fried banana flowers

Here’s a quick, but interesting, snack. Fried banana flowers, called tawt man hua bplii [ทอดมันหัวปลี]. Actually, this food is very similar to the common, traditional Thai fish cakes which is where the tawt man part of the name comes from. Just replace the fish part with a banana blossom. I have had banana blossoms on many occasions and in several different forms, but I have always found them to be way too bitter for my taste. These fried banana flowers were exactly the opposite. Nice and crispy with a taste strangely similar to french fries and no bitterness at all. They are served as a side dish with chili sauce and vegetables. With my unhealthy love of fried foods, I will definitely be eating more of these in the future.

As a side note, the two other barely viewable foods on the plate are a cha-om omelet (kai jiaw cha-om) and some sour fish (bplaa som). All of these foods compliment each other and are generally sold at the same stand along with some fresh vegetables and chili dips.

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Thai mushroom dip

Thai cuisine is notorious for including chili dips containing just about anything. And, if you can withstand the spice, they are all extraordinarily tasty. I have posted about quite a few different chili dips (nam prik [น้ำพริก]) in the past, and I plan to write about many more in the future. This particular one is call nam prik hed [น้ำพริกเห็ด] which literally means mushroom chili sauce. As with most chili dips, I was eating it with rice and fresh vegetables. It was very tasty so please forgive me for eating half of it before I took the photo. By that point I was forced to take a break since my mouth was burning so much. Pain is the price I expect to pay when I sample these tasty dips.

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Pumpkin pie

This here is one of my favorite Thai desserts. I call it pumpkin pie, although technically the filling is a custard. Thai’s call it fak tawng sangkayaa [ฝักทอง สังขยา]. The cool part, as you can see, is that it is actually cooked in the pumpkin itself! This works out great for me because I always loved the traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, but only the filling. I would always leave the crust behind. now I don’t have to worry about any crust since the crust is essentially a filling as well.

Yeah, I know Thai pumpkins aren’t as pretty as Western ones. Despite that ugliness (I know I’ve talked about that somewhere around here before), they are much more tasty. Especially when made into a sweet dessert like this.

After a little bite

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Tapioca

Cassava

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Thai eggplant salad

Thailand has many kinds of eggplants.  Before I moved to Thailand the only eggplant I knew of was the big purple one and it wasn’t even used in that many dishes (that I knew of).  Well, they don’t have the big purple eggplant over here.  Instead they have long eggplants (makua yao [มะเขือยาว]), small green eggplants (makua [มะเขือเปราะ]), bitter eggplants (makua kuen [มะเขือขื่น]), pea eggplants (makua puang [มะเขือพวง]), and even miniature versions of some of these.  They all taste somewhat similar, but not very similar to the big purple eggplant we know.  They also differ in that, while they can be cooked, many are commonly eaten raw and dipped in chili sauces (nam prik [น้ำพริก]).  The bitter ones mentioned above are used in somtom for flavor and not typically eaten as a vegetable.  All in all, I enjoy eggplants of all types, but I find these Thai eggplants to be much more versatile.

Pictured here is a cooked and prepared version of the long green eggplant.  This is yam makua yao [ยำมะเขือยาว] which is basically a Thai version of a salad.  The eggplant is mixed with shrimp, chilis, and a sour sauce.  Most Thai style salads [ยำ] are mixed with a similar sour sauce.

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Banana blossom salad

This was an interesting salad that tasted better than I expected. Banana blossoms are used in quite a few cuisines. I find that they aren’t used all that often in Thailand. Only in a few dishes and as an accompinament (commonly with pad thai). It is very, very bitter. This brings up an interesting point about bitterness in foods. I have never enjoyed anything with even a slightly bitter taste. I think most Westerners are like this. Thais (and possibly other Asians) that I know will occasionally actively seek out foods for their bitter taste. I find it very weird, but I suppose that’s just from being brought up in a totally different food culture.

Anyway, when served with pad thai, the banana blossom is raw.  Here is a picture of a raw one, although a few layers would have to be peeled off before it was usable: wikipedia. In the dish shown here, yam hua bplii [ยำหัวปลี], the blossom has been cooked and seasoned extensively.  As a result it has lost a lot of it’s bitterness (not all, though) and ends up being much more enjoyable.

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candied lotus root

Candied lotus roots is a snack especially popular among the Chinese community. These are fairly thick cross sections of lotus root that have been candied. Don’t ask me about the candying process; I’ll just let you know that they are very sweet and kind of like a gummi candy. I don’t really notice any lotus flavor, just sweetness. Lotus root is also used in various soups and salads that usually have some Chinese background to them.

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Jicama root

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Roadside stand

This here is a roadside stand located somewhere between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. You see stands like this all over the major roadways throughout Thailand selling whatever the local specialties are: from grilled pork to seasonal fruits to corn on the cob to rat (yep!…see here and here). The roadside vendors are a great place to pick up some really fresh goods at generally the cheapest price around. it is hard to see how they stay in business though, since you will typically see five, six, seven, or more in a row…all selling exactly the same thing. This stand here happens to sell pickled bamboo (naw mai dawng [หน่อไม้ดอง]), something I heaven’t seen much elsewhere in Thailand. Actually, I do see it around in Bangkok sometimes, but these pieces were just massive. I did purchase some, but I ate it before I got any photos. It tasted pretty much like bamboo shoots from a can except much fresher. Pretty good if you like pickled things.

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