One of the reasons I enjoy traveling so much is to experience new food, and there's no better place to do that than in Thailand. There's a buffet of new flavors and strange food on every corner of every street in any town all over the region. It's cheap, delicious, and inspires you to go further than you're comfortable with. You never know: you might just discover something you love.
The one dish that is a common theme all over Southeast Asia is spicy noodle soup. For me, it was love at first slurp. It was a palate changer. I've never had a dish satisfy every taste sensation on my tongue, and all at one time. It's prepared a variety of different ways from techniques grandmothers have been passing down for generations.
While I was in Bangkok, I got really familiar with where to eat, the cheapest place for a beer, where to pick up a motorbike, and specifically, where to find the best Tom Yam (spicy noodle soup). One food stall in particular had my heart, and luckily for me, it was within a few hundred steps from the City @ 50 Hostel, my Bangkok home. I've told other travelers that if I could have communicated at all with the woman (Kamporng) preparing the soup I'd have proposed to her.
I'm not proud of it, but I kinda stalked her preparation. From what I observed, she prepared the fresh ingredients two hours before opening: boiling the pork-bone broth, cleaning the vegetables, and separating the ingredients. Her food stall and house opened at 10 a.m., and she served bowls of soup until she sold out, usually before 2 p.m.
Here are the "ingredients" she uses for her special "clear pork noodle soup", a version of Tom Yam (just guessing from my 30+ visits):
-Pork Bone Broth
-Morning Glory
-Sliced Garlic
-Scallions
-Sprouts
-Cilantro
-Crushed Peanuts
-Crushed Red Chilies
-Fish Cake Slices
-Fish Balls
-Fish Sauce
-Pork Cracklings
-Wonton Cracker
-Minced Pork
-Chicken Slices
-Salt
-Sugar
-Soy Sauce
You could get the soup and a local Coke for 43 THB ($1.21).
Thailand Food: A Traveler’s Favorite Dishes
After mixing and slurping, this is how the broth should look. A deep blood-like color with all the good pork juices sticking to the sides of the bowl. Yum!
Kamporng doing work! House rules, socks all day.
Me and the soup lady.