Street Food Round-up, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand

Of course no visit of Thailand is complete without some grub from the local street food scene. Here's a charcoal grill making nice work of some Thai satays.

The pork was juicy and succulent with that bonus chunk of lard.

The chicken gizzards were pretty tasty too.

The beef had a different seasoning altogether, without any hint of sweetness that satay has, this was just delightfully savory.

Thai nem (preserved pork), quite similar to the nem in Vietnam. Sometimes, this is eaten raw (although it's really preserved in the spices) but here it was grilled on a stick which made it more attractive. The sourish and salty flavor may not appeal to many but I'm quite okay with it.

One of my favorite stalls is the mixed curry rice store. There's almost always something that one will find tasty in the large variety. A huge dallop of meats and a generous drizzle of curry on a plate of steaming hot rice; a humble dish, a satisfying meal.

The common fried insects stall was present as usual. Never had been a big fan of this to begin with, so I gave it a miss this time.

Fried pork collar in sesame seeds. One cannot help but get a bag of this to snack on.

In addition to the more traditional fare were some rather enterprising ones. This one was serving a huge variety of sushi.

They even had little pan pizzas going for under 2usd each.


Last but not least was this cute stall selling a huge variety of little pastries, ranging from tiny savory sandwiches to mini donuts. Even though my trip was rather short, I'm quite sure I ate my fill.

D

River Hotel, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand

Most of my meals were partaken at the River Hotel which kind of makes sense since I was staying there but it's more than that because it helps that the whole River Hotel chain is but part of the bride's family businesses. Thus individual luxury rooms with king sized beds were provided for the special wedding guests (whom I'm conveniently one of). This is a bowl of delicious king shrimp porridge that was served prior to the wedding lunch after the ceremonial formalities.

The porridge is eaten with this side loosely translated as Thai bacon. It's a sweetish, savory pork jerky that's fried and gets really addictive to snack on.

The wedding couple had to consume this traditional dessert of ultra sweet red jelly-like thingy with hard-boiled eggs. I sneaked a little bit to taste and this was sweet!

Unfortunately, I did not take any photographs of the wedding feast itself as I was seated at the most important table and there were way too many seniors there for me to whip out my camera. But I managed to get pictures of some of the food we ate at the River Hotel's restaurant. These were some minced-prawn fritters, which came as a starter to one of our other big meals. Crisp beancurd skin on the outside and chunky bites of prawn within, we knew that from day one, there will be no skimping on quality when it comes to everything; including the food.

Boiled free-range, wild chicken; I'm not a fan of chicken usually as it's just too mass produced and lacks flavor compared to their red-meat counterparts. But free-range and wild running chickens are a different class altogether. The flavor and texture of this bird was so hearty that it didn't need much seasoning to make it tasty.

Another dish with fresh green peppercorns and basil leaves, this time using fish instead of razor clams, but it was just as yummy.

Deep-fried pork marinated with red preserved beancurd. Crispy, salty and greasy, great beer grub.

Fried pork neck with sesame seeds; another staple seen in Thaistreet food. The restaurant version definitely did not disappoint either.

Here's a steamed fish with an assortment of vegetables including Thai eggplant (the green round things that look a bit like hot-crossed buns). The purity of natural flavors were what stood out here and despite minimal seasonings, it wasn't bland at all.

For all the Thai food lovers out there, I know that Pad Thai is almost synonymous with Thai food but my favorite Thai noodle dish is actually pad kee mao (drunken noodles). This stuff is spicier than pad Thai and less sweet. Give this a shot when you're next at a Thai restaurant as a refreshing change over the standard pad Thai and you may become a convert just like me.

The River Hotel provided excellent accomodation and tasty food throughout my stay in Nakhon Pathom. If anyone is planning to travel here, do consider booking your room here.

D

Food by the Sea, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand

After the floating market, we were driven to a local beach which had an array of street stalls serving some pretty nice bites. I'm a big fan of street food and this was definitely up my alley.

Amongst the myriad selections of seafood, some uncommon ones stood out, such as these horse-shoe crabs, where apparently, only the roe is savored.

The ubiquitous drinks stall which serves the creamiest, tastiest iced milk tea.

Now this was the ultimate fake-out. Any Singaporean or Malaysian will know what comes to mind when we see these. It has to be otak right? The spicy coconut- milk-based fish paste which is so tasty when grilled over charcoal.

Turned out it was some sweet sticky rice thingy! I felt like such a fool when I took my first bite.

Grilled scallops by the street are always welcome.

With a dash of salt and some butter and spices, these tasted great.

A whole pot of piping hot steamed cakes. Somehow, I don't know if it was psychological but wrapping the cakes in these leaves gave them a noticeable fragrance over the ones we have in Singapore which are just baked in containers.

After snacking on all the street food, it was time for lunch. The advertising system here is rather unique. All these mascots are dressed (actually it's pretty much only their headgear) as sea creatures and they dance and prance around by the road to entice you to try out their fare.

We settled for this fish dude's restaurant. We were in the mood for some fish this lunch and I guess there is no other method to ascertain a restaurant's standard of fish except from their mascot. Come on, I mean look at him, he's a fish dude!

A pretty much vegetarian salad of onions, raw papaya and cashew nuts was the first dish. A nice, tangy appetizer to kick start our feast.

Next up was a seafood vermicelli salad. This was unassumingly spicy, but still tasty. The lime dressing on the seafood really reminded me of some good ceviche I had not too long ago.

Stir-fried shelled razor clams with green peppers and basil. Absolutely loved this. I'm beginning to be quite a big fan of all the varieties of basil and the sweet flesh of the clam sure complemented the fragrance of the Thai basil.

Next up were some boiled sea slugs which we ate with a chili dipping sauce. Fresh and naturally sweet but it was in the end quite spartan in flavor really.

Boiled squid in a tom yam broth. Crunchy, succulent squid in a delicious savory, spicy and slightly sour tom yam stock. What more can one ask for?

Perhaps some freshly fried fish. Funny how despite this fish being so fresh (like live), our host opted to fry it instead of steaming (the almost mandatory method to "appreciate" the freshness of fish haha). But hey, some people may argue that one can get away with bad fish by deep frying it, yeah maybe if we're talking about fish fingers but even though this was deep-fried, the oil was so intense that within the crisp exterior was fresh sweet flesh which pretty much "steamed" in its own juices.

Last but not least was a hotpot of fresh water river eel. The soup was good and the eel was suprisingly delightfully fatty. The only bummer was the life-threatening number of fine bones which made eating this quite a dangerous task. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the eel and felt so gangster living life on the edge.

D

Floating Market, Damnoen Saduak, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand

There are quite a few floating markets around Thailand but apparently the one at Nakhon Pathom is one of the better ones. I thought it was rather touristy to embark on this little excursion but I heard that even some of the locals frequent this floating market, giving it a little more credibility.

After we parked our vehicle, we took a short walk to the canal where it begins and was greeted by a variety of little boats selling food.

And many other little boats selling deliciously ripe-looking fruit.

The first food boat we stopped by was this little one selling this savory dessert of sorts. I know that sounded weird but this stuff known as "sak koo" has coconut, sugar and chili in it making it really neither here nor there in the confines of dining courses. Apparently, it's an appetizer.

Here's a heap of that sweet coconut with peanuts and chili thingy which is a major component of sak koo.

A variant of it comes with thin rice paper rolls filled with more of that sweet coconut and served with chili and fried shallots. When I first saw this, I was hoping it would taste like banh cuon, er because it looked like banh cuon, but unfortunately, the sweet, spicy, salty flavor was really a taste I could not appreciate.

We stopped by this little shop which processes coconut sugar. The coconut nectar is harvested and boiled under charcoal to form solid coconut sugar.

When it's half-way to the end product, it may be served in the form of this diabetes-inducing beverage. Much as I appreciate the flavors of raw sugar, this was like a big sugar anvil crushing down on me. Pretty sweet, no doubt.

Boil it long enough and it'll thicken and caramelize until it hits a thick brown gooey consistency which is then placed on waxed paper in little blobs (resembling? Let's not go there haha) to cool and solidify.

The sugar is then packaged and sold here for about 35baht (1usd) a kilogram.

Desperately craving something savory at this point in my life, we headed to this boat selling noodles.

A decent soup noodle with barbecued pork slices, fish balls and a good dash of salt and pepper. This was just what I needed.

This stuff was so good, we ordered another version of it which was spicier and redder.

Even though I knew I had enough sugar for the day, just before we were leaving, our host suggested we try the white coconut dessert "kanom twai".

This stuff was actually pretty tasty. For starters, it wasn't too sweet and the rich taste of fresh coconut milk is always nice. Not too bad at all.

Touring the floating market was pretty enjoyable. It's abit like taking the "It's a Small World" ride in Disneyland except without the annoying music and a lot more food.

Oh and did I mention they have alot of fruit?

D