Thai BBQ I: Shopping Trip

Luckily for me, we arrived in Phuket on the 5 December, and spent a few days staying with a friend from college, whose girlfriend happens to be a trained Thai chef. Unfortunately for her, this meant being bombarded with questions and a camera for the majority of our meals (thanks Thippsy!)....

One of the best meals we had was a BBQ prepared by Thipps and some willing UK kitchen hands who were only to happy to share in the results! First off we hit the markets for the food, which wherever you go in Asia are always so colourful and exciting, but also so unbelievably cheap. While restaurant food in SE Asia is obviously cheaper than being in the UK, the food from the market is mere pennies in your pocket. We all chipped and came up with this lot....

Everything seems to come in super size in Thailand. This is basically the Thai version of runner beans.

Some chillies to get those taste buds going!

Anchovies

King prawns - incredible size!

We ended up buying 5 fish for 180 baht - that's about 3 quid.

Mammoth squids!

More chilli to get those taste buds going...

Check out Thai BBQ II for some recipe tips...

Hanoi Food Market

I have been around a couple of food markets in Hanoi, but none were as extensive as the one we were taken to during my cooking course courtesy of Old Hanoi restaurant. There was definitely an ‘eclectic’ mix of spices, meats, vegetables and a few things in between…

Chicken plucked and ready to go. Vietnamese eat all parts of the bird, including the head and feet.

Vietnamese and Western bananas – slight size difference!

Pig trotters; a staple of any Vietnamese pregnant woman – apparently they help to produce good quality breast milk.

A bit of beef filleting going on – it is very common to see meat left out in the open air throughout the markets. I asked Anh, our chef, why it wasn’t refridgerated and she told me that every morning it was brought from locals who had dissected the meat earlier that morning, and therefore it didn’t need to be put on ice or refridgerated.

Huge beef loin!

Pig intestines.

Pig hearts and a few livers in the top left corner.

Caged birds, not sure what sort, but I got the impression it wasn't for pets.

A huge selection of different types of rice, beans and lentils.

Massive bucket of snails, not something I'll be dipping into!

Close up.

Selection of fresh fish Catfish – this is the same fish we used for our Steamed Catfish in Lotus Leaf and Tamarind Sauce recipe.

Not sure of name of these fish, however I thought it was a shame they did not have room to swim about, even if they weren’t going to be around much longer!

Chickens to be sold as pets for laying eggs.


So as you can see, the food of Hanoi reaches far and wide, and these were just a few selection shots from our tour. I noticed that duck eggs were as common as chicken eggs, and also bird eggs (quite small) were available easily. If only I had a kitchen and a Vietnamese translator!