A catalogue of everything I've been ingesting! From the mundane to the extreme, fried rice to fried cockroaches, check back often for updates on all the good eats you've been missing out on!
Sauteed eggplant smothered in a chili paste. Yum yum.
A fairly common dessert here in SE Asia – various sweetened beans, tapioca, jellies, and what not in an iced cup of sugar syrup and coconut milk.
A nice find – just when Vietnamese food was starting to get a bit repetitive, I happened upon Banh Canh, which is basically like chicken noodle soup with a fried egg dropped in.
Veggie spring rolls with a peanut dipping sauce! This would be right at home at Pei Wei!
Not so at home at Pei Wei: Marinated tofu skin salad.
Banana flower salad is surprisingly awesome. Done right, banana flowers taste like meat.
Another beautiful grilled eggplant dish, this time in a spicy and sweet Sichuan style.
Depending on who you talk to, finding a durian truck like this is either a godsend or a curse. For me, the smell lingers on the tongue and in your clothes for hours after I've left the area. I try to avoid durian like I do second-hand smoke, but for others it's the nectar of the gods.
I'm always happy about a coffee and donut breakfast.
And here's the lovely lady who supplied me with the scrumptious donuts for the two days we were in Hoi An, Vietnam. Prices were so inflated there owing to it being quite the tourist destination, that I generally tried to live off of her donuts and coffee until dinner time. Even so, her prices were outrageous, charging me $1.50 for five donuts when the price should've been half that.
Finally in Hoi An, we found a decently priced restaurant, this one selling platters of vegan imitation meat and other dishes for $1.25. Generally I have some qualms with making imitation meat veggie food, not so much because of the taste, but because it seems like you should be able to create tasty vegan dishes without trying to imitate the appearance or taste of meat, or else you should just eat meat, but this stuff was actually pretty good, so hey whatever! The vegan chicken leg, in particular, was pretty awesome. It was a stalk of lemon grass "bone" wrapped in chicken leg-shaped and marinated tofu skin "meat." Looked and tasted much like a lemongrass marinated chicken leg.
And this was pretty much our standard go-to meal in Vietnam. Tofu and tomatoes, sauteed veggies, and some kind of egg dish. Gets pretty repetitive, but out in the countryside, there often wasn't much else available.
And of course, RICE, it's what's for dinner! In particular, sticky rice is common all over Laos. Almost always served in a little bamboo container, you pull out a chunk with your fingers, and use it to sop up the spices and juices of your meal, then enjoy. Much more satisfying than the dry, fluffy long-grained rice common to much of SE Asia.
And for dessert? Enough freshly cut up watermelon to fill five hungry bellies, all for a dollar.
Can't beat a fresh coconut on a hot afternoon. Like a beverage and a meal in one.
This is almost always a disappointment, but sometimes, when staying in a tourist area, I succumb to the temptation to order an overpriced, undersized hamburger from people who have obviously never had a real one in the US or anywhere else where people know how to make such things properly. When will I learn???
Upon arrival in Cambodia, it's back to square one as far as searching for sustenance. One of the first dishes I found was this, udon noodles stir-fried with bean sprouts, then doused in chili sauce and topped with an egg. Basic, but filling and cheap at 75 cents per plate.
One of the next dishes found, and probably the tastiest thing yet in Cambodia, is Loklak, or barbecued, marinated beef or pork served atop fresh green tomatoes and onions and with a lime and black pepper dipping sauce. Try making the dipping sauce at home – it appears to consist of a whole lot of freshly ground black pepper, fresh lime juice, soy sauce, and sugar. Very niceeee...
Yours truly chows down on a tasty, newspaper-wrapped baguette sammich near Ben-en Nat'l Park, Vietnam. I think I lived off of these for about two days.
Mingyu chows down on some teeny tiny frog legs.
Bok Choy, tofu with garlic, home fries, tomato soup. Not so different from home, eh? Thanks Sim!
Another awesome meal! The green wrappy things on the left are cha-la-lot – sausages wrapped in leaves and then fried! Yummy.
The dog heads deserve three pictures. One to highlight this lady's stellar smile,
One close up of the heads themselves, complete with spine gunk oozing out the bases of their skulls,
And one of me holding a dog head after it was forced upon me. Mike says this is "the most sincere facial expression [he's] ever seen me have in a photo."
Xoi.
Xoi close up. Basically rice steamed with this big orange fruit thing, and mixed with cucumber slices and pork jerky. Sounds weird, but as usual, delicious.
Can you guess which song was stuck in my head this entire day?
Lak – peanuts! Drying on the badminton court.
Too many eggs in one day.
Chinese food!
More Chinese food! This time eggplants!
I like Chinese food.
50 Cents a kilo!
Sammich – filled with eggs, something like sloppy joe, tofu, veggies, maybe some fish parts.
Nem – fried spring rolls.
Look how excited I am about this pizza in Luang Prabang. It was hand tossed, then baked on a wooden plank in a hand-built brick oven by a real Italian guy who lives there. Still cheaper than Papa John's.
Girls like salad.
Food as far as the eye can see.
Surprise! Chicken kebab please.
More goodness – foreground – potato curry.
Breakfast of champions again.
$4 meat buffet! YES!
I will never be potassium-deficient again. Ever. Those bananas were 35 cents.
In Laos, they do bamboo baskets billowing over with steamy sticky rice. With many dishes, you pull out clumps of it with your hand, roll it into a ball, and use it to scoop up the other food. No forks, knives, or even chopsticks needed!
As soon as we crossed over the border into Laos, the French colonial influence could be felt. In the form of baguettes! But no half-baked ideas of baguettes with fancy cheese or anything. Here, they either drizzle their baguettes, pronounced bang to follow the french pronunciation, with sweetened condensed milk, or else fill them with ground pork, veggies, tofu, and egg. Either way, makes a great breakfast, which is usually among my top priorities. 1 baguette, about 15 cents, or $2 if you get it filled with all the yummy goodnesss.
Pat Kapaow! This is quite possibly my favorite Thai/SE Asian food. Sweet basil stir fried with hot chili peppers, onions, beans, meat, and some other stuff.
Mmmm Dragon Fruit. Slice it in half and you have two bowls full of scoopable goodness. Tastes like a kiwi but not so tart and sweet.
Jok - rice porridge with a raw egg, chopped green onions, black pepper, amd a dash of soy sauce. Breakfast of champions and only $1 to boot!
Shifty pumpkin-peddling lady; we saw through her shenanigans and went for the avocados instead. At $1 per pound, an awesome deal!
Look at these weird fruits! How to eat: pull out one of the pent/hexagonal pieces and suck out all the juicy goodness. Tastes like passion fruit mixed with rose hips.
Timeless classic: Somtam. Unripe, shredded papaya mashed together with baby shrimps, beans, peanuts, tomatos, field crabs, and sauces. Quite possibly the healthiest food on earth.
Steamed bamboo. I'll pass next time.
