Maui Food Madness Part 4

Posted on 16 June 2012 by christao408

Sorry for being absent from Xanga for over a week. We returned from the United States with my sister and brother-in-law in tow, and have been showing them around Bangkok, leaving little time for blogging. With that said, let me pick up where we left off in Hawai’i. For the final segment on food in Maui, we visit a lavender farm, a goat dairy, and eat some fantastic fish tacos.

Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm

One of the interesting things about Maui is that it is agriculturally more diverse than you initially expect. While there are wide swaths of land dedicated to sugar cane and other tropical produce, as you ascend the slopes of Haleakala (the volcano that forms the eastern 75% of Maui), you pass through a more temperate zone. The combination of rich soil, moisture-laden air, and the filtered tropical sun provides a fertile growing environment for a wide variety of produce. Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm is a great example of this.

Situated 4,000 feet above the ocean in the town of Kula, the Ali’i farm stretches over 13 sloping acres. Different varieties of lavender are cultivated and the grounds are largely open for self-guided walking tours. In the early afternoon, the breeze was pleasantly warm but we were protected by a thick layer of clouds that reminded me of the fog of my native San Francisco, but without the need for multiple layers of clothing.

Here, Sugi and Tawn pose amidst a field of lavender on the upper edge of the farm. The farm offers settings for private events including weddings. While the steep slopes might prove challenging for guests with limited mobility, the views (and fragrance!) would be unforgettable and worth the effort.

Close up of one variety of lavender. The air really is perfumed with a subtle, but pleasant aroma from the acres of lavender.

In addition to the lavender, the farm has extensive gardens with many different plants and beautiful flowers. Many of the plants were familiar to me from growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has a similar climate. I was excited to see the fuchsia (on the right) because my father used to grow these in our back yard.

No trip to the farm is complete without a stop at the gift shop for a snack. Beverages include lavender lemonade and tea.

The highlight is the lavender scones served with passion fruit and lavender jelly. A few years ago, I purchased some food grade lavender but rarely used it. Tasting these scones, I was sorely tempted to buy some more and make it a point to cook more frequently with this beautiful flavor.

Sitting on the shady balcony outside the gift shop, we were visited by a flock of small birds who waited not so patiently for scone crumbs. Tawn decided to share his crumbs with them and they gingerly approached and pecked them from his hand.

Surfing Goat Dairy

Just down the hill from the lavender farm is the Surfing Goat Dairy, another example of the agricultural variety found on Maui. A working farm that produces more than two dozen varieties of goat cheese that are used at restaurants across the island, Surfing Goat Dairy proudly claims to make da’ feta mo’ betta!

One of the younger goats playing on a surf board.

The dairy offers tours and there is a small gift shop that sells a variety of their products. Recommended are the cheese tasting flights, which feature both fresh and aged cheeses.

We sampled six cheeses, a mixture of fresh and aged. From the back left, clockwise: fresh feta, “Ping Pong Balls” (drained chevre, rolled into balls and marinated in garlic olive oil), Ole! (chevre with jalepenos, lime juice, artichokes, and cilantro), Udderly Delicious (plain, salted chevre), Garden Fantasia (chevre with fresh garden herbs), and French Dream (an aged cheese with herbs de Provence). Lots of fantastic cheese here, many of which have won national awards.

A pleasant, shaded seating area was populated with a friendly farm dog and cat, both of which came over looking for some attention. Despite being outside, both animals had exceptionally soft, well groomed coats. Perhaps the result of drinking plenty of goat milk?

Before we left, I snapped a picture of these kids feeding kids. Ha ha…

Coconut’s Fish Cafe

The final entry about Maui food concludes with a stop at Coconut’s Fish Cafe in Kihei. This restaurant, which is in a strip mall, looks like nothing to write home about but surprises you with tremendous quality. The must-eat item is fish tacos, which are prepared from fresh, locally-caught fish.

The owner, Mike Phillips, who is in the shop most evenings, supervises operations and comes out to chat with customers. He took this picture for us. He explained that they are just setting up franchises on the west cost of the mainland, with the initial store to be in Santa Cruz. If a Coconut’s Fish Cafe opens near you, please make sure you try it. As Mike explained, the only advertising they do is customer word-of-mouth. So from my mouth to your ear: word.

The beautiful fish taco, made with fresh mahi mahi, crunchy cabbage slaw, and a sweet and tangy mango salsa. This taco was so good that I would seriously consider stopping in Maui next time I’m flying back to the mainland US, just to eat here. My only quibble is that the toppings are cut in very large chunks, making them a bit hard to eat. Smaller bits would ensure you get a little bit of everything in each bite, but that’s a tiny complaint.

There you have it, the conclusion of my Maui Food Madness entries. I hope you enjoyed them!

Part 3
Part 2
Part 1

Maui Food Madness Part 2

Posted on 3 June 2012 by christao408

The second part in my series of interesting places I ate while we were recently on Maui. Today: eskimo candy, touristy seafood, and sensational sushi.

Eskimo Candy

Eskimo Candy is what they call smoked salmon. Eskimo Candy is also a small seafood restaurant located across from a Napa auto parts store in the beach condo town of Kihei, on the south side of Maui. Open weekdays only, there’s only a trio of tables and much of the business is takeout. The menu is mostly fish and freshness is the name of the game.

An order of fish and chips served with slaw. The catches of the day are listed on the board and are available in many forms, including fried in a light beer batter and served with fries. This was opah (also known as moonfish), a firm white fleshed fish that is a byproduct of longline tuna fishing. Really good.

The prize catch, though, is their poke rice bowl. Poke (pronounced “poh-keh”) is raw fish (usually tuna) salad. Eskimo Candy serves four types: a spicy poke, one with fukikake (dried seaweed and sesame seeds), one with shoyu (soy sauce), and one with wasabi. The fish is really fresh, cold, and firm – the best quality poke I’ve eaten.

Also worth trying (although not seafood) is their chicken teriyaki.

Lahaina Fish Company

Lahaina is the largest town on the west side of Maui, an old whaling town that dates back to the 1800s. It is a major tourist area with a charming downtown of shops and sights to see. We had lunch at the Lahaina Fish Company, a restaurant that sits on the harbor and is listed in the Lonely Planet as a worthwhile place to eat.

The breeze was pleasant and the service reasonably attentive. The food, though, wasn’t very interesting and the prices were about what you would expect in this touristy an area. Two items that are worth mention:

A poke taco appetizer consisted of four very crisp tortilla shells served with okay poke and garnishes including edamame guacamole. It was passable but the shells were super crunchy, a bit too much so.

One of the specials was described as an “Ahi Sashimi ‘Katsu’ Rice Bowl”. Of course, this is a contradiction in terms. Sashimi is raw and katsu is fried. Sure enough, they used middling quality ahi tuna, wrapped it in nori, lightly breaded it then briefly fried it. It was served with fresh seaweed, carrots, dried seaweed, and a few other greens on a large serving of rice. The so-called “wasabi ginger buerre blanc” dressing didn’t add anything to the dish and the portion of rice was so large that the last quarter of the bowl (despite mixing the ingredients) was plain white rice.

Sushi Paradise

After eating abused ahi sashimi in Lahaina, it was a relief to come to Sushi Paradise.

Located in a strip mall in the condo town of Kihei, Sushi Paradise puts on an unflattering face.

The inside is small and spartan but it gets busy. If you don’t make reservations, you could easily face a wait of up to two hours. Tawn and I shared a “Paradise Dinner” for $60, which includes a selection of sashimi and sushi, sunomono, miso soup, chawanmushi, and a choice of rolls. We also ordered a few specials, which inflated our bill.

The sunomono, or pickled seafood salad, featured fresh tako, or octopus. The key to very tender tako is that it has to be massaged before it is cooked. Otherwise, it is just a lump of rubber.

Our selection of sashimi: red snapper, salmon, yellow tail, squid, octopus, tuna, surf clam, mackerel, and sweet egg. Some of the best quality fish we’ve had outside of Japan. Hard to speak too highly of this restaurant.

One of the specials was a very lightly torched albacore tuna served with avocado. Not only very tasty, also very beautiful to look at. The very essence of Japanese cuisine is that food should be pleasing to all the senses. This dish achieved that.

Chawanmushi is a steamed egg custard dish. Our had spinach in it, which was mostly near the bottom of the tea cup in which it is served. The key to this dish is that it has to be strained to remove any clumps or scrambled bits. If it is cooked to the correct point, it is gently solid with a velvet texture. As you might expect, Sushi Paradise has mastered this technique.

Another special was lightly fried fish belly (don’t remember the type) topped with a mixture of soy sauce, scallions, and grated radish. Deceptively simple but very complex flavors.

Our sushi plate: tuna, red snapper, yellow tail, salmon, shrimp, eel, sweet egg, plus a spicy tuna roll. All very fresh fish. The shrimp was perfectly done, crunchy but not tough. As you would imagine, I’d recommend you go to Sushi Paradise next time you are on Maui.

Stay tuned for more Maui Food Madness…

Cooking with Friends

Posted on 30 April 2011 by christao408

The past few weeks we’ve had the opportunity to cook at other people’s houses, which is always a fun change of pace. I find cooking outside my own kitchen to sometimes be a challenge – What do you mean you don’t have a potato ricer!? – but also fun because many friends have kitchens larger and more geared to socializing than mine.

Over Songkran we went to Ko and Per’s house. Ko was Tawn’s university classmate and her husband, Per, is from Sweden and moved here late last year. We decided it would be fun to try and make Swedish meatballs although we didn’t have a specific recipe and I’m not sure any of us knew what we were doing.

Nonetheless, we intuited our way through it, and wound up with something that despite looking kind of gloppy, tasted good and seemed close to the real deal. At least that’s what Per said. Maybe he was just being polite.

Ko takes pictures of the meal: Swedish meatballs, roast potatoes, mixed green salad, and I think we made spaghetti with meat sauce, too. It was tasty and, more importantly, the company was wonderful.

Tawn and me after a dinner of Swedish meatballs. Compare that to our picture on the beach after the rough 30-minute ride on an unpaved road on Kauai!

The following week I went to cook at another friend’s house. Chow, who is the author of the must-buy and use guide Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, invited friends over to cook Mexican food in honor (kind of) of the upcoming Cinco de Mayo holiday. Never mind that we were a bit early. Unfortunately, Tawn was not able to make it. That didn’t stop us from having fun, though, and making too much good food.

Enchiladas stuffed with avocado and smothered in red sauce and cheese sauce. Tasty!

Chicken enchiladas baked in a homemade mole poblano sauce. Pronounced “mo-lay”, this sauce has cocoa powder in it, lending an unexpected flavor to its spiciness.

For my contribution, I resurrected a recipe for fish tacos from Michael’s blog, using his avocado cilantro lime sauce. This sauce just goes perfectly on fish tacos!

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And finally, a random picture not related to cooking with friends. We had a visit from Ty, someone who was a very active member of the Xanga community under the username Just2Tyght when I first started almost six years ago. We met in person several years back in SF and while Ty has gone AWOL from Xanga, we’ve stayed in touch through other channels. Glad we had the opportunity to meet here in Bangkok.

Coming up soon… caramel rice flan.

Food in Kauai: Koloa Fish Market

Posted on 11 April 2011 by christao408

Looking back, I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my life my “what to see” list when traveling started to tip in favor of places to eat rather than sights and attractions to see. While Kaua’i is a beautiful island with stunning beaches, mountains, canyons, and jungles, as I made my list of what I wanted to do, it pretty much read like a list of local types of food I wanted to try. Along the way, I discovered Lonely Planet’s Kaua’i guide, a book that uses 296 pages to detail the island and does a lot of work to present it through a environmental/sustainable/locavore lens. Excellent resource.

Our first afternoon in Poipu Beach we decided to start with the nearby town of Koloa, a five-minute drive from Poipu. With its little town feel that would be right at home in an “old west” movie, our first stop was the highly recommended Koloa Fish Market. Known for good local “grinds”, I was anticipating a chance to sit down and enjoy some great food. We got the great food alright, but since there was no place to sit down we had to take the food back to the condo.

Everything’s on the chalk board inside this tiny market. The friendly staff readily explained things that we later realized were written right in front of our face. (Hey, it happens to the best of us!) With four of us, two of whom are not large eaters, we decided the following would be enough:

This mixed seafood plate has seared ahi tuna encrusted in sesame, boiled shrimp served with dipping sauce, seaweed salad, and poke. Poke (pronounced “poe-kay”, which means “to cut or slice” in Hawaiian) is a common side dish in the islands made from raw fish marinated in soy sauce and other ingredients. We ate a lot of poke and every bit of it was fantastic. Most often, it is made from ahi tuna, the quality of which is amazing. We also had it made with octopus, crab meat, and salmon.

Now, I will say this about seafood in Hawai’i. It is really wonderful and all, but I get really fresh, really inexpensive seafood in Thailand so there was a point where I was thinking that it was all fine and dandy, but not really that exciting. This echoes a problem that Michael shared with us. When he has guests from the mainland, there are a lot of very interesting types of food for them to experience because Hawai’i has a hodgepodge of Asian cultures that make up its heritage and a lot of the Asian food here is better than what the visitors may experience back at home. When he has guests from Asia, though, they are more likely to think something like, “yeah, we’ve got this back at home.”

Of course, that didn’t stop us from trying as many different things as we could!

Another thing we tried is the plate lunch. Well, the styrofoam box lunch. Today’s offering was a mix of laulau (pork steamed in taro leaves and ti leaves), kalua pork (slow roasted, traditionally cooked in a fire pit), rice, lomilomi salmon (minced salted salmon with chopped tomatoes and green onions), and a little serving of poke. Both types of pork were wonderfully tasty. The lomilomi salmon was fine but it was hard to identify that there was any salmon in there. We tried some a bit later in the week that had more noticeable amounts of salmon.

For dessert we shared a piece of the fish market’s homemade sweet potato and haupia pie, a market specialty. Haupia is a coconut milk dessert thickened with arrowroot or corn starch. It is very similar to a Thai dessert and is lightly sweet and salty with a thick, gelatine-like consistency. This version is served with a sweet potato base made from purple sweet potatoes, again something familiar to people in Thailand. It is served on a cracker-crumb crust. It was very nice, not overly sweet but pretty filling.

All in all, our first meal in Kaua’i was a thumbs up. Relatively inexpensive, good food, simply prepared.

Unrelated to the lunch at the Koloa Fish Market was our search for malasadas, the fried dough that came here with Portuguese contract workers, thousands of whom came to Hawai’i in the late 1800s. We were looking for for the one-woman stand known as Kaua’i Malasadas, located in from of the K-Mart at Kukui Grove Shopping Center in Lihue. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be seen, so we stopped at Kaua’i Bakery & Cinnamons in the same shopping center to try some of the different malasadas.

The options included plain, chocolate cream filled, vanilla cream filled, and filled with both chocolate and vanilla cream. Lightly sprinkled with sugar and not too oily, I was nonetheless underwhelmed with these fried treats. They are donuts without holes, something that I can’t get incredibly worked up about.

Miso Glazed Fish Fillet and Apple Cobbler

Posted on 22 August 2010 by christao408

When trying to think of what to make for a meal, I often turn to cookbooks. Not so much for the recipes themselves – I have a habit of not following those very closely – but for an idea, an inspiration of something that sounds good and fits the constraints of time, money, and interest. So it was that Thursday afternoon I was flipping through Martha Stewart’s Dinner at Home which Tawn had left out.

“Menu 8: Tofu and Scallions in Mushroom Broth; Miso-Glazed Fish Fillets; Seasame Brown Rice and Cabbage; and Caramelized Persimmons.”

Two words from that over-ambitious menu leapt off the page: Miso-Glazed.

The concept was simple enough: prepare a glaze made of just four ingredients: mirin (Japanese sweet rice cooking wine) or, not having that, sake; rice wine vinegar; miso paste; and sugar. I keep miso paste in the fridge because it lasts pretty much forever and is a handy flavor enhancer. Sake and rice wine vinegar are nice items to keep in the cupboard. And instead of sugar, some maple syrup would add a nice touch.

Salmon would have been a fantastic choice of fish, too, but Martha suggested black cod. I went with her suggestion, taking a single good sized fillet, placing it on a baking sheet. To make clean-up easy, I lined the baking sheet with some parchment paper and lightly oiled it so the fish wouldn’t stick. Brush a generous coating of miso glaze on the fish and then put it under the broiler for about 6-8 minute, or until the top is nicely browned and the fish is opaque throughout.

I served the fish on top of some mashed potatoes with a chopped salad on the side. I make my mashed potatoes with butter, an ingredient that some people like to demonize but I think a little butter will go a long way to making your potatoes nice. I also added some leftover sour cream and some chopped fresh rosemary to give it a tang and a nice piney aroma.

For dessert, an apple cobbler. I used pink lady apples, chopped small with the skin still on. Cooked them in a saucepan for a few minutes with a little bit of sugar, a little bit of water, a little bit of corn starch, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cook until starting to soften and add a little more water if necessary in order to get a bit of a not-too-thick sauce with the apples.

Put the apples into an over-proof dish. I topped it with a homemade sweet biscuit dough, similar to what I use for shortcake. Flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and a little sugar. Cut in some vegetable shortning (Crisco) to the size of peas, and then add either buttermilk (or, if you don’t have that, milk) and stir just until combined. Put the dough on the top of the fruit leaving a few openings for steam to escape. I put a few slices of butter on top of that and sprinkled on some raw sugar for a nice visual. Bake in a 350 F oven for about 25 minutes or until the juices are bubbling and the crust is golden. Serve once cooled to room temperature with ice cream, whipped cream, or just a little pour of fresh cream. Key word here: cream.

Fish Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce

Posted on 21 August 2010 by christao408

First, off, this isn’t my recipe. It came from Michael, known variously as Arenadi on Xanga and chow on IReallyLikeFood.com. He’s been AWOL for the last several months, wrapped up working on a congressional campaign in Hawai’i. He took the time a week or two back to post this recipe on his Facebook account and it sounded so good I figured I should do my part to share it with Xangaland.

As is often the case, I managed to vary the recipe a bit. It still turned out quite nicely.

Fish Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce

You’ll need:

Yellow Corn Tortillas (the 4-5 inch kind)
Red Cabbage
Red Onion
Cilantro
Garlic
Avocado
Mayonnaise
Lime
Tabasco Sauce
Cream or Half-and-Half
Fish (firm white fish – snapper or cod are good)
Panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)
Egg

Prep work:

First thing you want to do is get your mise en place set up for dressing the tacos. This means chopping the red cabbage and mincing the red onion. Chop your cilantro roughly. Slice your avocado about 1/4″ thick and remove the skin.

Put a handful of cilantro, a clove of garlic, about 1/4 of the avocado, a liberal dousing of Tabasco sauce, the juice of 1/4 of a Lime, a small scoop of mayonnaise, and about 2 Tbsp of cream into a blender/ food processor, and combine until you have a nice creamy sauce. Add more or less cream depending on how “loose” you want the sauce. Not being one to follow instructions carefully, I put the entire avocado into the sauce, making it very avocado-y and leaving none left for the taco itself. That’s okay, though.

Optionally, make some salsa.

This wasn’t in Michael’s recipe, but it is easy to make. Chop some tomatoes, onion, chili peppers (to taste), and green pepper and pulse a few times in a blender or food processor. Add some cilantro and a few more chopped tomatoes and then season to taste. A squirt of lime juice is nice. Some salt will work, too.

Make the taco shells:

Note – if you like your tacos soft shell (the way I do) you can skip this step, opting instead just to warm up the tortillas in the microwave or in a skillet.

Heat your oil in a skillet at about 1 to 2 inches depth to about 320 F. Using tongs or chopsticks, hold half of the tortilla into the oil and let it cook for about 30 seconds. Release it, pick up the other side (that was in the oil), and hold the side that wasn’t in the oil down into the oil to cook. Repeat until the desired crispness is achieved.

Cook the fish:

Heat the oil (1 to 2 inches) in a skillet to about 340 F. Cut your fish into strips. Roll in some flour and then shake to remove excess. Then dip the fish into a beaten egg, and then roll it in the panko bread crumbs. Fry fish strips in the skillet for about 3 minutes and then turn over for another 2 minutes. Note that the timing will depend upon the thickness of the fish and could be much shorter. It is a good idea to try one piece first, remove it once browned and cut it open and see if it is cooked through. Increase or lower the heat as necessary to ensure that the fish isn’t browning on the outside before the inside is cooked the way you like it.

To assemble:

Place red cabbage (you’ll notice I used green, which tastes fine) and red onion on the tortillas. Lay avocado slices on top of that. (Whoops – none left thanks to my mistake with the sauce!) Lay the fish on top of that. Put a nice dollop of avocado-cilantro sauce on the fish. Add some salsa (optional), a squeeze of lime, a splash of Tabasco sauce, and you are ready to serve.

Serve with some black beans on the side. I made some homemade beans with some sofrito to flavor them – a combination of onions, red bell peppers, and various spices. Easy and very healthy.

The finished product. Very tasty. Extremely tasty. That avocado sauce is amazing. Deep-frying the fish was an extra step that might be more work than I’d always want to put into it, but I think I could have just pan fried the fish and it would have turned out equally nice.

Thanks to Michael for sharing this recipe with me and I hope he puts it on his Xanga site soon enough.

Dining in Chonburi: Seafood Extravaganza

Posted on 4 July 2010 by christao408

The family of one of Tawn’s university friends owns a famous seafood restaurant in Chonburi province, about a 90-minute drive southeast of Bangkok. In all the years he has known her, Tawn has never been down to visit the restaurant. A few weeks ago we decided to finally accept the friend’s offer and drove to the restaurant. It was, to say the least, a seafood extravaganza.

The unassuming restaurant is in a busy market area near the Gulf of Thailand. An open-air shop house, the restaurant looks like it has been there for ages, which it has. It is clean but not fancy. The counter between the kitchen and the dining area is lined with bottles of their homemade chili sauce, a Warhol-esque decorating statement. Large photos of the dishes on the menu line the walls.

The first thing to be placed on the granite tables are a trio of sauces: the homemade chili on the left, a sweet “plum” sauce in the back, and a fish sauce with chilies. The small green chilies in the fish sauces are called prik kii nuu in Thai – literally, “mouse shit chilies”.

The restaurant’s specialty is a kind of seafood sausage, if you will. It comes in two types: Hoy jaew is the round one, and is made of crab meat; Hae gun is the flat one and is made of shrimp. Both are wrapped in tofu skins and steamed then deep fried.

Another batch almost ready to come out of the deep-fryer.

And interior shot of the hoy jaw – basically a crab cake. Large chunks of fresh crab meat.

Another menu item the restaurant is famous for is the bpuu jaa – crab shells stuffed with a mixture of crab meat and pork, then fried. The flavor is especially good at this restaurant because they mix the meat with coconut milk.

Goong ob wuun sen – baked vermicelli with prawns with a sauce made from oyster sauce, cilantro, and ginger. The secret ingredient is pork fat, which lines the clay pot to prevent ingredients from sticking while the dish is baked. As it is served, the dish is stirred and the melted pork fat is distributed over the noodles, which absorbs it. Yummy!

Tom yum talae – Traditionally “tom yum” soup with fresh seafood. Moderately spicy with a tamarind flavored broth.

Khao pad bpuu – Stir fried rice with crab meat. The owner spoiled us by making it stir fried crab meat with a little bit of rice in it. Tasty!

Plaa muk kai tod gratiam – Young squid that are filled with squid roe, fried in a sweet sauce and topped with fried garlic.

Plaa tod – Cotton fish filleted and fried…

and topped with yam mamuang – a sauce of green mango, carrots, cilantro, chilies, and dried shrimp mixed with fish sauce and lime juice. Perfect with the fish and not as spicy as you might expect.

The star of the show, a basket of steamed crab!

The mother of Tawn’s friend as an expert at cracking and peeling crab. She sat there at the table and opened a half-dozen crabs for us, making the choice bits easily accessible. Normally, crab is something I won’t bother with if I have to peel the shells and pick out the meat myself because it seems more work than it is worth. But with an expert peeling them – well, I’m all in!

Sauce of death! Chilies (loads of the “mouse shit” variety) blended with lime juice, fish sauce, and not much else. This is super spicy. And really good with the crab meat.

The strange interior membrane of the crab, which I was encouraged to try. Very astringent, briny flavor and not something I’ll have again.

For the most part, the food wasn’t very spicy but was really tasty. The sauce for the crab, though, is just spicy. There’s no two ways about it. This required a lot of water with lots of ice to cool down the mouth!

Growing up in the US, I didn’t eat a lot of seafood while I was growing up. I only came to appreciate it once I started having really fresh seafood prepared in simple ways that emphasize the freshness and flavor of the meat. Needless to say, this restaurant reinforced all the great things about seafood.

For dessert, some khanom niaow – basically, a Thai-style mochi (pounded sticky rice) served with a palm sugar sauce and fried cooked rice.

After lunch we strolled around the local market. I’ll share those photos tomorrow.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: Fish

Maui Food Madness Part 4

Maui Food Madness Part 2

Cooking with Friends

Food in Kauai: Koloa Fish Market

Miso Glazed Fish Fillet and Apple Cobbler

Fish Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce

Dining in Chonburi: Seafood Extravaganza