Soi 38 Night Markets, Sukumvit

Staying over the Sukumvit side of town we had all these new places to explore. One thing we heard is that Soi 38 turns into a bit of an evening food market that runs until about 3am. Perfect! We take the MRT and upon leaving the station look down to see Soi 38 alive .... this is a good sign!



I start with a coconut milk shake and we take a walk.



We settle back at the beginning for some firey pad Thai. The guy working the wok at the front is giving a little show with each wok of noodles being fried, and his little cart is plastered in awards and newspaper articles.



We order the noodles and also a plate of crispy pork and vegetables. The pork arrives first, so we beginning picking at this.



I then sneak away to take a few shots of him cooking our noodles ...



Then the pad Thai arrives. It looks pretty good, but the flavor just isn't quite there. We pile on the chili, peanuts and fish sauce.



The whole time we're eyeing off the sticky rice and mango cart across the way.



We get a mango sticky rice to go.



And enjoy it back at Suk 11, sitting in the little Soi and watching the night go by ....

Nikki Beach White Party and 4am Pad Thai

From the moment we arrived in Samui there was hype about the upcoming Nikki Beach opening White Party. A few girls dressed in white were handing out CD's and information about the party. We took a flyer just out of interest ... We hadn't even thought to seriously about going, but our friend Mike (who we were visiting) got an invite and reserved 'exclusive' table seating with bottle service.

So the morning was spent driving around Samui on the scooter both looking for something white to wear. Kim had a spankin' new pair of white sneakers already, and I had the faithful white havaiana thongs, but we needed a little more than that. Scooting around Chaweng during the day also meant we found these delicious little pancakes, as well as some white clothes.

The evening started off with a few drinks at the UK bar, Ban Taling Nam aka. Lawn Bowls. We then moved onto top-cats for a few celebratory birthday drinks for Mike, the owner, before finally arriving at Nikki Beach around 8:30pm. We missed the VIP celebrations that took place earlier in the day including Muay Thai boxing, monkeys, elephants and the red carpet walk, but we were drinking elsewhere ... The roof of the main bar area is supposed to be something pretty special, due to the amount of copper used or something. It looks pretty, anywhoo.



We escorted over to our little area, with our bottles of bacardi awaiting us. Started off with some katoi cabaret dancers, then moved into bongo drums and saxaphone before some guy was dancing on a ribbon hanging from a crane very cirque-de-solei esque and then an impressive fireworks display.  It was a good night, the sea of white (probably about 1,000 people, and only a few fools wearing blue or green) was very impressive.  

Just after 3am they just suddenly turnt the music off ...  there was still about 700 people who were just like WTF?  No, 'Thanks for coming', nothing.  Oh well, what to do in time's like this?  Eat, of course!  

We would have settled for some chips or something from 7-11 but hear there's an all night restaurant in Na-Thon.  Sweet.  By now it's 4am, and Jit restaurant is bustling.



Jason recommends the pad Thai, and tells us about the orange noodles.  Well, som maak (very orange, indeed!)  Even the chicken has turned a shade of orange, tossed in the wok with peanuts, bean sprouts and egg.  A ton of dried chilli was sprinkled over the top, and honestly, I couldn't even tell you what it tasted like ...



It was 4 in the morning!

Oodles of Noodles ..

Wandering down the main street looking for something to eat we spot the little noodle cart. The little noodle cart we had tried to go to a few days prior early afternoon but he'd just arrived, and very kindly told us that it would take nearly 1 hour for his enormous pot of soup to boil before we could enjoy any noodles. It's now early evening, his soup must be hot.



We order 2 ba me muu daeng - yellow noodles with red pork. The noodle were coated with the oil from fried garlic, there was a generous amount of greens and then the paper thin slices of delicious red pork. There's a bowl of soup served to the side with corriander and daikon floating around a nice kick of white pepper.



Our tummies are happy but not quite fulfilled. Across the road we'd witnessed streams of locals pulling up on their scooters beside another cart, picking up bags of take-away. We go to investigate. It's one lady on the woks pumping out oodles of pad Thai.



There's a few little stools along the footpath and we're lucky enough to score ourselves a seat.



The noodles arrive, a mountain of this rice noodles wok fried to a deep golden caramel with loads of tamarind, chilli, peanuts, tofu, egg, garlic chives, dried shrimp and plump fresh ones. A little plate sits to the side with bean sprouts, lime and more garlic chives.



As we're sitting enjoying our noodles another scooter pulls up selling something that will be a first for us ... (Post to follow)


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20 baht Pad Thai, Chiang Mai

On our previous visits to Chiang Mai we often walked past a neon sign, on both Thapae Rd and Chang Moi Rd's advertising 5 baht Pad Thai ..... This was usually on our way home with a full belly and we never really ventured down the Soi to satisfy our curiosity.

After a pretty long day, flying from Hanoi to Bangkok and then waiting for our connecting flight to Chiang Mai topped off with a rather long wait for a taxi at the airport, we dropped our bags in our room and were on a mission to find some food. We were staying up on Th Thapae Soi 4, and walking out of our Soi going to head somewhere towards to night bazaar... and there it was, all this time later, the same neon yellow sign now advertising 20 baht Pad Thai. Hey, we're up for that, it's still stupidly cheap!

So we wander down the little soi, and it's a pretty busy little place, one girl just working the woks, another packing up banana leaf parcels by the dozen for people on their scooters picking up dinner for entire families. There are still quite a few people sitting inside, so we take a seat. The walls are covered with framed segments of bright yellow that are all scribbled with various names, greetings, well wishes etc. Very high school, very cute!

Within moments there's a plate piled with beansprouts, garlic chives, lime and a few wedges of banana flower... and only a few more moments pass and we have to plates piled with steaming hot pad Thai nestled on a little round of banana leaf.

The noodles are slightly smoky from the woks, with a nice tang from the tamarind sauce. We were both pleasantly surprised with the substance of these noodles .. plenty of egg, dried shrimp, chicken mince and tofu considering the 20 baht price tag. Delicious!

Very pleased we satisfied our curiosity venturing down this little soi, as in turn it satisfied our hunger several times on this trip...

Thapae Soi 3
Chiang Mai
Thailand
Open in the 'noon through 'til the evening