A Foodie's Paradise

In the week and a half that we've been here, we've had so many opportunities to try new and different foods. Everything that we've eaten so far has been so delicious. We've eaten street food a few times, and it's always lived up to our expectations.

The food here is usually super cheap, unless you are looking for a more western product or special item, such as organic. Cheese and wine can be very expensive. I was looking for them online and the cheeses I saw ranged from $30 to over $100 for a block. A friend told us that when he tried to make lasagne himself last year, all the ingredients totaled about $50. That is one expensive lasagne.

Otherwise, we've been able to have good-sized meals for $5 or less. The first time we ate street food, we bought two baggies of steamed rice, three cobs of corn, a dish of pork with pickled vegetables, and a dish of chicken with various vegetables, all for about $3. And everything was sooo good, flavorful, and fresh. It's almost cheaper to go out to eat than cook ourselves, and with the markets and restaurants being so close to our house, makes it way too easy to go out every night for dinner, so we haven't had much incentive so far to go grocery shopping.

Anyway, here are some pics for your viewing pleasure:

Dragon fruit.

 

Inside of a dragon fruit. It is very mild, with just enough sweetness to be refreshing. The texture is a mix between a pear and a kiwi.

Street food stands.

Villa Market, where many western products can be found. We found organic eggs here for $2!

Soy milk with basil seeds on the left. It's kind of like bubble tea, but there's no taste of basil. On the right is a yogurt drink that I've had as a little girl and in the U.S.

A friend took us to this place for lunch one day. The owner of the place, Mr. Ploy (phonetic) is super nice and friendly. When he saw my son and our friend's daughters, he immediately came out to play with them. We had fried rice, cashew chicken, stir-fried vegetables, and sweet and sour chicken, all delicious.

Love the little bottle.

The market where you can get all kinds of produce, where I've been dying to go. Notice the temple (wat) in the distance. Imagine grocery shopping with that as your backdrop? There's also a floating market near the temple, which we intend to explore in the very near future.

Fresh eggs of all colors, even pink! (Not sure what that's about)

Produce galore.

Not sure what these are, but their tops are similar to those on eggplants.

Bitter melon.

Bamboo.

Fruits.

Not sure what these are called, but I've had it as a girl. Maybe similar to a pear?

Rambutan. The one in the upper right corner is durian. Have heard that it has a smell to it....

Longan (dragon eye fruit), papayas, and dragon fruit.

Another food stand.

Freshly baked bread from the Italian restaurant for $2.

So, for veggies, we bought long string beans, something that looked like bok choy, and something that looked like Spinach for less than $2 total. For fruits, we bought a bunch of dragon eyes, a bunch of bananas, and an unidentified fruit that the vendor let us try for $3 total.

Of course, there are chains here too, like McDonald's and Pizza Hut. And all these places, as well as the big grocery stores, deliver. So convenient. Yesterday, I got on the website of one of the bigger grocery stores here, called Testco Lotus, and made a huge order of groceries to be delivered today. It took me a long time to get through everything. Even though the website was supposed to be in English, the names and descriptions of each product were still in Thai! To see them in English, I had to click on each individual product. And some products had pages and pages! Pretty tedious. I got many things that we took for granted in the U.S., but hard to find here: peanut butter, mozarella cheese, spaghetti, Philadelphia cream cheese (!). Also got a bunch of Thai stuff. I'm ready to delve into the world of Thai cooking!! Wish me luck!