Perfection

I lay the blame squarely at the door of Anthony Bourdain. If it had not been for this man I could be a normal, fully functioning member of society by now, complete with a regular job and a steady income. Instead I am a food obsessed jobbing writer desperate to eat my way around the world, indulge in endless gastronomic experiences, try anything and everything and hunt for the perfect meal. And then write it all down, naturally.

On second thoughts, maybe blame is the wrong word. I think, perhaps, that what I mean is that I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. If it had not been for this man I might have a regular job and a steady income. I could be a jobbing account manager by now (whatever that means). Instead I am a food-obsessed writer carefully eating my way around the world and cataloguing the growing collection of gastronomic experiences I am revelling in. My boundaries are limitless, my palate adventurous. I am happy to try anything and everything and am hunting for the perfect meal. And writing it all down, naturally.

When it comes to food I have an uninhibited sense of adventure. I’ve said before that what excites me most about travel isn’t the weather or the beaches or the galleries or museums or the views and vistas. It is the food. I don’t even have to leave the country to get excited. I am planning a trip to Colchester to feast on native oysters and a sojourn to Cromer to gorge on crab. Theses are no further than an hour from my house but the prospect excites me to the point when I can think about little else.

There is a culinary adventure wherever you look. A recent trip to Cardiff and Bath resulted in some superb lamb and (officially) the best sandwich in the country (more of those later).

Thailand was, of course, an almost non-stop gastro-quest. We had some incredible food and some amazing experiences – not all of which were food related, it may surprise you to discover. The heaving throng of Chinatown with its myriad smells and mind-blowing selection of streetfood. The iced coffee we supped surrounded by a thousand and one cars billowing out acrid fumes. The sweetly infamous durian fruit, munched clandestinely in the hotel room. The century eggs that ended up in a napkin. All were truly, truly incredible.

But, as is customary, I felt that I should save the best for last.

Feeling a little claustrophobic thanks to the slightly sanitised and staid feeling of the hotel I went searching for something a little more traditional. We had succumbed to room service once and also endured a deeply average meal in the hotel restaurant (hot tip – if something on the menu makes you utter the words ‘oo, that sounds interesting’ then avoid it at all costs. Or you may end up with deep fried duck with sweet espresso flavoured sauce) but once again I was hankering for something real, something with soul, something made on the side of the road.

After walking south along the beach for an hour I came across a lone taxi driver waiting for any passing trade. He asked me if I wanted a taxi. No, thank you, I replied but perhaps you could tell me where I could get some food?
‘Thai food?’ he said
‘Thai food.’
‘Local food?’
‘Local food.’
‘400 metres down the road is a motorbike and food stall,’ came the glorious reply ‘I give you lift.’
My spirits soared. I could not have crafted a better scenario. It transpired that there was a substantial amount of construction work taking place just along the coast and builders need feeding.

I told him that I would have to go and get my girlfriend but I promised to be back as soon as I could and set on my way, as fast as it is possible to go on banked sand whilst wearing flip flops that are two sizes too big. I hesitate to think what I looked like but lithe and athletic are two words that probably wouldn’t be used in this context.

By the time I got back to the hotel I had been gone almost two hours but I was too eager to take notice of the gentle reprimand I received from my girlfriend, no doubt slightly anxious that a fifteen minute stroll had taken a little longer than expected.

And then it began to rain. It rained harder than we had seen since we arrived. We really were in our own version of The Truman Show: ‘We have confirmed reports that two guests are attempting to escape the complex and eat elsewhere. Turn on the storm. Repeat, turn on the storm.’

Our hunger began to press and we toyed with the idea of postponing. But just as the pain in our bellies began to take over rational control of our heads the clouds parted, the rain ceased and we were able to start the pilgrimage.

The taxi driver was waiting and displayed delight on seeing our return. As promised, he drove us the short distance for nothing and as I saw the destination an uncontrollable smile spread across my face. Not one but two hastily cobbled together motorbikes with rudimentary stalls attached, each with a gas burner and an array of exciting foodstuffs available. I asked our driver to order for us. He declined my offer of a meal but duly rattled off an order to the waiting hawkers.

Within minutes we each had a cob of corn, a plastic tray heaped with freshly cooked fried rice, topped with tiny chillies and a plastic cup full of sweetened Thai iced tea. The driver offered to take us back to the beach so that we could eat within sight of the sea, a proposition we couldn’t resist.

We ate sat on a large piece of driftwood within metres of the rolling waves. Grey clouds loomed close to the horizon and a soft breeze rattled the palm trees. The food was the best I have ever tasted.

I was in a place I love, with someone I love doing what I love. This was perfection. Thanks, Tony.

Phuket

After a week in the urban intensity of Bangkok, we were ready to move on to more sedate climes and swap crushingly busy markets for vast empty beaches and the heaving Chao Praya river for the rolling Andaman sea.

Phuket is a famous contradiction. With a large Islamic population (here mosques allegedly outnumber Buddhist temples) there is a conservative streak running through the culture. Phuket Town, the capital of the island, is a tightly knit, functioning city with little regard, or need for a tourist industry. The markets are resolutely local with few, if any, concessions to non-Thais. English is not widely spoken, for example, and subsequently much communication must be done with elaborate hand gestures. The buildings here are crumbling relics to colonialism, stunning facades with peeling paint and overgrown driveways – the settlers long gone. It is traditional in an endearing and sleepy way.

Just 20 kilometres west lies Patong, the very antithesis of Phuket Town. Patong suffers thanks to its reputation as the sex tourism capital of Thailand. Formerly home to a US airbase, the town grew up and flourished on vice – the black market, sex, drugs and drink seem to be the key aspects of the economy. If hedonism were a currency, Patong would be beating the global recession. Pirate DVDs are sold openly on the streets along with fakes of every label under the sun. By day the neon lights look sad and stark as sunlight cascades the bright glow of reality over them but by night they dominate and turn the narrow streets into a lurid, glowing homage to Sodom and Gomorrah.

But thanks to international investment and government intervention, Patong is gradually shedding its reputation, or at least trying to. It is still a hedonist’s paradise (Michael Houellebecq’s novel Platform is a staggeringly well-written account of the underbelly of Patong) but, by all accounts, far less seedy than it once was and during daylight hours could even be described as a family resort.

Having had enough of late nights and neon, we chose to stay on the north of the island, about 45 minutes from Patong, at one of an increasing number of resort hotels on the Mai Khao beach. These luxurious retreats offer unsurpassed luxury, endless activities (should you want to do more than lie in the sun), a staggering range of food in a number of restaurants and will even loan you a movie or two if you feel like staying in. There is even an on-site shop to provide you with all the necessities (at grossly inflated prices). In short, it is like the Truman Show.

And this is at the heart of the problem. If you want to lose yourself in a glorious fug of luxury then these Thai theme parks are ideal. If you want to experience Thailand but don’t want to get your hands dirty or be bothered with non-essential trapping like ‘culture’ then they are perfect. You can forget that there is a world out there, a world where taxis are cheap and food is a fraction of the price, and infinitely better, than in the hotel.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time softly floating on this cloud like, inland cruise ship but we soon got itchy feet. Having seen Bangkok and all the excitement and variety and intensity, shifting to this Truman-like existence was hard. And like Jim Carey’s character, our sense of adventure and intrigue got the better of us. And we were delighted that it did…

Breakfast time and some very old eggs

In keeping with my anthropological approach to eating whenever I am away I eschewed the regular looking breakfast items and went straight for the steaming bowl of what looked like wallpaper paste.

Eggs and bacon are all well and good but whenever I eat anything like that for breakfast I feel so sluggish and tired, like I want to head straight back to bed, rest a hand on my belly and watch some inane television. This was most definitely not what I wanted to be doing during my holiday. I wanted to be suppressing boundless energy and racing from temple to temple and market to market. Not snoozing in front of Mythbusters in an air-conditioned hotel room.

So steaming wallpaper paste it was. If this was full of enough goodness to keep generations of Asian farmers fed then I was sure it could keep me sated for the next few hours, no matter how many over-zealous tuk-tuk drivers I had to fend off.

I assumed that this rather unappetising looking gloop was congee, a breakfast staple round the whole of South East Asia. To the side were a number of bowls of condiments. I rather like this DIY aspect of Thai food, being able to adjust your meal to your exact tastes. Like it spicy? Not a problem. Prefer things a touch sweeter? Go right ahead, my good man.

Unlike here in the UK, there is much less differentiation between breakfast and the other meals of the day. It is not unusual to have fried rice or even noodle soup at an early hour, perhaps thickened with a little egg. Congee is made by cooking rice for a long, long time. Occasionally if you fail to put the kitchen timer on and you forget about the pan of basmati bubbling away, it can take on a somewhat glutinous feel as the starches and grains break down. Well, if you do that for about an hour longer then you have congee, almost like a rice porridge.

And it is delicious. It is warming and filling in the way that you would expect from a bowl full of pure carbohydrate but it really comes alive when you get creative with the condiments. The usual array of flavour options are there (salty fish sauce, astringent white vinegar, sweet sugar and fiery chilli) but these are joined by other tasty morsels such as fish balls (balls made from fish, not trout testes), chicken balls (ditto), crispy fried shallots, thinly sliced green pepper and thousand year eggs.

Now, thousand year eggs do appear on my list of things to try but if I am being perfectly honest they are not up there with kobe beef and oturo tuna. They don’t even come as far up the list as a New York hot dog or genuine boudin noir. They are hovering somewhere between deep fried chicken feet and a Domino’s Meateor Pizza – things that I might eat given the opportunity (and if my curiosity was in need of something a little more adventurous), but not something I would go out of my way to nibble on. They are a frightening looking foodstuff. If you took an x-ray of a raw egg, asked a three year old to colour it in and took a photograph of the result, the negative of that photo would look similar to a thousand year egg.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

What we know as the white is not white at all. It is a translucent brown colour reminiscent of recycled glass. The yolk, far from being an appetising yellow, is grey. And hard. Depending on how old the egg in question is, the smell can be no more than a tickle of ammonia to an eye-wateringly sulphurous tang. Century eggs tend to be milder whereas the millennial counterparts really are a force to be reckoned with. Governments in need of an alternative fuel source need look no further than these potent little ova.

They are made by wrapping regular eggs (that taste so very good fried or poached or boiled or scrambled) in a mixture of salt, lime, mud, clay and straw and then leaving them. For ages. Occasionally they are even buried in the ground for several months before they are deemed edible. And here they were staring me plainly in the face, at breakfast.

So, along with a spoonful of all the other delicious extras, I gingerly (oh, thinly sliced ginger was in there as well) added a couple of pieces of strange-shiny-brown-grey-sulphur-egg to my congee. For good measure I stocked up on chillis – my rationale being that the heat from these tiny nuclear strength peppers would render impotent the flavour of the eggs, if necessary.

And it was necessary. The very moment I put this odd, quivering brown and grey jelly to my mouth I knew it wasn’t going to end well. The subtlety of the congee was simply lost amid an explosion of rancid sulphur, like a box of old eggs had been cooked in a catalytic converter. Everything about this bizarre foodstuff was repellent – the flavour, the texture, the smell and the appearance. I didn’t listen to it but I dare say if I had, it would have sounded disgusting as well.

Just to make sure I wasn’t being blinded by preconception I tried another piece. That ended up in the same place as the first one: in a tightly folded napkin. The heat from the excess of chilli became a welcome distraction but I can safely say that, as far as I am concerned, century eggs and all their ilk can stay buried firmly in the ground.

Feeling Fruity – Durian

There is little danger of being unable to get your ‘five-a-day’ in Thailand. Indeed, the ubiquitous street vendors sell so many varieties of fruit it is hard to stop yourself from going beyond the magic number. Pineapples cut into intricate corkscrews, slithers of green mangoes, chilled wedges of watermelon, bags of sweet jackfruit, tangerines with an unfamiliar green skin, deep purple mangosteens, alien-like spiky lychees, freshly cut coconuts with luridly coloured straws peeping from the top and bunches of longan berries, which look disturbingly like potatoes, are all available in huge quantities for no more than a few baht.

Chief among these exotic fruits, though, is the infamous durian, one of South East Asia’s most well known delicacies and something any bold food adventurer simply has to try. Durian look like the pre-historic eggs of an animal dreamed up by HG Wells but it is the smell that makes this particular fruit so notorious.

Put in the simplest language possible, durian stinks. It stinks like nothing I have ever smelt before. It stinks enough to make you check your pants just to make sure that last fart you did was no more than mere gas. Whilst strolling the streets of Bangkok you may occasionally be overwhelmed by the stench from the city’s primitive sewage system. The only trouble is that the city’s sewage system is far from primitive and the smell is, in fact, coming from a near-by durian seller. It is illegal to take the fruit on public transport and you will struggle to find a hotel that permits it onto the premises. And everything you have heard about this spiky, deadly looking fruit is true.

Even wrapped tightly in impermeable plastic, the fetid stench is quite overwhelming. Imagine the smell of an open latrine after a starving army, plagued with dysentery, had been fed on onions, eggs, broccoli, cabbage and laxatives and you are in the right sort of Ball Park. It is a smell that gets into your nostrils and will not let go. It is quite, quite foul. But also bizarrely curious.

After we bought some I was drawn to the fruit, like a fly pulled towards the fatal beauty of a glowing blue light. We unwrapped the plastic and placed the strange pale yellow insides onto a plate. They looked like the kidneys from an alien species. Initially the smell was faint but as the fruit breathed it began to get stronger. Onion was the first discernable scent to emit from the custard yellow cheese-like orbs, closely followed by an increasingly fetid funk of rotting brassicas, like a neglected vegetable tray in the bottom of a fridge.

Before I passed out I felt it wise to pop some in my mouth just to see if the myths were true: namely that it may smell like a dead sloth stuffed with garlic but don’t let that put you off because the taste is quite heavenly.

Until you actually taste it, it is hard to believe that this is the case. Taste and smell are so closely related that we often get the two confused: eat a piece of apple whilst holding a pear under your nose and you taste pear rather than apple. Surely with the two senses so close, there can’t be that much discrepancy between the full on nasal assault and the flavour of durian?

But anyone who has tried it knows that this is the case. Durian is delicious in a way that renders you quite speechless. It causes your eyes to widen in utter surprise, it dances across the tastebuds and tickles parts of your mouth in a way I have never experienced before. It is soft and creamy, custardy and sweet. Sure, there is the faintest taste of onion but that is only a mere flutter in the background – as if the smell and taste are only the most distantly related cousins. There is a delicate cheesiness to both the flavour and texture, which in my book is no bad thing. And once you have tasted it, the smell really isn’t that bad. There is a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where, on his final leg of the journey, the eponymous hero has to walk across a seemingly vast chasm. But it is just an optical illusion and there was a bridge there all along. Well, durian is like that. Once you’ve stepped into the abyss, you can’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about.

We tucked the plastic tray and wrapping into the bin, went to bed happy and slept well no doubt thanks to the bottle of Thai whiskey we had successfully polished off.

On waking up however, we were greeted with an eye-wateringly bad smell. For a bleary eyed hour we levelled comedy accusations at each other until the stench became so bad we had to ascertain from where it was emanating. A tiny sniff taken in the direction of the bin had me retching into the toilet unable to escape the raw fetidity of the stench that greeted me. The plastic tray had contaminated the bin and subsequently the entire room. It quickly went onto the balcony. Now I understand the ban. We checked out of the hotel the same day.

www.justcookit.co.uk

Take-out coffee, Thai style

Despite the best efforts of Starbucks et al who seem to be invading Bangkok with a ruthless efficiency, the best coffee in Thailand, like pretty much everything else, comes from solo entrepreneurs with little more than a roadside cart and a gas burner. Those who wish to indulge their caffeine habit with a skinny-frappa-latte-mochaccino may still do so but they are missing out on one of the city’s real treats.

The Thais love to nap. Second only to eating, dozing seems to be a national past-time. If a tuk-tuk driver isn’t racing through traffic he is likely to be parked under the shade of a tree, head back and eyes shut – a look of serene calm on his face. I suppose this explains the 24-hour nature of life in this city: catch some Zs in the day, keep going all night. It also explains the popularity of stimulant-laced drinks such as M-150 and Red Bull, a drink we are also familiar with, albeit in a slightly diluted and carbonated form. These frighteningly sweet, almost medicinal tasting drinks, are great at providing an intense and short lived burst of alertness (they also mix really, really well with Sam Song, a dangerously cheap brandy – just don’t expect to be sleeping any time soon if you have a night on these).

But despite the practicalities of these little brown bottles, I prefer my wake up call to be a little less sweet and slightly gentler. I also quite like my heart beating at its regular, sedate pace rather than an audible buzz which seems to be the effect of these liquid hyper stimulants. So coffee it was.

A busy road junction close to Chinatown was the temporary home of a coffee and tea cart sending wafts of tantalising smells through the fumes. Dodging the traffic, we ordered a coffee each and watched as an old lady went to work with dizzying speed: mixing, pouring, stirring and brewing with amazing skill. A large shot of coffee was mixed with sugar syrup and poured over crushed ice, steam pluming in fast disappearing curls above the rim of the cup where the hot coffee met the cool ice. This was topped up with condensed milk, dozens of tins of which weighed down the small cart.

Normally I am a purist when it comes to matters coffee, especially first thing in the morning when only a double shot of thick, black espresso sweetened with a little Demerara sugar will do. The prospect of messing around with this base perfection irks me slightly. But my irk quickly evaporated, much like the steam from the gently boiling water on the cart, when I tasted this delightful drink. I am a convert, a genuine iced coffee convert. So much so that when we arrived home one of our first purchases was a tin of condensed milk so that we could recreate this moment of caffeine fuelled heaven.

And now, along with the sharp hissing of the espresso machine, the peace of the morning is regularly disturbed by the harsh grinding of the food processor as it works to crush cubes of ice. This is the best way to wake up when the sun is shining.

Thai style iced coffee
Fire up your coffee machine. Crush enough ice to fill a highball glass ¾ of the way to the top. Make a double shot of espresso and pour it into a mug. Mix in two teaspoons of brown sugar (white sugar is just too saccharine for this, it gives the coffee a nasty thin and synthetic taste). Add about 150ml of condensed milk. Stir it well and pour over the ice. A little sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg adds a nice warming note as well. NB – if you don’t have a coffee machine, a heaped teaspoon of instant coffee (gah, I hate it so much and it pains me to say this) mixed with a little boiling water should give a similar (although vastly inferior) result.

Wats for Lunch

After spending a day lost amid the tumultuous frenzy of Chinatown, drinking in the vast array of sights, sounds and smells (not to mention some excellent food), we felt that a slightly more sedate approach might be appropriate for our second day. Yes, Bangkok is a manic city but it is possible, thanks to the influence of the predominant religion of Theravadin Buddhism, to escape the chaos and the noise in any one of a number of blissful oases. Temples, or Wat, rise up out of their surroundings and provide delightfully serene pockets where perfumed incense replaces the more familiar smells and a gentle calm pervades.

Buddhism is a visible and welcome influence in Thai life, one that segues its way, almost effortlessly, into virtually all other aspects of the culture. Where we may be used to taxi drivers hanging air fresheners and fluffy dice from rear view mirrors, here they prefer amulets in the hope that they will bring them safety on the chaotic roads (although I can’t help thinking that if a sizeable chunk of the windscreen wasn’t taken up by nine or ten swinging mascots, they would have less need for such trinkets). I am quite used to buses and trains having dedicated seats for the elderly or pregnant women but doubt whether transport for London would go so far as marking ‘space for monks’, as they do on the river buses. Nor do I envisage the buyers of Tesco deciding to stock monks’ robes or other such religious paraphernalia. And so, with Buddhism such an integral, unavoidable and interesting part of the culture, we felt it necessary to see some of the Wat.

We took an express boat up the Chao Praya (being careful to avoid the monk space), the central river that runs like an artery through Bangkok, and got off within walking distance of the Grand Palace, the former residence of the Thai royal family and now the city’s main tourist attraction. On our way we were accosted at least three times by helpful locals informing us that the temple was closed, despite the hoards of tourists flocking towards a very open looking entrance.

Here I shall digress momentarily to impart some advice to anyone who visits this great city. Unless you wish to spend a couple of hours being taken from gem shop to gem shop and tailor to tailor in a tuk tuk (imagine a golf buggy with three wheels, a frighteningly large engine and a death wish and you are somewhere close), ignore anyone who says that your destination of choice is closed, no matter how official they may look. This is a scam.

(Although I did admire the gall of one wizened looking gentleman who attempted to convince us that the temple was very much closed whilst stood squarely in front of a sign that said in at least four languages ‘The temple is open seven days a week. Ignore any person who tells you otherwise’ – or words to that effect. I toyed with the idea of suggesting he chose his pitch more carefully in the future but he had already moved onto another couple before I could say anything).

The palace itself is, quite simply, stunning. A seemingly disparate collection of buildings each gilded with thousands of tiles of gold or vivid primary colours. The walls are painted with detailed and gory frescos relaying some ancient Eastern legend. Between three of the buildings sits a scale miniature of the great Angkor Wat. Amidst the bright ostentation of the temples that surround it, it looks drab and helpless. I couldn’t help thinking that far from being a mark of respect or admiration, it is perhaps a sly and underhand dig at neighbouring Cambodia. Hopefully the photographs should do justice to this incredible place.

A short walk from the Grand Palace is Wat Pho, home to a 46 metre long reclining Buddha figure painted head to toe in gold leaf. I had read about this in the guidebook but had somehow mis-read 46 metres as 46 feet. As a result I was in something of a state of awe when I saw the sheer size of the construction.

For all the grandiose design and impressive architecture of the Grand Palace, if I had to choose between the two then Wat Pho would be my recommendation. Although still relatively popular and still quite sizeable, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha is more of a haven, a delightful pocket of tranquillity in possession of the largest, and most relaxed, looking Buddha I have ever seen.

Having spent the morning exploring Wats of one sort, we spent the afternoon delving into temples of another – Bangkok has a number of enormous shopping malls, each a stand-alone temple to consumerism, an air conditioned leviathan specifically designed to get you to part with your baht. A trio of these sit next to each other, each jostling for space around the perimeter of Siam Square.

Because of our increasingly empty bellies we chose MBK, a towering eight-floor mall, two of which are devoted entirely to food outlets. Here you can sample sushi, Indian food, Greek grilled meats, Middle Eastern kebabs and, of course, Thai cuisine. Of the two floors the lower one is a slightly more formal and expensive affair where food and drink is paid for on a swipe card and the balance settled on exit.

We picked two curries and watched them being made in the open kitchen, one of six each with a team of chefs sweating over woks, burners, ovens, rotisseries and pans. Our steaming food was presented to us and we were shown to a selection of condiments with which to flavour our lunch as we saw fit. Thai cuisine is about balancing acidity, saltiness, sweetness and heat and virtually everywhere you eat you see this philosophy borne out in the same way: four containers holding white vinegar (with chilli), fish sauce (with chilli) sugar (without chilli) and, yup, chilli.

I spooned some of each into a dedicated sauce tray and we took a seat close to the bar, for obvious reasons. Despite my affinity for street food and desire to embrace the culture of wherever I happen to be as wholeheartedly as possible, there was a real element of luxury in eating sat at a table in an air-conditioned shopping centre as opposed to huddled on a pavement with the heat and dirt from a thousand cars enveloping your being. And the food here was good. It was fresh, tasty, as spicy as you want it to be and wonderfully satisfying, especially when washed down with an icy cool Singha. Perfect fuel for exploring the shops, of which there were hundreds.

At the time I felt as if we had split the day firmly into two separate parts: culture and shopping, but hindsight would suggest otherwise. Seeing the malls of Siam Square was as much of a culturally relevant experience as seeing the gilded temples and jewelled Buddhas, perhaps even more so. There are purists who would suggest otherwise, that it is a shame Thailand has bowed so eagerly to consumerism and perhaps lost its core elements along the way but I disagree. It is just another wonderful manifestation of the multifaceted nature of this diverse country, two sides of the very same coin.

Bangkok

Food dominates life in Bangkok in a way I have not witnessed in any other city. The residents of this vast urban sprawl appear to be engaged in a near perpetual hunt for the next meal. A while back I was discussing the nature of being a ‘foodie’ with my girlfriend. The conclusion we reached was that a ‘foodie’ is one who is thinking about their next meal even before they have finished the one they are eating – and if this is the case, then Bangkok is a city of six million bona fide foodies.

Couple this desire for eating with an almost natural entrepreneurial bent and you have a city where it is possible to sample a new taste or textural sensation every five metres, or so, whatever the time of day.

Restaurants and cafés per se don’t really exist. This is a city that ebbs and flows like a vast ocean and the food carts and nomadic street vendors are the living embodiment of this philosophy. Even the markets, which appear stationary, evolve and shift, tide like. It is, in short, a paradise for any gastronome.

We headed straight for Chinatown. A heaving, sweaty, tightly packed part of the city next to the river. There is no centre, as such, to Bangkok and it is easy to get hopelessly and wonderfully lost in this alien world. So that is exactly what we did. The market here swallows you hungrily, quickly enveloping you in a seemingly endless collection of stalls. The streets are narrow and covered making it even more difficult to navigate your way through the labyrinthine warren.

Rain had leaked through the canopy during the night making the ground underfoot dirty and treacherously slippy, especially for any idiot wearing flip-flops with little grip. Unfortunately that idiot was me. Thankfully, the sheer busyness of the place made it impossible to fall over. I was also a good foot taller than the vast majority of people around me allowing me to be able to see when an impossibly laden cart was heading directly for us, seemingly bending the known laws of physics with its ability to slip lithely through the throng.

The market appeared to be loosely organised into sections although at each junction, and at many places throughout, the system deviated and a wandering hawker would be proffering some tasty treat or other: sliced fruit on ice pepped up with chilli and sugar, skewers of non-descript meats grilling over hot coals, chicken frying in vast woks of spitting oil, steaming bowls of noodles complete with various bits of duck or pig – the choice was so vast as to be almost paralysing, as long as one wasn’t too concerned about the apparent lack of health and safety and basic hygiene precautions.

I take a philosophical view when it comes to such matters. Here in the UK, as in much of the western world, we live in a disinfected cotton wool shroud that appears to be doing us more harm than good. The human body is much more resilient than we give it credit for and if being seared in boiling fat doesn’t kill whatever bugs might be residing in my plate of rice or noodles, then maybe it deserves to have its fun inside my gut.

Suffice to say I am not squeamish about street food. Far from it. I simply adore it and think it gives a better indication and insight into a nation’s culinary culture than any three star restaurant or sanitised hotel kitchen. The streets are where people eat. Together. There is something wonderfully democratic about individuals from all walks of life heading to the same cart to get their Khao Phad or noodles. Street food is the soul of a city and I have never, not once, fallen victim to any malevolent bug caught from a roadside eatery.

In Thailand, street food is an institution. It isn’t a whim dreamt up to please the hoards of tourists that descend upon the country, many of whom refuse to eat anywhere other than their hotels – it is a 500-year-old tradition that exists because the Thais love to eat and they love to share this base pleasure with as many people as possible, as often as possible. The notion of three square meals a day is as alien to the Thais as the idea of near constant grazing is to us. Well, most of us at least.

For our first taste of this gloriously simple food we went by smell alone. It was nearing lunchtime so the fried eggs that appear at carts all over the city first thing in the morning had made way for more savoury and filling wares. It was too early for Phad Thai – more of an evening dish cooked when the sun has set – and we didn’t quite feel confident enough to test the noodles yet. Amid the heaving market was a tiny woman knelt by a large flat pan in which she was frying cubes of what looked like green jelly. We had no idea what it was but the smell alone was enough to convince us to part with thirty baht and sample the strange foodstuff.

Ten of these cubes, each one a large mouthful, were piled into a small plastic tray and sprinkled liberally with dark soy sauce, flecked throughout with the deep red of dried chillies before a wooden skewer was thrust into the steaming pile and we were sent on our way.

I have no idea what we ate (the first of many times during our holiday) but it was delicious: a crispy outside and a savoury dark green jelly inside with an intense saltiness thanks to the soy sauce. But they were filling and we struggled to finish the tray. I closed the clear plastic bag around the remains and we carried on through the market, pondering what we just ate in a happy and content fashion.

That was until heavy traffic forced us to stop outside a stall. A young Thai man, presumably the proprietor of the shop, looked at the bag in my hand, pointed at it then glanced up at my face before breaking into uncontrollable laughter. Still, it tasted good.

Thailand – A Brief Introduction

I really don’t know where to start. My usual existence plays itself out in a satisfyingly sedate fashion: the occasional domestic duty punctuating an otherwise relaxed approach dominated by growing food, cooking food and writing about (mostly) food. There might be the odd day when I go for a run, wander into town and buy a new album or amble around the flat countryside that surrounds our house. But most of the time I am beavering away, attempting to eke out a living by doing the things I love most, the things listed above.

Suffice to say that the last fortnight has provided something of a departure from this genteel life. The sweaty streets of Bangkok, so alive in so many ways, the soft beaches of Phuket and the sinister underbelly of Patong are a world away from the small, sleepy Cambridgeshire village I call home. And what a wondrous, living, breathing, pulsating, vibrant world Thailand is.

A slow and relaxed karmic paradise that lives in a manic frenzy. The sweeping hills flecked green with lush trees overlook heaving polluted city streets where the concept of a carbon footprint is unheard-of. The peaceful tranquillity of the Buddhist tradition exists amidst a tumultuous ferocity of a sprawling metropolis. The gentle curves of traditional Thai architecture sit alongside the harsh angular regularity of a modern city block. The intricate delicacy of old artwork appears soft against the brutal realism favoured by the nation’s contemporary artists.

Thailand encompasses all these things and more with an indescribable grace: everything and nothing that you expect. During the two short weeks that we spent there we saw many sides to this disparate yet cohesive nation; a country developing both within and outside of itself, finding its place in the world; struggling with and embracing the many facets of its intricate existence.

I have no doubt that we barely scratched the surface – the north of the country remains a mystery, as do many of the outlying islands, not to mention the complex traditions and formalities that pervade Thai life – but I like to think that we managed to at least begin the process of unraveling this incredible, fascinating and wonderful nation.

And the food? I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see.

Cone, but not forgotten

South of Gamla Stan, across one of the city’s many bridges, lies Stockholm’s vibrant beating heart. Södermalm is achingly, effortlessly and unselfconsciously cool in the way only certain places can be. This is the city’s Soho where artists, musicians and writers pack into small and over-priced flats to compose their masterpieces. The shops are independent and boutique. The restaurants are ethnic and exotic. Cafés line the streets and music pours from open doorways – deep bass lines melding together and converging into a heavy morass that soundtracks your journey.

There is no pretence. There is no agenda. ‘Live and let live’ appears to be the philosophy that exudes from every corner. Closed doors tantalise with their potential secrets – you get the impression that the best nights are to be had in basements that do not advertise their wares. This is the sort of place where you have to be resident to truly appreciate it and we were merely visitors. And hungry ones at that.

Our desire to be as ‘free-range’ as possible when we travel cuts down our need to rely on guidebooks but sometimes it is impossible to ignore the lure of the Lonely Planet and that is exactly how we found ourselves in a Thai restaurant in the middle of Sweden’s capital.

Kho Phangan manages to skirt so very close to the realm of kitsch that it is amazing it doesn’t fall into a vast chasm of tackiness. This heavily decorated restaurant comes complete with a bamboo bar, UV lighting and even a table in a tuk tuk and yet somehow manages to maintain its dignity. It could be that tongue remains firmly in cheek and there is a nod of self-awareness. It might be because it is one of a kind and not part of a highly stylised chain of similar outlets. Or perhaps it is because the food is very, very good.

A half hour wait passed quickly at the well stocked bar which, in addition to three or four Thai beers, served the famous buckets of Mekong whisky and Red Bull, although at over forty pounds each we made do with a lager. As the minutes passed it became increasingly easy to forget that we were still in Scandinavia and not in an Asian beach hut and the level of detail aided this thought – the lighting, the drinks and even the sounds were reminiscent of Thailand and by the time our table was ready we were certainly ready to sample the food.

A complimentary salad, with a zingy lime juice and chilli dressing, served as an excellent appetiser while we perused the menu. One doesn’t go to a Thai restaurant to be surprised and, as expected, all the usual suspects were present including green and red curry and Pad Thai. Feeling as if I had probably consumed enough meat for at least a week (in the form of yet more hot dogs, and a steak the previous night), I went for a vegetable stir-fry with chilli and basil while the birthday girl chose a chicken curry. Both were delicious – capturing classical Thai flavours like lemongrass and ginger and delivering a hefty spice kick, enough to bring a few beads of sweat to the forehead. The vegetables were fabulously fresh and had been cooked for only a short amount of time, retaining a satisfying crunch. Delicately steamed plain white rice accompanied both dishes.

Knowing that a decadently tempting ice cream parlour lay in wait for us on the way back, we declined dessert, paid the bill and blinked our way back into the bright reality of early summer Sweden – the combination of strong Oriental beer, spicy food and UV lighting ensuring a few moments of confusion before we could head on our merry way.

***

I, like many others, have formed an inextricable link between holidays and ice cream. It is a foodstuff that I adore but doesn’t often appear on my radar and consequently makes only rare appearances in the freezer. But holidays provoke some sort of Pavlovian reaction within me and I begin to salivate at the merest thought of the good stuff.

Since day one we had been intrigued by a technique we had seen whereby an entire ice cream, complete with the top half inch of the cone, was dipped into warm, molten chocolate. On contact with the cold ice cream, the chocolate quickly hardened creating a crisp choco layer around the soft vanilla ice cream underneath. If it tasted half as good as it looked, it was bound to be achingly delicious. Coupled with this, the shop we chose made the enormous waffle cones fresh each day: a Heath Robinson style contraption in the window dribbled the mixture onto a hot plate which was then closed shut to cook the waffle. When it was ready and cool enough to handle whilst still being pliable, it was curled into a cone shape ready to be filled with soft vanilla ice cream.

When faced with such delicacies, it would be rude to merely dabble. Rather, the only course of action is to dive in headfirst and think about it later. It was this philosophy that saw me ordering two of the largest ice creams I have ever seen. Each one could easily have satisfied two people. They were dipped into the chocolate which, as expected, formed a dark brown shell around the light, white ice cream within.

We sat outside the shop, perched on the windowsill in front of the waffle maker and tucked into the behemoth frozen treats in our childlike hands. They were as tasty as they looked; soft ice cream with the unmistakeable taste of manufactured vanilla, a crisp cone with a faintly sweet note and a gentle bitterness from the dark chocolate. It was one of the great ice creams, a truly legendary dessert.

My steadfast determination to finish it saw me through to the end leaving me reeling like a child at Easter who has eaten too much chocolate before breakfast. I licked the final smudges of chocolate from my lips, tossed my napkin into the bin and rested a hand on my sore belly while my girlfriend, clutching the final quarter of a cone still filled with ice cream, admitted defeat. Even after all that I considered whether it would be foolhardy to do the gentlemanly thing and finish it for her. An audible groan from my stomach gave me my answer. We binned the remains before I could change my mind and ambled into the quickly cooling evening happy and sated.