while Pete's colleague Eric (right)
and his partner Neil were too. They have been living the expatriate lifestyle
and traveling throughout SE Asia since November, so they had lots of good
suggestions for us. They took us to a hip skyscraper bar for cocktails where we
enjoyed great views of the city.
Eric and Neil had tried most of the gourmet food courts found in the
shopping malls, and were kind enough to tell us specifics like "don't miss
the Thai dessert that looks like a taco - it's a crepe filled with
coconut!"
One of the malls had a San Francisco theme, complete with a huge
model of the Golden Gate Bridge. This photo is especially for Pat and Sarah,
since their favorite butcher is in North Beach at Little City Meats.
We are lucky to be here during the start of mango season. We’ve seen
3 types of mangoes so far. We are doing our best to eat mangoes as often as we
can! Besides the fresh fruit, we are enjoying mango smoothies, mango sorbet,
mango infused tea and our favorite dessert, mango with sticky rice and coconut
cream.
Bangkok is a contemporary city with easy-to-use public transit.
There’s both an above ground Sky Train and underground metro, which are
connected to the older modes of surface transport and canal boats. Here’s a
picture of us on the platform of our local Sky Train station.
We enjoy getting comments on the blog and emails from friends and
family. Our vegetarian friend Alice signed off her last email with "Eat something
I wouldn't!" This challenge was too easy because virtually
everything we are eating (except the mangoes) has fish sauce or dried shrimps,
even the salads. Here are two dishes we had for dinner which are a bit unusual:
the greens are morning glory vines that have been stir fried, and the other
dish is squid in a red curry sauce.
The food here has been outstanding! Our favorite Thai meal was at
Nahm. Coincidentally Pete's parents sent us an email with a link to the NY Times Travel article on Bangkok, which featured this restaurant. The chef, David Thompson, (he is Australian by birth) won the James Beard
award for his cookbook, Thai Food; We hope to get the cookbook when we have a
kitchen again. At Nahm we did the tasting menu so we could try the Thai canapés, soup,
salad, curry, relish, meat and dessert. The meal wowed us with the soft shelled
crab salad and the persimmon in coconut crepes dessert with mangosteen fruit; Our
waiter told us “mangosteen is the queen of fruit, and durian is the king”.
We also were thrilled with Smith, a "nose to tail"
restaurant that we heard about through a NY Times article about why people
should go to Bangkok in 2013. (The chef, Ian Kittichai, was born in Bangkok,
trained in London, and has had restaurants in NYC, Barcelona, Mumbai, Abu
Dhabi, and Bangkok.) This is a picture of their head cheese; Since Pete has
made head cheese, we always have to try it when we see it on a menu. Pete had
pork belly as his entree, which was meaty and beautifully seared. Kristina had
salmon that was lightly smoked and served with a lemon grass foam, which was
exceptional.
We had a great time during our week in Bangkok! We even watched
David O Russell’s latest movie, Silver Linings Playbook. Before a movie begins,
the Thai national anthem is played and everyone stands for it. Next we fly to
Sri Lanka for two weeks, a primarily Buddhist country that has lots of national
parks.
