UnTracked

Getting Sauced

As with any good food, it all comes down to the sauce.  Yes, using fresh and tasty main ingredients also make a meal memorable but if it's not finished well then you've just wasted good money.

The Thais make extraordinary sauces, here's a couple of examples...

Nam Pla Prik: fish sauce, vinegar, fresh chilies.  It's like the LBD of Thai sauces, it goes with everything.

Nam Jim Jiao: fishy, hot with a crunch of toasted, ground sticky rice.  Drip, or if you are like me, pour copious amounts over fried chicken and sticky rice.  Hurts so good.

Nam Prik Ong: spicy red chilies, tomatoes and ground pork?  Sounds weird, but so, so good for dipping vegetables.

Nam Prik Nam: hot green chilies, roasted and pureed with lots of garlic and sia oua for dipping.  Damn!  I need to go back just to eat this!

So if I've learned anything from my travels in Thailand it is that I must find these recipes, so I don't get DT's from withdrawl.

Hua Hin

Andrew and Cindy took us to their kite-surfing home base, Hua Hin for the weekend.  The wind was ripping for them!  Before they hit the water, Andrew took us to breakfast by the day-market.  We enjoyed a very typical Asian breakfast of rice porridge amped up with hot chilies, vinegar, chicken and an egg.  So creamy and satifying...  We also got to see the "doughnut master" at work.  This gentleman is only out for about 2 hours a day and invariably there is a line-up for the hot a crispy balls of doughy goodness.  Slowly and very precisely, he rolls the dough into tubes.   Once it has reached his exact specifications for length and girth you hear,  chop, chop chop!  He slices the dough into bite-sized bits and literally flings them into the wok of boiling oil.  I was astonished that there was very little splash-back!  This is a good thing with the number of people milling abount and the hoards of people rushing by on their way to work.  Oh yes, and the ubiquitous scooter traffice sice he's basically double parked his doughnut cart in the street.

Remember the boiling oil?  Not contained but in an open wok that has a similar diameter to a Hummer hubcap?  I was continually shocked at the lack of safety standards.  Mr. OSHA would have a stroke.  But it all seems to work...

We were handed our little paper bag of doughnuts with sweetened condensed milk for dipping and were off to round out our morning repast with Thai iced coffee.  Yummmmm.

So... I'm not much of a coffee drinker.  In fact, I like the smell much more than the taste and I prefer it even more diluted with milk and sugar (aka latte).  But iced coffee is a definite weakness of mine.

Once we were fed and caffenated, we walked across the street into a day in the life of Hua Hin.

I'm sure you are aware that I love markets.  It gives me a real sense of the people and the country I'm visiting.  Asian markets seem to be a lot like the cities; packed with people; packed with stuff; a little dirty; a little smelly; and oh so fun!

The day market we went to would be where the Hua Hinners (?) go for their daily groceries.  I wish my daily grocers looked like this!  Stalls of seafood heaped two feet high; mounds of mussels; buckets of clams; tanks of live fish and crustaceans; pyramids of fresh, tropical fruit including cute palm-sized "personal pineapples" (that they'd likely charge 5 bucks for stateside).  I saw the largest prawns I've ever seen, sharks and sting-rays ready to swim into your soup pot; baskets of live frogs, snakes, eels & fish; chickens from live to... well, lunch and even one hog's head.  Fantastic!

Andrew bought 2.5 kilos of clams for our afternoon snack.  Which, by the way, comes with it's own bunch of araomatics all for 50 baht.  Four dollars, maybe?  It's a beautiful thing.  (The white wine, garlic & parsley bath these particular clams ended up in sparked the subtle briney flavour brilliantly.  Well played, Andrew.)

Another tough day in Thailand... now it's time for a massage...

 

To market, to market...  more photos here...

Huen Phen

After two nights of uninspired meals in Chiang Mai (the street vendors were outstanding and yet we paid a premium to sit in a restaurant???) we got it right.

Coconut pie on a stick

Huen Phen was certainly off the beaten path.  Across bridges, through the old city gates and down a bumpy, winding road.  So off the path we were told that until recently there was no sign, let alone English-lettered, or even a street address!  You just had to be in the know.

The old city

We reached our dining destination via a harrowing tuk-tuk ride and then meandered through the gardens to the front door.

It was surprising that this was a restaurant...

It looked like you had just walked into the foyer of the home of a very eccentric pack-rat.  Grand chandeliers, huge wooden tables, high-backed chairs, paintings and stuff on every available surface.  And amongst all the doilies, platters, vases, bookshelves and assorted tchotchkies were smaller dining tables squeezed into corners.  

The menu was extensive and written in Thai.  The small amount of English on there was of little help: "chicken with green sauce".  Does that mean curry?  A pepper sauce?  A dipping sauce?  Luckily we were armed with a few choice Thai phrases for the foods that we wanted and we ordered that way...

"Nam prik num" and nam prik ong": some of the most amazing dipping sauces I've ever had and very traditional for Northern Thailand.

"sia oua": the sausage of my dreams; meaty and spicy (don't be disgusting).

"khao neow": sticky rice

"hang leng curry": the specialty of the house and province

After a delightful meal where we ate until bursting yet our drink tab still cost more, we risked another tuk-tuk back to the hotel.  To rest up for the next adventure...

Traffic Laws in Thailand

Most of the highways, byways and thoroughfares are packed with traffic.  All.  The.  Time.

And while there are signals and signs, right-of-ways and dead-end streets, it all seems to be just suggestions.  It's not uncommon to see two to three adults on a scooter, no helmets, and the girl(s) or lady-boys as the case may be, sitting side-saddle.  Or a dozen people sitting in the back of a converted pick-up truck.  (Converted to what, I'm not sure.  Perhaps a death trap, but I digress.)  Or, one of my personal favorites, a motorcycle with a side car and a total of five people!  Two on the bike, two in the car and one sitting on the front of the side car...

Cars, cabs and crotch rockets, zooming along, weaving in and out and a serious lack of sidewalks.  Speaking of sidewalks, pedestrians look out!  You take your life into your hands when moving from point A to B.  You'll be stepping of dogs and their leavings, scurrying around cars and scooters parked on the walk or pressing yourself up against a building to avoid broken toes from the scooters being driven on the sidewalk.  All this and watch for broken cobblestones, roots erupting through the cement and general holes, curbs and debris.

I'd say the travel insurance was money well spent.

One last thing about Thai traffic... we headed into the "old city" of Chiang Mai for dinner on our last night there.  It was a fair jaunt from our current location across the Ping river.  I finally sucked up enough courage (or maybe it was because I was so relaxed after my fourth 2-hour Thai massage, hard to say) that I conceeded to ride in a tuk-tuk.  Picture a 3-wheeled motor car with a canopied 2-seat bench and no seat belts.  Not that it would have really helped if something were to happen; tin can against pavement at high speeds?  Not a chance.  Anyways, tuk-tuks are an assault on every sense:

• the smell of diesel
• the oppressive heat on your skin
• the din if the streets in your ears
• the lights blinking, flashing and streaking by
• just hopefully not the taste of your last meal as you careen around corners...

There does seem to be a method to the madness.  Bodies are not laying in the streets, no sounds of sirens rushing to the scene because there are surprisingly few accidents.  I guess you learn to go with the flow.

Oh yes.  I thought Thailand was bad?  It was positively civil and orderly compared to Vietnam...

Wat's Up With That?

After a low-key breakfast at our hotel, Baan Orapin in Chiang Mai, we took a taxi up, up and winding up to Wat Doi Suthep.

According to legend, holy relics discovered in the 14th century were placed on the back of a white elephant and it carried them up to the "Warrior Guardians" at the Wat.  And then it died of fatigue.  Unlucky for that particular elephants but these beasts of burden have a place of honor in the Thai folklore and are considered very lucky.  So you see them on everything...

After you rise up 306 more steps you are hit with gilt to the hilt.  Buddhas, elephants, dragons, and temples blinded us in the sun.

 

Unfortunately the Pagoda in the center of the square was covered in scaffolding to polish and reapply the centuries-old gold plates and foils.

The stairway that leads up to the temples is protected by the "Naga", a head-within-a-head dragon.  At the foot of the stairs you find the gilded and mirrored heads; as you walk up, their tiled spines act as hand rails.  Once you are at the top of the 300-plus steps you find their... ahhh ... anatomically correct bodies.  I thought this was quite amusing, Colin found it mildly disturbing.  You can be the judge.

Sang Som & Soda at 55

Cindy and Andrew led us to one of their favorite haunts, "55".  It is a right of initiation when you arrive in Bangkok.

You arrive at this tiny hole-in-the-wall & pick your favorites out of the glass case!  Thank god for Andrew and his fluency in Thai as we would have had to resort to pointing and grunting.  Mmm, fresh water prawns & pork stuffed squid sauteed with garlic; beef in a black pepper sauce; spicy sauteed pork; mild green Thai eggplants; and these amazing mini oysters in omlette form.  Oh.  My.  God.  So delicious.  I can't begin to describe how literally creamy the oysters were; or how spicy the pork was (there were whole small green chilies and halves of these large red chilies; or how flavorful the prawns and squid were in their fresh garlic sauce topped with fried garlic.  But honestly it's the dipping sauces that do it for me.  The traditional "seafood" sauce is called "nam jim jah" according to Andrew.  And I think it translates to "hot addiction"; fish sauce, hot chilies, garlic, and more chilies.  Soooo good.

I'll admit, I like my spicy food to bite back a bit and this sauce was vicious.  It starts off inconspicuous with a slight tingle on the lips, then after about ten minutes, the slow burn becomes an inferno and it's all you can do to not shove all the sticky rice in your mouth at once.  It might not happen that way for everyone mind you; I do pour the stuff on like ketchup.  Woo hoo!  Feel the burn...

To cut the heat we bought a bottle of Thai whisky at 7-11 (of all places) before sitting down to eat.  This really isn't whisky as much as it is rum; it tasted a lot like burnt sugar cane.  Add that to a bit of lime and soda and you've got an interesting imbibe to beat the heat.

Chicken Skin

After getting our bearings in Bangkok, a little snack of crispy fried chicken (like KFC only a million times better), sticky rice and hot chili sauce (yum!), we headed out for my first Thai Massage.  Our gracious hosts, Cindy & Andrew, joined us at Health Land for some much needed relaxation.  The four of us shared a room with futons on the floor and flowers on the pillows.  We all got into our "jimmy-jams" then were pushed, pulled and kneaded into submission.  And while C & A were teasing us that we'd be asleep withing minutes (which was true) they both admitted that there also nodded off during the two hours.  Yeah.  Twelve bucks... hee hee.  Much kneaded relaxation indeed.

However, throughout the massage, one of us was invariable biting one's tongue stifling a giggle, from certain comments that had been made just prior to going in for our massages...

Cindy had made an offhand comment that Andrew should mention to Colin how he should, ummm, protect his unmentionables during certain positions.  The conversation continued to degrade from there and I'm certain it's not appropriate to get into it here (my mother reads this!) let's just say the "chicken skin" at lunch was a much more savory topic of conversation.

Twenty-four Hours of Travel

Nov 13.

Snow!  All day long in Vernon; and 34C  as the high today in Bangkok.  Hee hee.  Here we come!

Nov 14 - 15.

Hmmm... I'm not really sure how I will go back to economy-class after this.  The Cathay Pacific lounge in Vancouver was a piece of heaven during our 5 hour layover.  There was a total of a dozen of our fellow passengers waiting for the 2 AM take-off.  Cozy chairs, snacks with an Asian flare (I don't think I could ever eat too much dim sum) and liquor.  Nice.  But if the lounge wasn't enough, the pods on the plane will make me shun steerage...  The only downfall was that Colin and I couldn't talk to one another all that easily.  But it was 2 AM, what is there really to say?  With fully reclining seats, thick cotton blankets (because who likes those scratchy nylon things other airlines use?), noise cancelling headphones with classical music piping through to lull me across the Pacific, I was sleeping within moments of lift-off.  Not to mention the excellent in-flight massage chair.  Check out the controls...

And!  After waking almost seven hours later, I had my midnight snack, or was it breakfast... served with sparkling and a smile (and warm washcloths).  I love being pampered.

Now we are in hour 22 of the 24 hour adventure.  I'm feeling pretty good, quite rested, & well sated.

And I have another glass of champagne in hand.I have no idea what time it is, or should be, or will be when we land.  Who cares, right?  I'm on holiday!

It can be so trying to be me...

Welcome to Thailand!

Welcome to Thailand

After  twenty four hours of an airport-airplane-lounge-transfer-airplane-lounge-train-cab adventure we made it!

Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite for future posts...

                   Temple on Doi Suthep outside Chiang Mai

                      Chiang Mai at dusk

               Cooking class!  Mmmm, pad sie ew...

                Fishing on the Ping River.

                  Thailand spirit house

                        Big waves in Hua Hin

 

More pictures?  Click here...

The "Sighs" of Portland

While Fall here consists of a little rain but more likely snow and bright sun, Portland has entered it's "rainy season".  We experienced drizzles, showers, downpours and yes, rain on our latest visit.

But that did not put a damper on the fun, so follow me as we eat, drink, and are merry through Stumptown...

I take my "awake time" parenting advice from Paul and Shannon; "a well-run child is a well-behaved child".  With that said, Harry and I enjoyed all that Autumn has to offer. 

Including leaf-piles!

And puddles!

And running before meals!  And though it isn't necessary only in Fall, what better place to run than on an old school bus at the Grilled Cheese Grill.  Harry and I had lunch with Erika, who had to order three times because her coworkers kept texting her to bring her back and grilled cheese!

Is wasn't only Harry who got to have fun; Colin spent the weekend on a guys weekend.  There are no pictures for which I'm grateful.  There are some things that don't photograph well.  Like excessive drinking.  And the fallout of excessively drinking excessively hoppy beer.  I on the other hand put in my Mommy-time until the following week where I met up with some girlfriends at Beaker and Flask.  Insert huge sigh here....  This was such a great little spot; stunning cocktails, delicious food and all excellent for sharing.  I ordered a drink called "Valerie's Swimsuit" that was toted as the perfect summer-to-fall crossover drink.  And let me tell you why, it starts with a healthy splash of Apple Brandy, shaken with some bitters and cinnamon and then floated with sparkling wine.  The bubbles makes you want to be poolside and the warmth of the brandy and spices leaves you wishing you were in front of a fireplace with a good book.  (Or both, yahoo for hot tubs!) 

Why the sigh?  Because the bitters they use are not available here and neither is the second liqueur used in the recipe.  But don't worry, I am a scientist and I've got to put my Bachelors of Chemistry to good use somehow...  watch for future follow-up posts...

Colin and I are always so fortunate when we go down to P-town for a visit since Harry has his surrogate auntie and uncle there who love to spend time with him.  And that means we get to go out for a fantastic dinner or two.  (They say it takes the pressure off of their kids from having kids, but I think they are just being nice to me.)

One night we went out for drinks at Bar Avignon, one of the many bistro/brasserie-style joints throughout Portland that serves great food and a sublime cocktail.  We started with bubbly and shared the house-made pate and local honey, bread and grapes.  Then, even though it didn't seem to fit with the "French theme" for our cocktail hour, we headed to Nuestra Cocina for exceptional Mexican across the street.  So delish!  Ceviche, slow roasted pork, slow-braised lamb; both melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the tortillas.  Insert another huge sigh here.  I love, love, love freshly made tortillas.  This restaurant, being a family restaurant, uses generations-old recipes for that authentic taste and I would not be surprised if "abuela" was in the back hand forming these delightful discs.

Another night we followed Paul and Shannon to Caffe Mingo, their go-to restaurant for gorgeous pasta and wine.  Of course, one of us always orders the penne al sugo; a gratifyingly rich and filling meat sauce braised in tomatoes, Chianti and espresso!  So, so good, I need to find this recipe.  But I'd have to say, that night the luscious butternut squash gnocchi with seared sage and brown butter was transcendent.  How do they make the little dumplings so light they practically melt in your mouth?  Might as well insert another sigh here...

On our last night there, there was an impromptu wine tasting at Vino.  How could we not?  Bruce was pouring row upon row of Roe, all night.

Here's what the tastings looked like...

* 2008 CORVIDAE WINE Cabernet Franc
* 2008 OWEN ROE "Sharecropper's" Pinot Noir
* 2008 OWEN ROE Abbot's Table
* 2008 OWEN ROE Sinister Hand
* 2007 OWEN ROE "Ex Umbris" Syrah...just yesterday blessed with a 92 point score by the Wine Spectator, which means this may be your last chance to grab some.
And then, because enough Owen Roe wine is never enough, three extraordinary bonus pours....
* 2008 OWEN ROE "Kilmore" Pinot Noir
* 2007 OWEN ROE Yakima Valley Red
* 2006 OWEN ROE “DuBrul Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon....92 pts-Wine Spectator

Now, unless you live in Portland or it's environs, you will not be able to find this.  Which means more for me when I visit.  And I hungrily guard my case of Abbot's Table in my "cave".  I'd almost move back for David O'Reilly's wines alone.

Nancy and Jason were on board for the 4:30 start and let me tell you, I'm glad!  The place was packed.  Awesome for Vino, and Nancy is also awesome because she was waiting with my place already poured!  The boys took the kids to Staccato Gelato while Nance and I sipped these superb pours, even imbibing in the "DuBrul" bonus.  Yum!  And I love Bruce because there are no chintzy pours at Vino, so I was well on my way to being liquored by 5pm.  The kid-for-wine swap occurred so the guys could enjoy a few too, all in all a very successful last night in Portland.

 

Sigh.  Goodbye, Portland.  Love you!  Miss you!  Be back soon!

More photos from Portland... click here!