Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
aka king trumpet mushroom, French horn mushroom, eryngi, king oyster mushroom, king brown mushroom, boletus of the steppes*, trumpet royale, aliʻi oyster
*According to wikipedia, this is misleading nomenclature because boletus (which has pores) and eryngii (which has gills) are of different orders. All I know is that eryngii is delicious and it’s very hard to cook wrong.
Couque d’Asse is a popular Korean-made cookie featuring a delicate, crisp biscuit with a creamy white chocolate or coffee filling, often sold individually wrapped. The name is a nod to the French word “couque,” meaning “cake,” and “d’Asse,” which refers to the Belgian city of Asse, although the cookie itself is a modern snack from Korea.
To add a bit more to the cultural mix, this is a Japanese cookie being sold in a Thai department store.
Why did they make the “D’asses” plural if it refers to a singular Belgian town? Because they love couques?
Me and T have been going there every year to visit interns or attend conferences and the like. I took a lot of food photos to add to Maps in hopes of reaching level 10 as a Guide. The trip started out with a great bowl of pork blood noodles for lunch on the way to Borabu, the next town over. Unless otherwise indicated, all of the many bowls of noodles consumed on this trip were yellow bami noodles, which I crave when I’m on keto (I’m off due to uni trips at the moment, so game on!).
What made this bowl stand out were the type of noodles used (thin and perfectly textured), the clear and tasty soup, and the giant chunks of braised pork tendon served in each bowl.
Is natto keto?
Dammit.
Conclusion: Part of this is that most people who say no are calculating carbs per cup. Nobody eats a whole cup of natto, so…
Or mostly Japanese, actually.
At the original Big C supermarket location in Maha Sarakham, which has been on a steady decline since so many competitors opened – Makro, Tesco (many branches of varying sizes), some independent stores that usually go bust within a year, and most recently, CJ. What Sarakham really needs is a Tops supermarket, which is is more high-end (but not as high end as Villa).
Pickle really likes wet food recently since she’s getting older, and she crunches reluctantly on dry food like her teeth are sensitive. She likes this Nekko brand a lot (although it’s pretty expensive at Big C, as pictured here), and won’t eat some of the other brands. She still keeps in shape as a mouser and regularly presents us with trophies like rats, mice, squirrels, birds, and lizards. I try to keep her full with cat food so she doesn’t eviscerate her prey on our doorstep like she used to – this system has been working pretty well so far.
We visited students interning on the island last year and stayed in a nice, deserted-due-to-low-season resort. A big storm came and the power went out for a few hours, but otherwise it was a great trip.
This was Max’s favorite meal on the trip, Khao Soi.
Hope to shovel more of these guys in my tummy later this week. Some friends are coming from Japan, so we are doing an end of year trip to see them in Pattaya, Bang Saen, and Bangkok. Ironically, it’s hard to find good seafood near the sea in popular places here, so we have to scope out good places online before we go. Over the past decade, Google Maps has become the best in gauging places from their reviews, and more importantly, the kind of people posting them.
I’m currently on an extended keto and IF experiment which is turning out very well. Starchy noodles, like my beloved bami egg noodles, pictured above, are off the table.
But I can dream.
I’m not entirely sure if this means what I think it means… Taken at a resort we stayed at on Koh Chang.