Food on Wheels; Bangkok

Food on Wheels; Bangkok

Time to continue my 'Food on Wheels' series. Last week during my one day visit to Bangkok upon returning from South Korea, I had business to attend at the Hua Lampong MRT or Subway station.

Bangkok is in general a heaven for food on wheels lovers! Everywhere people are selling food and drinks on the sidewalks. Outside of the Hua Lampong subway station was no different.

Fresh OJ seller

Te carts are sometimes very small indeed and like pictured above, it's nothing more than a push cart. Selling fresh Orange juice per bottle doesn't probably bring in big profit margins neither. It's hard to imagine how you can get by with such an income.

Fresh pineapple

This person is selling fresh pineapple. I vividly remember the first time I bought a freshly cut pineapple on Bangkok's streets (an achievement in itself, back in those days!), the explosion of taste in my mouth is unforgettable! I can only strongly advise on buying the fresh fruit from sales people all around Thailand, it's well worth the taste experience! It's not difficult neither, you can just point at what you like. Watch out for the spicy sugar, this is sugar spiced up with cut up small red peppers, it's hot and spicy!

Enjoy.

Camille

Food on Wheels, Sweets from a car in Osan South Korea

Food on Wheels, Sweets from a car in Osan South Korea

I'm in Osan, South Korea right now and the last time I looked at a map, that's still in Asia. Having said that, I did expect to be in a first world country and consequently didn't expect too much about seeing or spotting any 'Food on wheels'. How wrong I was!

The first day in Korea it was bingo pretty much straight away on my walk to the local supermarket, where I spotted this little car or van, selling a Korean variety of sweets, parked just along on the road on a side curb.

The sweets on offer are very much liked by the locals and apparently there's much more 'food on wheels' action here than I ever expected!

For Thailand visitors or folk who live there, this must be a familiar sight, the Salapao as we all know it as well in Thailand. The various colors indicate different stuffing or fillings.

Another slight variation on a Thai theme, sweets baked in iron casts, just like in Thailand. A very nice surprise to see this and a great addition to this series, after my Philippines and Indonesian blog posts in this series!

Camille

Food on Wheels, The Gili Air bicycle

Food on Wheels, The Gili Air bicycle

So here I am on the small island of Gili Air in Indonesia, an island that doesn't allow cars and motorcycles on it's island (and no dogs for that matter neither!).

We're still in South East Asia, though, right? Right indeed and this also means that I can continue my series about Food on Wheels with a post coming from Gili Air, since here they deliver the food on a bicycle!

The lady that travels around the island with her bike, the box on the back contains the food, in her case, all sweets.

Here are the goodies, tofu, deep fried bananas and various kinds of local sweets

Having tried a few of the sweets, most of them are really nice and I'm looking forward now each day to see her come by at the Oceans 5 dive center. The price, 5.000,-Indonesian Rupiah for three or four sweets, which is like 20,-THB

Camille

Food on Wheels; Truck for construction workers

Food on Wheels; Truck for construction workers

Here's a slight variation on the Food on Wheels series; today I highlight a form of food delivery by means of a truck instead of the all too familiar motorbike and it's not a finished product that you can buy neither.

Samui boasts lots of building sites, some might argue too many but that's a different discussion. All these sites have construction workers on them and they need to eat as well. Since they're on small wages, they mainly tend to cook themselves and the trucks pictured here basically serve the building or constructions sites or possibly even the areas where they live, which many times are relatively isolated areas and since the workers most likely don't posses a bike, they can't go out at their convenience and buy food and or ingredients to cook. In come these trucks!

Besides food and cooking ingredients they also sell many other small items like baby powder, soap etc. It's kind of like the supermarket truck that used to make it's rounds back in the days in Europe when I was a kid.

A couple of times I've seen these trucks already stocking up early in the morning at the Samui Makro store before they go out and start selling their goodies.

Another , more hidden and less viewable sample food on wheels!

Camille

Food on wheels; Salapao or Chinese steamed bun

Food on wheels; Sweet bread dumplings/Sala Pao

Today's addition to the growing Food on Wheels series is about Chinese steamed buns or in Thailand better known as Salapao or in the Netherlands where they are very popular as well, they are known as Ba Pao.

These buns are very popular around Thailand and are usually eaten for breakfast but can be obtained throughout the day. This specific cart was spotted on a regular base in front of my sons school in Chaweng.

The buns are steamed and the steamer is easily recognizable on this motorbike cart, with the top of the gas tank just peeking in as well.

Usually the dough is white but if you look carefully, the salapao's that this vendor is selling are all green! The fillings are usually sweet or savory. A minced pork mix 'sai muu daeng' is used or for the sweet mouthes amongst us usually a crushed mung bans 'sai tua dam' filling is used or just cream 'sai kriim'. 7-11 sells them throughout the day but I prefer the ones available on the road, like these.

Here the steamer can be clearly seen as well as the green salapao's waiting to be put in the steamer.

The steamer itself, the hole in the middle of the steamer has an additional delicacy known as 'khanom dcheeb' or minced, steamed pork. makes a great mix with a couple of salapao's!

The salapao costs around 10,-THB and the khanom dcheeb are around 2,-BHT per one. Enjoy!

Camille

Food on Wheels; Sticky Rice with mango

Food on Wheels; Sticky Rice with mango

During my recent visit to Koh Lanta I ran into this lady pretty much every night in Saladan, actually very near the hotel where I was staying. This coming Saturday I'll be returning to Koh Lanta and I hope to see her again. A perfect match to continue the Food on Wheels series with.

She's selling a very sweet Thai dessert, sticky rice with mango or ตำราอาหารไทย. It is very sweet indeed, especially with the coconut cream topping that comes with the dish.

Check the cart out, it's a push cart and not motorized.

The mangoes used aren't the ones that you usually see with the fruit vendors but are their more sweeter tasting yellow brothers like the ones pictured above. The silver bucket in the right, back corner is for the cream topping. Definitely a dish you should try at least once whilst in Thailand!

To complement her sales, she's also offering buttered barbecued corn on a stick, another tasty little snack.

If you see one of these options on sale, typically by street vendors, don't hesitate to get one for yourself to try and taste. The age old wisdom with street food is, the more they sell, the bigger the turnover and the least likely you get a bad 'batch'. A good indication about the quality of the food is also the amount of locals buying food from a vendor.

Enjoy!!

Camille

Food on Wheels; Pancake cartoon

Food on Wheels; Pancake cartoon

With the school year almost ending it's a good time to continue the Food on Wheels series with an entry of a 'pancake cartoon' vendor at my son's school in Chaweng.

As with most alike vendors, the kids love this pancake and considering that this particular vendor isn't always around, his popularity is pretty high!

The set up is very straightforward, the motorbike with sidecar, which hosts the hot plates and the gas tank.

With a chocolate based dough, the outline of the cartoon which is chosen by a kid, is being drawn on the hot plate.

A 'normal' white based, fluid dough is than added to the original outlined cartoon figure and fills this outline up. This is all wrapped up in a bag and eaten. Total cost about 10,-THB.

The finished product or pancake cartoon!

The cartoon options available.

Hope you enjoyed this addition in this series, more to come later this month.

Camille

Food on Wheels; Deep fried bananas on Cebu in the Philippines

Food on Wheels; Deep fried bananas on Cebu in the Philippines

Food on Wheels goes international and has it's first contribution outside of Thailand! During my recent trip to the Philippines, I visited Cebu island, Cebu City and the small island of Malapascua, just north of Cebu.

The deep fried banana vendor at the Sto. Thomas de Villanueva Parish (Danao City Church)

On the way from Malapascua to back to Cebu city we passed the Sto. Thomas de Villanueva Parish (Danao City Church) and that's where I spotted this fried banana vendor. During the travel I had seen more food on wheels qualifying vendors but couldn't get any good pictures from the moving van.

The deep frying process

I'm very glad to have caught this on my camera so I can go international with this series! There's more out there and more to come! My archives are still in good shape and everyday can bring new material!

To my fellow bloggers, if anyone of you is still following my blog and output since I don't have the time lately to follow and check in to your blogs, if you feel that you want to contribute to the Food on Wheels series with a guest post, please contact me and I will have you write a blog post as a guest writer on this blog with at least one link to your blog.

Camille

Food on Wheels; McDelivery

Food on Wheels; McDelivery

The wheels are outside of the 7-11, getting a M-150 and a beer?

Suggestions are welcome!

Camille

Food on Wheels; A Samui institution on a bike

Food on Wheels; A Samui institution on a bike

And an institution she is. After I stopped this older lady today and asked if i was allowed to take a picture, I asked her how long she was already going around Samui with her bike, selling Khanom and other small food bits and pieces.

Upon asking how long she already has been going around the island she said 'Laay Pi' which means 'many years'. Right she is, during the 12 years that I'm here now, I've seen her on a regular base at various places around the island, always on her bike. She must do so many kilometers a day that her health must be very good!

If you ever see her going around, feel free to stop her, in her two baskets she has sweets and small food items for sale and she's on the road all year round. You're bound to see her sooner or later somewhere along the ring road or any of the ring roads off shoots, drive carefully around her!

I hope she will be making her rounds for years to come!

Camille

Food on Wheels; Pad Thai on the go!

Food on Wheels; Pad Thai on the go!

Another Food on Wheels post is due and here we are, Pad Thai on the go indeed!

This is probably one of the best known Thai dishes and it always works for me!

Pad Thai or Phat Thai (Thai: ผัดไทย [pʰàt tʰāj], "fried Thai style") is a dish of stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce (Thai: น้ำปลา), tamarind juice, red chilli pepper, plus any combination of bean sprouts, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts, coriander and lime, the juice of which can be added along with Thai condiments. Pad Thai is one of Thailand's national dishes.

During my last and most recent visit to Phuket, I encountered this vendor just after I left visiting my fellow blogger Jamie in Phuket!

This guy must be doing well because it will be difficult to fond a Western tourist who doesn't like Pad Thai, besides the Thais themselves who will enjoy a quick snack. Sometimes it's probably just a matter of getting the tourist so far to actually order food from a street vendor.

My golden rule, where ever I eat in Thailand is this; if it's busy and locals eat there, it must be good, since first of all, a lot of people means a lot of turnover which means a lot of fresh ingredients and secondly, a lot of locals always indicates that the food must be good, otherwise the locals wouldn't eat there!

A side view of the Pad Thai motorized kitchen, with a good view on the actual cooking plate.

Though Pad Thai had been known in various forms for centuries – it is thought to have been brought to the ancient Thai capital of Ayuthaya by Vietnamese traders – it was first made popular as a national dish by Luang Phibunsongkhram when he was prime minister during the 1930s and 1940s, partly as an element of his campaign for Thai nationalism and centralization, and partly for a campaign to reduce rice consumption in Thailand. The Thai economy at this time was heavily dependent on rice exports; Phibunsongkhram hoped to increase the amount available for export by launching a campaign to educate the poor in the production of rice noodles, as well as in the preparation of these noodles with other ingredients to sell in small cafes and from street carts.

During the recession following World War II, the post-war government of Phibunsongkhram, desperate in its efforts to revive the Thai economy, looked for ways to stem the massive tide of unemployment. Among the occupations the government aggressively promoted to give the populace a way to earn a living was the production of rice noodles and the operation of noodle shops. Detailed instructions on how to make the noodles and recipes were printed and distributed around the country. From these efforts, rice noodles became firmly rooted in the country and have since become a widespread staple food.

This looks like everything you always wanted to know about Pad Thai but never dared to ask ;-)

Hope you enjoyed this entry and stay tuned for a next episode of Food on Wheels!

Camille

Food on Wheels; Kanom Tokyo

Food on Wheels; Kanom Tokyo

Time to look into the Food on Wheels series, with a very interesting entry today; Kanom Tokyo. Most of you out there probably didn't even know there was a thing called like this, just like me!

In front of one of our local 7-11's near our house, almost every evening this cart can be found, the Kanom Tokyo vendor. It's mainly a children's favorite. Our kids love it, that's for sure.

The ingredients, on the bottom quill eggs and Maggi sauce, in the middle some sort of sweet cream and on top sausages.

The batter is obviously also of importance and is actually very tasty! Three 'kanoms' or sweet pancakes are spread out next to each other and than ingredients are put on top of them. This results in a sweet but crunchy pancake.

An almost finished Kanom Tokyo, the batter turned into a pancake style sweet, topped with all the ingredients previously mentioned. The only thing missing now is shaping the whole thing up and putting it in the inevitable plastic bag.

Here it is, one Kanom Tokyo, rolled into shape and ready to be eaten. Enjoy! For 5 to 10 Baht a piece, pretty cool stuff.

Camille

Food on Wheels; Fruit

Food on Wheels; Fruit

Time for some Food on Wheels action again and today's entry is about a very popular variation and because of it's popularity, also appearing a lot in the Thai streets; Fruit vendors.

A typical fruit vendor cart

Thailand has a wide variety of different fruits that most Thais like to eat a lot as well. Put them two variations together and dozens of Thai vendors will sell fruit on a daily base. During hot days they can be a very refreshing appearance with their cooled down fruit assortment. The fruit sits behind glass windows on ice cubes to prevent it from turning bad quickly.

I clearly remember during my first visit to Thailand, when I was wandering around Bangkok's streets and finally had the courage to walk up to one of these vendors and order pine apple and the taste explosion that hit my taste buds. This was pine apple that couldn't be compared with any canned or fresh pine apple back in Europe. I was totally blown away by it and ever since have been buying various kinds of fruit from these vendors.

Popular fruits include the already mentioned pine apple, water melon, mango and papaya, just to mention a few.

Sometimes the carts aren't motorized at all and the vendors sell just one kind of fruit, like this grape vendor in Kao Lak.

If it's your visit to Thailand, don't hesitate and buy some fruit of the vendors, you will love the taste and you'll become a frequent customer instantly. The price is also great, most fruits range between 20 and 30 THB per serving.

Camille

Food on Wheels; Chicken out

Food on Wheels; The chicken is out

A new entry on the Food on Wheels series is due and in Kao Lak where I currently am, the mobile version of KFC is every day at the same location.

This picture show the goodies on offer and most of the food on display is some form of chicken. The breast, wings, liver, heart etc. The only thing missing is the chicken feet, which the Thais seem to love!

The big blue bucket is filled with small plastic bags of the sticky rice or Kao Niao ข้าวเหนียว. My tip; the sticky rice actually tastes very good if you BBQ it!

The BBQ part is on the side of the side cart, with a keeping the food warm tower just in front of it on the left side of this picture (although looking from this angle, the keeping it warm tower is behind the BBQ). The pan on the right side is for deep frying chicken.

The side mounted car makes this a perfect sample of food on wheels! The chicken assortment gets turned over quickly so the food is fresh at all times. That's another tip, always check if many people buy food from a place, this means a high turn over and consequently fresh food.

Enjoy your culinary Thai fast food experiences, they're all over the place and enjoyable and tasteful.

Camille

Food on Wheels; Khanom Waan

Food on Wheels; Khanom Waan

Now that the situation on Koh Samui is stabilizing again (I arrived back on the island today and drove from Nathon to Plai Laem without problems) it's time to catch up on some other topics again and the first one to kick off a series of 3 Koh Lanta food related topics that are coming up is from the ever popular Food on Wheels series.

Today's pictures are from a well known early evening vendor, the 'Khanom waan' or the sweets vendor. I caught him near Saladan, the main village on the North of the island, where the car ferries arrive and depart.

These vendors usually pop out in the very late afternoon and early evening all over Thailand it seems and sell their assortment of sweets to all who are interested and that's not just kids but plenty of adults come to see him and spend their money on some sweets.

The assortment is sweet indeed! It's well worth trying out the various sweets or khanom waan on offer but be aware, it is sweet indeed. Better not have dentist issues when you dig in to these.

Soon more updates on an excellent restaurant and a German bakery on Koh Lanta. Stay tuned!

Camille

Food on Wheels; The original pancake

Food on Wheels; The original pancake

Back to the roots and basics. This is about pancakes but the mother of all pancakes so to speak, the original.

Two months I wrote about pancakes on Koh Tao, the classic variation in my series on 'Food on Wheels'.

The pancake today is the real Muslim pancake, the guy in the picture above is everyday at the main road near 'Old Town', as reported on in the recent post about the Koh Lanta Museum, and sells his pancakes. However, there's nothing fancy about this, you can get options, with and without egg for either 10 or 15 Baht. No Nutella, no banana, no frills and thrills. The only additions he still has are the condensed milk and sugar, but I don't count them as add ons, they're part of the furniture so to speak!

The reason I went to Koh Lanta's 'Old Town' was because I needed the 4th injection in a series of 5 for rabies, after I got bitten a while ago by a dog whilst running. A picture of the hospital is coming soon.

Every day around 5pm he comes out of the woodworks and the locals gather around him and go sit in the small sala behind him to enjoy his pancake ad I assume to shoot the shit.

His hot plate is fired by wood, which is in the big white bag next to his push cart.

This is the end result of the pancake, a nice square of egg and dough (?) with all of his ingredients in front of him. Back to the basics or what? The taste was also good!

Hope you enjoyed this entry, I was pleased to be able to buy a pancake here and find the 'mother' of all pancakes carts around Thailand!

Camille

Food on wheels, More eye tim or ice cream

Food on wheels, More eye tim or ice cream

Indeed, my wife saw the vendor passing and called after him from the balcony which caused a road from three hungry kids on a school break, our two children and a friend of my daughter.

Calling him over also proofed a great addition to the Food on Wheels series.

This is the culprit, a motorbike with side car, the side car being converged into a big holder for the ice cream container, with three little rascals impatiently surrounding the vendor.

This is a slightly bigger version than the eye tim vendor I photographed and reported about on Koh Phangan.

Note the little bell on his steering wheel, the red piece of wood between the bike and the side car, to announce his presence.

Today's ice cream was home made coconut ice cream or eye tim maplau. with a view into the actual center of the earth, according to the kids when the vendor drove up our drive way.

Excitement takes over and my son is very happy with his share, girls will be girls though and the two of them are a little bit more subdued trying to merge in the background.

In the previous post about the ice cream vendors, I mentioned the sandwich bread or bun in which the Thais like to eat their ice cream, well, here's the bun, ready to get stuffed with eye tim and it's ingredients, in the three boxes, from left to right, peanuts, jellied fruit and sticky rice. have a slice of that!

The finished product, a bun with ice cream. Believe it or not but it's extremely popular with pretty much all Thais! It beats me, I rather stick with the standard straightforward ice cream in a cone! Just for the record, I did try the bun filled with ice cream but it just didn't do it for me.

Camille