We're back baby.

Oh yeah back in Thailand, the sights, the smells, the food, the food, the food. We thought we'd take a month to lie on the beach and catch up on some blogging, not do to much just hang out.......never gonna happen, I think we ended up with 1500 photos from the first week or so and a stack of places added to the to blog pile. We spend so much time each year in Thailand one of our friends said next time we come back he'll help look for a house. We'll keep that in mind Glen.
Anyhow we'd arrived after a nine hour flight smack bang into the middle of songkran, usually a fun and festive time but all we wanted to do was get to our guesthouse and have a shower and get something to eat that wasn't plane food. What is usually a half an hour taxi ride was a hour and a half and to say the least we were a little tired and cranky (I mean seriously Qantas if I'm asleep do you think I want a f*%K$#g banana??? Let me sleep!!! Ive come much closer to understanding air rage). After we had checked in and had the required shower it was time to brave the waterlogged streets in search of our first Thai meal (this year).

As we wandered getting the past year washed away we came across this small hut with the simple sign 'Muslim food'. This wasn't here the last time we were in this neck of the woods that meant something new to try. Now Phuket is not very high on the gourmets list of culinary highpoints in Thailand, but it does have a couple of nice beaches (in the low season) and if you stay away, way away from the the touristy areas there can be some nice food to be had. Kamala is our pick as its not as touristed, it's a nice beach to just lie on and the place a long time ago that Kat agreed to spend the rest of her life with me. But I digress, we plonked ourselves down dripping wet and covered with talcum powder much to the amusement of the lady working. We were given an english menu, much to my surprise it actually contained some thing other than the tourist sheeple oft demanded Pad thai, tom yum and fried rice in a pineapple (shudders).



We ordered two ice tea while we gave the menu the once over. They arrived in a foot long glass, sweet! I miss the tamarind infused tea you can get here.



We ordered the chicken in turmeric soup, bright yellow from the turmeric, flavoured with lemon grass and shallots and lime leaf , a few green chillies to give their fragrance and finished off with a little lime.



hidden treasures

It was deliciously sour and mildly spicy which is just as well as the beef stir fried with curry kicked our ass. As well as the curry there was a good handful of large red chilli and green peppercorns with a few small prik kee noo just for fun. Wow after 6 months of really hot chilli absence in Japan this was a big taste bud wake up. That's what you get if you order in Thai I guess.


hot hot hot

Adding fuel to the fire was a plate of pak bung fai daeng, pak bung is morning glory or water spinach and fai daeng means red flame, this means the pak bung plus some garlic and chilli and dropped into a super hot wok creating the red flame and a wonderful smokey flavor when cooked, you can have and veg fai daeng but pak bung is particularly delicious. In this case the chillies were more of the green prik kee noo so they camouflaged in with the pak bung perfectly giving surprise hits of pleasure/pain sporadically.


chilli, what chilli

Running through the check list: close to the beach....check : good food....check : friendly staff....check

Ok not so many requirements,but they were important. We knew we had found our lunch spot.
More to come....

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