One thing we can all agree on, apparently, is that Thai food is wonderful.
In my food post a couple of days ago, I forgot to mention the real reason I wanted to write the post in the first place! Usually when I get ba mee heng (noodles, no soup) I also get nam som pan (orange juice shake). In fact, I usually have two of each.
But the other night I was sitting next to the shake-making lady and noticed her make a shake with small round red somethings. I asked Piyawat what they were and he said, "Potatoes." A potato shake? Too bad he meant tomatoes. But still, a tomato shake? I had to try one, and I have to report that it was pretty good. It's just tomatoes, ice, salt, and sugar in a blender. Quite good (and I am guessing somewhat good for you?)
Last night we were at Soi 38 again. The final tally for two people was 3 bowls of ba mee heng and one tomato shake and one carrot shake. Aroi!
Oh I loved soi 38. What kind of ba mee were you having anyway? Is it one with dumpling and BBQ pork? :)
Oh, beware of the mango-sticky-rice there though. I remembered being taken aback with their outrageous price — can't remember exactly how much..
Besides, tasty ba mee heng and mango with sticky rice, my other favourite dishes are clear pork soup with out that nasty blood ball ( tom luard moo mai sai luard ) on the street to soi 38
and if i'm correct the price for that mango+sticky rice is 60 baht, that's the last time I ate...ahh start to hungry again :p
If there is one thing I love in Thailand, it's the fruit sellers. I barely ever ate fruit before coming here now it's a regular bag of pinapple and water melon for me. I never even ate water melon until a year ago!
But I do miss a good, green, cold sharp tasting apple. The only place I have ever got a good one in Thailand is on Koh Tao for some weird reason.
And it's a hard country to get good orange juice in the supermarkets, no? I think I've tried all the makes now and nothing even comes close to those readily availble in the UK / USA. The Nestle one seems best but it's a bit... I dunno. Not quite right.
Him,
Yeah, I think the difference in the orange juice (besides being a different kind of orange than what I am used to in the US) is that Thai vendors often put sugar and/or salt in it. It definitely changes the taste, but some would argue it changes it for the better.
One thing I don't understand is why they don't have all kinds of good citus here. Seems like the climate would support a lot of citrus. But there are no navel oranges (for example) or grapefruits or tangerines or tangelos or lemons. The last one is especially perplexing. Order a lemon in Thailand and you'll get a lime. What's up with that?
I think the confusion over lemon / lime is across a whole lot of asia. Why? No idea, I assume it's because they don't use a whole lot of them... more on each here:
http://www.dermnetnz.org/dermatitis/plants/lime.html
http://dermnetnz.org/dermatitis/plants/lemon.html
Interesting to note that the lime *may* have come from a lemon or lemon-like plant... also we should note that lime is very popular here in one big format... Schweppes Manao Soda! And isn't it good?!
http://www.prdomain.com/companies/c/coke/news_releases/pr_coca_cola_nr_20020201.htm
But I think it also shows in another confusion I thought was around. I was told that a lot of the cartons of OJ were, in fact, Tangerine Juice - they just didn't really differentiate. Hence why I kept buying OJ and finding way too sweet.
Enough!
Him.
Ok, I want to make this tomato shake thing, but never having tried it I need more info. Do you peel the tomato? Any tomato seeds in the shake? What are the approx. amounts of salt and sugar (is it on the salty side, sweet side, or in between)?
- Eric
Eric... good questions. I didn't get a really close look, but the tomato was small. Something between a Roma tomato and a regular American (?) one. It must have been peeled. I didn't taste/feel any peels or seeds, but maybe it was all blended up? No idea.
The taste wasn't sweet or salty, but there was a hint of both. Now that I think about it, that's often the way Thai food is. It has all these different tastes (sweet, salty, spicy, sour, bitter, etc) but no one taste stands out.
If you experiment with this idea, let me know how it turns out.