1st Sunday - Bangkok street food

"What did you have for lunch?"

I've been asking that question to Bouh because I'm curious with all the Bangkok's street food. Everywhere I walk I see food cart selling different type of snacks and meal in styrofoam boxes, fresh spring rolls, fried spring rolls, tiny pancakes, fried fish, grilled beef satay, fried chicken and of course the famous crispy insects. If you don't like spicy, you just need to avoid the sauce and you'll be all right otherwise be ready for their sweet and spicy sticky sauce.

Here's what I got this week:

Fresh spring rolls, fish, lettuce n shredded carrot wrapped in thick rice paper
(spicy alert : stay away from the sauce)


Grilled beef/chicken flat-satay
barbecued grilled beef/chicken meat and intestine



Fried super-oily "something" and cucumbers
fried snacks with spices and herbs
(spicy alert : stay away from the sauce)


closer look :


now wish me luck as I'm bracing myself for the fried insects ...
crispy scorpion and grasshoppers ladies?

Collagen drink and Bangkok's ladyboys

"Thailand is sooo gay it makes San Francisco looks like rural Texas"

That's what I've been told.

There won't be a day passed by without spotting Ladyboys or gay couples walk hand in hand strolling on on the street of Bangkok. I could spot a remarkably beautiful woman, quietly praise her beauty and the next minute when she talks, my envies disappeared into thin air as I also notice her deep voice, not a man deep voice but definitely not a soft woman voice. Some of Bangkok's ladyboys (katoeys) are exceptionally beautiful that it's almost impossible to differentiate between a real she or a she "was a he". Here is a link from TeaStains, she bumped onto some katoeys dressing up as Marilyn Monroe in MBK mall. Thailand also has a beauty pageant for katoeys, the Miss Tiffany's Universe. I'm posting the 2010 winner picture taken from Miss Tiffany's Universe website to give you an idea of their beauty ...


Full of the idea of how gay is Thailand,
When I first spot a small pinkish bottle of "beauty shot-collagen drink" in a 7-eleven on the Sukhumvit area, this is my honest first reaction upon seeing it :


I was amazed and started bouncing on the spot, pointing at the bottle :
me: Bouh, Bouh .. it's a transvestite drink!
Bouh: humm, what? where?
me: That bottle! it says, "collagen - beauty shot" !
Bouh: huh? maybe ... je n'sais pas ... no idea
me: (still bouncing like a 7 years old kid) I'm getting one ! it's hilarious!
Bouh: (looking at me with a thunderstruck face) ... .... ... whaaat?!

I bought both of Blink product and tried it, each cost me 25 THB (75 cents) and both are white grape juice flavoured. The darker pink is a Collagen drink and the lighter pink is a Glutathione drink it tasted slightly better than the collagen.
well, yeah, naively ... I really thought it was a transvestite drink ...
which apparently NOT AT ALL, Collagen drink is an anti-aging supplement.

Okay, here I am, trying to defend my silliness, I honestly don't know much about collagen, or anything related to beauty, cosmetics, make up. That's why my conclusion is quite simple :
collagen = beauty surgery + ladyboy in thailand = ladyboys drink!
Hooray, I'm a miss-understood genius!

so here is what enlightened me, the fact I found after browsing around on the net :

fact about Collagen:
Collagen is produced by your body in sufficient quatities to keep your skin toned, supple and guard against premature wrinkling.

fact about Glutathione:
Glutathione also known as GSH, is the most powerful, prevalent antioxidant in your body.
Increasing your Glutathione level will naturally increase your energy, detoxify your body
and significantly strengthen your immune system.

oh and psstt .. don't tell anyone bout my silliness, mkay?

Mighty ant vs Woofy

On our first day in Bangkok, we went to the city park and took a small nap on the grass.
Like in every park, there are ants ... just some tiny little ants, crawling on the grass,
sniffing for leftover foods ....
I actually didn't really bother the ants, I fell asleep almost instantaneously
and woke up with 2 small swollen ant bites ... it's how natures work ...
and come on, we human are stronger than ants!
We can squish them to death with our tiny little finger!
Give the ants a break, it's just a tiny bite ... spare their life

well, that's what I thought, until 10 minutes later, I felt a burning sensation
on my face and hand palms then tiny swells appeared all over my body.
The worse part? my face swelled like a balloon! I'm allergic to ant bite?!?!
I'm a weaker link than a tiny ant?! Their tiny bite poisoned my blood?! WHAT?!

well. nop, I won't post my ballooned face, I'll keep that picture in the darkest corner
of my messy photo folders but here is my dotted arms.
Bare in mind, this were not ant bites, this were the allergic reaction ...Fortunately the park is close with pharmacy, we went there and I point my finger
to my ballooned face while asking for a magical allergic solution (like a 10sec wipe-off-all-allergic-reaction potion, was that too much to ask?)

I got a pity look from the pharmacist and some allergic pills.
All tiny bits spots are gone within an hour and it eased the outrageous itch.

phew ... so much for a first day in Bangkok ...

definitely Thai Burger

Bouh : First day in Bangkok! we should try the Thai food!
Me : yesh, like green curry, red curry, definitely Thai food!
Bouh : let's pick one of the restaurant here

Me : Bouh ... is that a Burger King sign?
Bouh : where? what? huh ..?
Me : there on the shop mirror! It's a Burger King sign's reflections!
Bouh : (looking around across the mirror) ... yep, that's the Burger King

We've been craving for Burger King, it's been months we haven't got a proper junk food burger,I made one in Hanoi, which is not junk foody enough ...

Moving Out

How to reduce 2 person lives to 40kg of bags?
1. send unused stuff and souvenir to your parent's house
2. throw away some of your stuff
3. leave almost everything behind
4. close your eyes, take a deep breath and count to 3 and say "it's okay, it's just stuff .."
5. if all of that is not working, grab your wallet and be ready to pay
the excess weight fee,oh, do check it out, because every airlines
has different fee (our's 6USD/kg)

yesh, we are busy packing ... or in other word, stuffing our life into bags ...

and .... off to Bangkok - Thailand!

Souvenir shops

We live in the middle of the tourist area, the old quarter. Stepping out from our house are all kind of souvenir shops. From wooden bowls, paintings, clothing shop, lanterns ... all the typical tourist souvenirs. One of the nice thing to live in a tourist area is no one will point their finger at you and giggle just because you are a foreigner.


Here, dealing (and bargaining) with foreigner is their everyday meal, it minimize my use of hand signal but not without a price. We mostly end up paying a bit more, thanks to my poor ability in speaking numbers in vietnamese. I found it necessary to master the very-very basic of shopping vocabulary :

how much? - bao nhiêu?
numbers! 1-10 and 10.000 - 100.000

The rest? Hand signal ... no fuss

Hanoi is a place where you can shop for the house. Nicely painted wooden bowls starts from 1USD and the big one is about 3USD. Hmm, still hard to estimate the price? here's an easy way to get a grip of the price, 1 pack of Marlboro cigarette cost 15000VND, that's less than 1USD.

Sending stuff from Vietnam (not just Hanoi) is pretty easy. The cheapest is to send it with the 3 months shipping, it might take a bit long but imagine being back home with lots of package arriving, it's gonna be your own personal christmas day. My friend send back his 20kg stuff with the 3 moths shipping to UK for 60USD, the trick is to pack it in 1 huge box and send it to yourself to avoid higher charges and tax.

catfish springrolls

I don't see many types of fresh fish in hanoi's local market
Mostly just catfish "basa", some tiny red fishes and lots of huge fish head

There are lots of super fresh seafood, shrimps, mussels, squid and crabs ...
the crabs, whenever i look at those crabs, I can almost hear them calling me

"buy me, buy me, I'm super-delicious"

but naah, i know better than that, I could picture myself trying
to slaughter a giant crab only to have another fight with its thick shell.
craby, pick someone with a stronger willpower, not a lazy arse like me.

so it is decided, catfish it is ...
I'll just have to figure out how is best to cook them ...

After several catfish dinners, I could post my spicy pan-fry catfish
or the lemony honey-glazed catfish but then ... I went to this restaurant
called Highway 4 which is famous with its catfish spring rolls.
There I totally fell deeply in love with it, a perfect blend of mayonaise,
dill and fried catfish rolled in a thin rice paper. Just when I though I was already
in Spring rolls heaven, I dipped the rolls onto their special dip,
thick brownish sauce mixed with wasabi! Oh .. Hell! devil in Sunday hat!

I'm far from copycating their recipe and honestly my recipe will do no justice
to the original Highway 4 - catfish spring rolls, but I'm trying my best ...
um, despite the fact that I'm going back there tomorrow
for another round of catfish rolls.


Catfish spring rolls

1/2 cup all purpose wheat flour
1/2 cup corn flour
1tbs salt
1/2 tbs black pepper
1/2 tbs garlic powder
1/2 tbs cayenne powder
200g catfish filletcooking oil

for the rolls :
rice paper
a bunch of dills
mayonnaise

- lay catfish fillet horizontally on cutting board, cut to 2.5 x 1.5 inch strips
- mix all the first 6 ingredients, add catfish strips, shake to coat.
- heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add coated catfish strips,
fry for 2minutes on each side

- dab rice paper to a damp paper towel until it softens (it should be a bit crisp)
- put the rice paper on a plate, on the center of the rice paper put 1 catfish strips,
top it with mayonnaise and small bunch of dill- roll the rice paper around the filling
in a cigar shape



For a soft spring rolls I used a bowl of water and briefly dip the paper rice.
This catfish spring rolls wrapped with a crispy rice paper, that's why I only
dab it on a damp paper towel. Just soften the paper to be able to fold it.

I tried to make the wasabi sauce and it end up as a disaster. After the 6th tries,
i just gave it up, no idea what they mixed into the sauce, soy sauce, wasabi
and something else .... any hint?

enjoy!