food, food, food and more food....

 There's no way one can starve in Thailand !

With its variety of edibles, everyday its tough decision of what to eat and where to eat ....even up in Loei mountain areas to Mekong riverside.

we follow blogs and travelfish, trip advisor reviews on where to eat the best .... its a difficult task to choose bcos we only stay in one village or town only 1 night which means 1 lunch, 1 dinner and 1 breakfast.
Making a wrong choice would be  a total disaster and regretful.

Greeting us in Nong Khai at DD Restaurant, a local Thai restaurant , probably mainly for tourists - clean and thai food ( 4 star rating ), we ordered our first freezing cold Thai beer !! Chang beer frozen !!!

its so goooooood !!!!  other than the cold cold beer, the food is ok only. For us, Asians tourists, we are looking more for the authentic Thai local food and not the touristy ones, but DD is safe and clean.

DD restaurant...local and tourists

 

 we ordered a seafood clear spicy thai soup and a platter of steamed seafood...and it turned out the 2 dishes are exactly the same, except one steamed and the other soup !   so clever of us ....anyway the chilli and the plain rice are very good.

DD restaurant

and we went on to lunch at DAENG , located fronting the Mekong along the esplanade, turns out to be a Vietnamese food place. It is always packed fill with customers and so we must try . Not to regret, it is really very good Viet food indeed. Wish we could have another meal to try our their other dishes, but there's still other eating places to try and we only have 1 stomach !

This northern Thailand villages do not really have cultural borders, their foods are very influenced by its neighbouring countries ie Laos and Vietnam

their signature dish - wrap

and walking around Nong Khai, looking for lunch we came across this corner eating place with delicious Thai curries and rice and noodles...many locals eating here.

under a huge tree

delicious curries of different types

so good - the curry noodle and the omelette

very very happy with her noodles 

this is the corner road

and at Sadet Market, you can practically find and eat anything that moves..... we learnt that Sadet Market is opened only the day time 8am - 5pm and by night fall which is about 6pm, everything is closed and the town goes to sleep by 9pm !!

Balut - grilled chicken embryo

and of course, deep fried FROGS

 and insects and worms and crawlies deepfried or grilled , up to you...

most normal looking food around

lotus seeds

the Thab Thim Krob 

 we only bought 1 serve of thab thim krob . Its was so precious !! super delicious. When we went back to get more, the lady had sold out ...... sigh....

a MUST HAVE Mango with sticky rice

fresh Mulberries 

and we have to try one of the many floating restaurants along the riverside...Sib Song Lassi . More of a tourist thingy. food is ok ... nothing to shout about....

walking down to the boat restaurant at noon

" laab " and morning glory stir fry

refreshing Chang

and at night supper we wanted to try their local street food in town , heard there's a row of stalls with good pad tai and salads, along the road called Prajak Road.

street stall selling Som Tom and Thai sausages and pad tai 

the Som Tom was very good indeed and the thai grilled sausages compliments it so well ....

and it is from this supper , later that night I coughed out this little guy ... OMG !!!!

and must be from a salad, but I guess it could be one of those Thai delicacies..... i was fine, no tummy upset or anything....

 fresh mulberries in night mkt

We were told by a young boy who was selling Mulberry jam at the night market to try his favorite local food. Its somewhere in town and had to walk about 20 min away from the esplanade.  I think the shop is called " Chom Tom " .
After asking around and almost 40 min later, quite far from our Chiang Kan Street,  we manage to find his little shop in the town area with so many people in the queue, mostly take-away. The main problem is nobody knows english here and ordering is a bit tricky. Had to point to what we want and all looks good.

sticky rice, and some pork patties etc etc... all taste good

and more food in Chiang Khan.... Luk Phoncana restaurant is good...could be our favorite. It is located in Soi 9. Our favorite is the MOK, a seafood steamed wrapped in leaves with rich coconut milk.

they call it " MOK" - steamed seafood with rich coconut milk

and the "laab" or Thai pickle salad,

Luk Phocana in Soi 9

and other eating places in Chiang Khan,

the world famous "TOM YUM"

everybody knows this - Thai green curry 

our favorite "street foods"

T

and if you are after a taste of something that's out of the ordinary , make your way to a nondescript noodle shop about halfway up Soi 10 called Jum Nuea. This place is named after its signature noodle dish that blends pork and morning glory in a slightly thick purple broth, which gets its distinctive color and flavor from fermented soybean. It tastes a lot better than it sounds. 

this lady has a variety of Thai local desserts , so delicious

But if you are not so into purple food, you can also try the sweet peanut based curry. Catch this lady owner only morning till lunch time at Jum Nuea. Usually packed with locals.
This friendly local Thai lady serves up  delicious desserts and lunch at her little restaurant during daytime only. Dont be deceived by the red/purple color of the soup , her purple glass noodles is really very very good indeed .

red glass noodles

and looking for a quick bite around noon, we scan the street 3 times before we decided to stop at this busy shop with a single stall.... the theory when we travel in a non-english speaking country, and looking for food, best and safe is to pick a place packed with locals and we wont go wrong,

So we pointed to some of the stuff that the next table ordered...looks good. Turned out to be a Som Tom with glass noodles,  but really really strong fishy taste and smell.... if not for the fishy smell, i guess the glass noodles would probably tastes very good. I had to order some safe food ie BBQ chicken wings, which turned out to be just fantastic ! and we ended up having 10 chicken wings !

and out at the mountains of Phureau , the quality of food never lacks....and so we drove into a brightly lit restaurant at 8 pm. everyone goes to sleep early so by 8pm, the restaurant looks quiet but the food is really tasty and huge portions ....

deep fried crispy lake fish with pickles

In fact we over ordered, and it was so nice of the lady owner of the Phureau Phocana Restaurant in Phureau to suggest we order half the fish.

At Phureau Lake or called Huay Nam Man, we hire the raft 200baht for a whole day (if you want) and ordered lunch which will be delivered to our raft at the time you request and have our lunch on the raft ! so cool ya !
Luckily with the tatched roof, we dont feel the heat and did some fishing and even managed to catch a huge 1.3kg golden carb using a little corn as the bait !!

my golden carb

and in Loei, we were recommended to try this special breakfast meal.... charcoaled grilled buns with eggs and minced pork...a coffeeshop called "Makan" ....more like a localised McD pork burger. Quite tasty and good but I love the coffee there .  ..... the local coffee in this shop is " TO-DIE-FOR "

and in Udon Thani, we tried a recommended restaurant for dinner, Maeya which is highly rated but I feel it is over rated. The design, interior and exterior are so uncoordinated ! 

Another Thai noodle - a bit starchyish for my liking, 

notice on the table is almost half a kg of chilli and probably 1 kg of sugar for your own helping...and a bottle of fish sauce, of course all thai food almost must have a pinch or a couple of tablespoon of that .

and along the way, we tried sweet tamarinds, tiny delicious pineapples, pineapple jam   ........  and wished we could take back some of those beautiful brooms ...

 

and of course the leaves that we cant figure out what it is ....and its in almost every dish. Either basil, curry leaves or what ?

and the Chiang Khan plain simple little peanuts are amazingly delicious !

they look little and so plain, it makes you think twice about buying them.....we bought only 1 packet and that was a real regret !!! After leaving Chiang Khan to the west inland we realised these fantastic tasty nuts are nowhere to be seen !

So if you do go to Chiang Khan or Nong Khai and you see these little amazing peanuts, yes yes please you must buy a whole lot to take back home with you ...