Thai night carnival, Koh Samui

A roaming dinner is always a good one. Especially when it's at a Thai night carnival. We park the car and walk down the side of the road, the cars and scooters being ushered with military precision around the hoards of people.



The first stop, sweet corn in a cup. The fresh, plump, steamed corn kernels are mixed in a bowl with a touch of salt, sugar, coconut and butter. We take our cup in hand and continue roaming ...



Mmm, meat on a stick. We spot a lady with a pile of sticks and are oh-so-happy to see it's nam, fermented pork and glutionus rice sausage on a stick. She flashes it over the charcoal as she prepares a little bag with whole scud chilli's, chunks of cabbage and sliced ginger. It's nice and smokey, from the charcoal, and has a nice sour tang. Mouthfuls of sausage are alternated with chunks of cabbage, ginger and chilli.



Another meat on stick, chunks of marinated pork, also grilled over charcoal, keeps us going for a few more minutes ...



We spot a guy grilling these very interesting looking flatbreads over open flame charcoal. We grab a bag to take home.



We finish off the walking adventure with some fried chicken legs and a bag of fried chicken skin. Mmm.



If only carnival food was this good, and this cheap, all over the world.

Ramen, Kutchan

Well this has to be probably one of the slackest efforts we've done so far.....We had ramen recently, good ramen in fact but we ate with no regard to providing just about any futher information than that... still here goes.

On the main road in Kutchan is a ramen shop that has a sign out the front saying open since 1991 or close to (told you, fuzzy memory) at first I was unimpressed but then I realised it's now 2009, did a quick count and and went ooooooh.

Inside we were given the gaijin menu (I had a quick peek at the Japanese one to see if we were being stiffed on any of the good stuff but it was all front and present).



Kat went for the Hokkaido specialty - butter corn, and I for the tonkotsu, a collagen thick broth of long simmered pork bones. The soups were quick to arrive and we were glad we had stuck with the regular size, they were massive enough already.

The butter corn was full the the rim loaded with pork, corn and what looked like half a block of butter on the side.....seriously.

My tonkotsu was super rich, with the pork, egg and all the collagen, amazingly delicious but I felt I was on the verge of congealing, I managed to struggle through for the cause though.

We topped it all off with a small plate of gyoza, crispy and fragrant.

I'm sure we'll be back one day to get an address and give a few different types a go.

If you do manage to find it between now and then don't forget to grab you complementary vanilla and red bean ice cream on the way out. Yum.

Could really do with an aero bar about now.......................

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Airport Ramen, Sapporo

First meal in Japan what's it to be .. ?? Mysterious and deadly fugu, ethereal sushi singing only of the sea?? Nope it's going to be airport ramen! our baggage was trapped in a damaged container so we were delayed in getting our bags.. The bonus being a very nice JAL attendant changed our ticket so we didn't have to make the 90 min Narida-Hanada slog and flew straight on immediately, hence we were one and a half hours early for our pick up. Twelve hours of flying hungry and with time to kill we headed into the the first food place we saw. As regulars in the Ichi-ban boshi queue we are well accustomed to the delights of ramen and so I'm slightly disappointed that my first mouthful of on the soil Japanese food isn't going to be as foreign as I'd wanted but a boys gotta eat. After a quick look at the 3d menu (love those plastic food models) we take a sit and order.



Kat has the Sapporo (when in Rome) ramen it comes a generous serve full with corn, leek, beansprout and the ramen with a ball of miso floating in the middle, once stirred the stock turns to a rich red broth, it's kinda the transformers of ramen, most satisfying.



I have the tried and tested butter corn ramen (Hokkaido butter don't cha know). It has three slices of roast pork, corn, wakame and leek, all the while your eating the butter melts to form a fat film of the best kind on the top of the soup so the things picked out get a quick and delicious glaze from bowl to mouth. Yum!



Maybe not so foreign, but far far better than many choices on offer at other airports around the globe (looking at you Miami).

Ramen
Just out side the domestic arrivals gate
New Chitose Airport
Sapporo, Japan