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101 Favorite Thailand Foods · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And with all the China food talked about all my
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: favorite ones, which took four hours a long time, I
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: figured I should look at some of the other countries
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've been to, especially once I've been to so many times,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and the country I've visited the most times is Thailand.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I've probably definitely, I've definitely lived in China longer, and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I maybe have even lived in Japan longer because I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: usually stay two three months generally in Japan every time
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I visit, and in Thailand i'd often visit for no
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: never mind, I'm remember I stayed in Thailand longer than Japan.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I think anyway doesn't matter at all. Let's talk about food.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: My favorite foods in Thailand, of which there are no
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: small amounts, but I haven't lived there for a very
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: long time, although I did just visit briefly last year,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: so I can't remember as many as China. And actually
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that might just be because I love there's so many
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: foods that hit me just right in China, because there's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: so few dishes in China that have sugar like sugary meat,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and that's really popular in a ton of countries, including
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the US. Barbecue barbecue sauce is very often too sweet
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: for me. I do not like sugary American barbecue sauce,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and I don't like the sugary American Southeast Asian sauces
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: in Thailand and a lot of other places. But Thailand's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: cuisine is very, very broad. It's huge, and so over
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the many times I've gone there, I have found a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: lot of things that I do really like, and it
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: would be crazy if I didn't start with the all
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you can eat buffets. Now, I know I mentioned this
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: in my Favorite China Foods as well, but even in China,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: which is a very cheap country, the all you can
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: eat buffets are still eleven dollars or thirteen dollars something
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: like that. Now that's for all you can eat seafood
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and hot pod and a barbecue and all you can
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: drink beer. So it's a pretty good deal. But it
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: does feel different in Thailand. It's more of a communal
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: cafeteria type feel, even though it is serve yourself and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they bring out the dishes in a huge buffet area
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and you just go up and take as much food
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: as you want, as many times as you want. Thailand
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in general is more informal, which in some ways people
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: used to a formal restaurant serving environment might be surprised by,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: or you just might not look on it as favorably
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: as a restaurant with full service waiters and all of that.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: But there's definitely a nice comfortableness. It's very comfortable to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: just walk in, grab a plate, put a bunch of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: stuff on your plate, and start eating, and there's everybody
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: else around you is eating, and it's a very communal experience.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So my favorite hot pot in Bangkok, actually my favorite
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: all you can eat buffet and Bangkok is seven dollars
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: for all you can eat hot pot. You order the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: two different soup bases that you want, and they bring
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it to you in one of those yin Yang Yin
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: y yin yang in a bowl shape like a yin
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: yang symbol, and in each section you can get one
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: different type of soup, and they usually have like tonkatsu
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: or a seafood or all these different kinds, but in
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this one they also have ma La, which is my favorite.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And there's a heavy influence of Chinese cuisine on a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: lot of countries, and especially the closer to them, like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. A lot of Chinese people have immigrated to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: those countries, and so mala has found its way into
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: some of the restaurants, not many by any stretch. Taye.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: People like spicy food, but they have their own spices
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: they like to use. But I went to this hot
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: pot restaurant and the first time I was like, you
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: have mala, Oh my gosh, And I got mala and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I think I got the tonecots the first time, and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the second time I got mala and some other stew
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and I went mala and each one. Because the food
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was so good, I kept going back, and by the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: fourth time or something, I tried the other soups and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I was just like, can I just get two mala
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Mala Mala? They were like, oh, that's a lot. Are
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you sure? It's very spicy? And I was like, no, no, definitely.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And I could even ask for extra spice. After I
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: had been eating for twenty or thirty minutes. The meat
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I was dipping into the hot pot was taking all
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of the mala, and I could just ask them like, sorry,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: can I get another block of the mala in here?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: And they would cut off and give me another block
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of mala so I could get more numb spicy flavor. Now,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just for the soup, because there were other
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: all you can eat buffets and there were other hotpot
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: restaurants in Thailand that had the mala flavor. But this
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: mala flavor was perfect. It tasted pretty genuine to me.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: And I lived in Sichuan for a few years where
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: that flavor is from, so and I eat it all
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the time, so I have a pretty good frame of reference.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And while that flavor varies wildly, even just across Sichuan itself,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it's basically like how fresh the oil tastes like. If
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you cook the mala at too high a level, you
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: just get a spicy broth. But it's kind of dull
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: in flavor. It browns in the high heat. And it's
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: only in Sichuan flavors that you really get the super fresh,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: tangy bite of it. Of like a pepper. If you
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: bite into a pepper and a lot of mala that's
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: overcooked or not done right, it doesn't have a tang,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have a tartness to the soup. But in
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Sichuan mala or chong Chin mala. You'll really get a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bright tangy all the flavors are still there for every bite.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And this all you can eat buffet place in Thailand
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that we were just walking past had it, and me
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and my friend decide to give it a try, and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I was blown away by the hot pot bass first
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: of all, but then I saw that the selection they
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: had was actually pretty extensive. They have a lot of
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: different cuts of meat and a lot of different vegetables,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and then they had a separate fried section. Because Thai
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: food they do have a lot of like fat or
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: deep fried foods, just like French fries and popcorn chicken.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: There's always some fried section of the menu, deep fried
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: very often. And I don't usually like fried foods, especially
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: deep fried foods, very much because it's so easy to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: mess up a deep fry so that there's too much oil,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: or it's cooked too long or too short or whatever.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: But I like trying everything on a menu when I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: find something I really like, and their hot pot baste
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was so good that I was like, well, all just
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: try these things. So for the first order, I got
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: sliced surloin and it's like paper thin hot pot slices
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of steak, one order of French fries, I think, some mushrooms,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: some spinach, some other stuff, some other vegetables, and they
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: brought everything over and I tried everything, and I ate
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: everything because it was an all you can eat buffet
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and they only give you a few pieces, so I
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: didn't want to leave food on the table. I think
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I got a couple pieces of manto, like the fried
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: bread or whatever. But the meat was obviously very high quality,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: very dark red, no smell at all. Red meat can
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: gain a funk pretty quickly if you hang on to it,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and a lot of tie. A lot of restaurants in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: general don't want to waste stock, so they keep their
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: meat maybe a day past what they should. But this
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: was clearly very fresh, expertly sliced and arranged very nicely,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: just three slices or maybe it's six slices on a
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: little plate that they bring you over. And I was
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: already kind of impressed just upon seeing it and noting
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that it was how obviously fresh it was by the scent,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: and then I dipped it in for a second to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the hot pot and ate it, and man, the flavor
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: was perfect. I've rarely had meat that fresh or that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: evenly sli and just perfectly made, and there was no
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: fat on it at all, which I liked, which I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: especially used to like. I kind of give it a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: pass on some dishes, like if there's fat attached to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the meat. But for the first twenty seven years of
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: my life or something, I basically just didn't eat fat
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: on meat. It just wasn't my thing. I wasn't into it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: So when they brought out this crimson plate of sliced steak,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, just how I like it,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Like if I had sandwiches with the crusts cut off,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: even though I never really liked that, but it's just
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: this peculiar thing that I'm not into, which is very odd.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: In Asia, they like the fat with their meats, and actually,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: on subsequent visits a lot of the meat did have
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a very thin rind of fat around the edges, which
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I'm totally fine with. The fat can interact better with
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: oils than just lean meat. It's good to have a
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: little variety get that, but this first time was just
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: felt exactly for me. They had the hot pot soup
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: base that I love, They had the meat exactly how
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I would have wanted it if I was gonna judge
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: its flavor for the first time. The vegetables were normal,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: they were good, but the meat was so good and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the soup was so good. The hot pod was so
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: good that I got I think three, two or three
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: more dishes. I only got two at a time. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: don't like to order a whole bunch, so I believe
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I got two more pieces of meat. And it was
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: only three slices for each order, although it is you
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: can order as many as you want. And I started
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: asking them to put two orders on one plate because
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I felt bad because I was just having this giant
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: stack next to me. I don't know if you've ever
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: seen Dragon ball Z, but if you take me to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a hotpot restaurant, I'm eating like goku. By the end
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: of the night, I just have like fifty bowls stacked
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: around me in piles, and people are looking concerned and frightened,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, but I'm just kind of hungry. And
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: they're like, it's been twenty eight minutes. You should not
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: have eaten that much food, are you okay? And I was,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I was, okay, this was my kind of restaurant, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: what was even more perfect was that I could get
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit of spinach when I wanted. But they
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: brought out the French fries, which took a really long
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: time to make, and I asked them like if I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had maybe ordered wrong on the little sheets so they
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: didn't see it, and they were like, no, no, it's coming.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And it just takes them a little longer to cook
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the French fries, I guess, and I still don't know why,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: because I didn't burst into the kitchen demanding answers. But
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: when they finally brought them out and I ate the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: first French fry, I was like, oh shit, this is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing here. I'm eating these plates of meat
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm getting more French fries and pretty much from
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the I'll say the third time there, and I went
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: there like ten times. I would go there a lot.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I went there a lot. I was only in Thailand
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: two months or less, I think two months last year,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and I found that place at the end of the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: first month maybe or like yeah, by the third week,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: something like that, and then I went there at least
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: twice a week after I found it. I was because
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the quality of the meat pretty much never degraded even
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: when they started adding the fat ryans, and it didn't
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: look as pretty and perfect, like there were veins of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: fat going through the meat instead of just being the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: flesh itself, so they were using more of the meat.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: They were obviously still using very fresh and well sliced
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and well cared for product. It was so god damn good.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I have to keep pausing because I'm like getting hungry
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and salivating at the thought of eating at this all
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you can eat restaurant, and my friend keeps asking me
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to go visit them in Thailand, and I'm like, maybe
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I should go back there. And this is in Bangkok,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: which is my least favorite city in Thailand, just because
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: it's the most busy, but it's the one with my
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: favorite all you can eat restaurant for sure, So I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: keep thinking, like, we shouldn't go to a country just
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to go down all you can eat restaurant, And then
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I'm like, why not. That's a great reason to go
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: live somewhere that you love. Anyway, Even Bangkok, my least
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: favorite city in Thailand, is still one of my favorite
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: places to live in the world because the cost of living,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the great medical care, the extremely kind and compassionate people,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: great transportation, just a great country overall, so that even
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: my least favorite city is still an amazing place to live.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The monitor lizards in the park, I love those. There's
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: live monitor lizards that you can just see walking around.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That's crazy, but that's just normal in Bangkok and many
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: parts of Thailand. So yeah, by the third time I
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: went to that place, I was pretty much just getting
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: slices of beef and French fries and slices of beef
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and French fries, and I get two plates of the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: beef and one order French fries, and then maybe two
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: more plates of beef, and then two more plates of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: beef and one order French fries. And I'd go in there.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I'd eat for one hour, ninety minutes something like that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Oh you know, so funny about that place. Well, anyway,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I'd eat for ninety minutes, and then I'd get a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: little cone of ice cream because a lot of the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: buffets there give you ice cream at the end. Actually
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: they do on the States too, huh. And yeah, pay
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: seven dollars and say I will see you soon. Way too. Seriously,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it was really funny about that restaurant, though,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I meet friends with the owner or manager the first
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: today because he could speak some Mandarin or something I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: can't remember, but like we hit it off right away,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and I was asking him about the meat and the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: cuts and how they made the fry so good, because
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they were like perfectly salted, soft on the inside, crispy
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: on the outside, but it wasn't burnt on the outside.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: They just somehow made it a very light golden not
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: even golden brown, just a light gold yellow, so it
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: didn't look cooked enough, but it was cooked perfectly. I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: don't know how they did it, but we talked a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: lot that first day. So when I left, I was like,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: thank you, that was so good. I'll see you again soon.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: He was like, great, nice to meet you. Bye. And
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: when I went in the next time, he was waiting
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: at the welcome counter again, and I was like, hey,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: how's it going. And by the next time, I mean
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I think the next day it was either one or
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: two days after. It was right after and we had
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: talked a while, so I felt like we had a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: familiar rapport and I was like, Hey, how's it going,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And he looked at me like he had never seen
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: me before, but quickly like switched his face and he's like, hey,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: welcome to that. Would you like to sit down? And
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, sure, thanks, and I thought
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it was weird that he apparently didn't remember me at
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: all because we had spoken in a different language, which
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: is kind of rare, like usually if I'm in Chine, well,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: if I'm in China, everyone's like, look, there's the only
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: white person in one hundred miles. But yeah, we spoke
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in Mandarin. Well, we discussed the cooking technique, like all
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: this stuff that I felt like established a connection. And
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: then it was fantastic hotpot again. I ate and got
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: my ice cream and I was like, thank you so much. Stuff,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: so good, I'll see you again soon. He's like, yeah,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming when I'll see you later
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and I was like okaybye, and I was like it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: like we made a little connection again this time. And
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: so I went in the third time, and as soon
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: as I walked in, he was like, hey, good to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: see you again. How are you And I was like, hey,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty good. And he was pretty overtly friendly this time,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: which is what I would have expected the second time.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And I sat down and I ate and it was
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: perfect again, and I was like, that is odd. I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: went again, and on the fourth time, he was again
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: like oh hey, and he looked a little confused, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: then took me to my seat and I sat down,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and I was like, how what is happening? Like does
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: he not wake up on time on Wednesdays? Like I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't figure out why. He sometimes was very familiar and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: friendly and other times he was more courteous and professional
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: than familiar. And then I was like, I wonder what
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that is. And I asked for another order of French
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: fries and the beef towards beef, and he was like, oh, yeah,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of course, and he takes two steps back toward the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: kitchen to give the order to the kitchen like they do,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and then he steps back because he almost bumped into someone.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And he walks out of the kitchen and the two
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of them start talking, and I was like, wait, oh,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: they're twins. So there's twin managers of this all you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: can eat hot pot buffet. And I had been talking
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to both of them every time I was there, continuing
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: conversations that I had had the last time with I
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: guess the brother and they looked identical and they were
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: wearing the work uniforms, so they looked identical. Their haircut
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was identical. I think one difference, like one more the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: eight because I had to figure out a way tell
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: them apart. One of them was wearing their apron somehow
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: differently on the shoulder. I forget it was something like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that was some small uniform apron thing, and that was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the only way I could tell the two of them apart.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: They wore the same shoes, like everything was the same
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: apart from that, And I thought that was so funny
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that I've been going to this place for so long
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and hadn't realized I was having two distinct conversations with
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: twin brothers, and by that time both of them were
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: pretty friendly with me. There was just a personality difference
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: for different people because they were different people. You know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try and find the name of this
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: restaurant of this buffet because it was so good. And
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that's such a popular city. Did you know forty million
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: people like visit Thailand every year? That's wild. That might
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: just be Bangkok. Let me check, Yeah, that's insane. Thirty
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: two point four million people from outside of Thailand, plus
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: an additional fifty million from inside Thailand. But thirty two
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: million international tourists visited just Bangkok in twenty twenty four,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and that's completely normal. It's usually like thirty plus million
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: people per year visit just Bangkok, and I don't have
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a huge audience. But with forty million people, maybe you're
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: one of the people visiting Bangkok. Let me find the name. Sorry,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: there's like a billion results. They have so many all
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you can eat buffets in just Bangkok. I can't find
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: it at all. I can't remember which neighborhood I was.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Oh you know what, hang On. I was in Bangna
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and I even remembered how I would walk to the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: mall that this place was located inside of. But I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: can't find the actual mall. Oh snap, okay, I found
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: my old apartment hang On. Okay. My old apartment was
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: in ket Bogna. I cannot find this restaurant. It was
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: at the entrance of a shopping mall northeast of kt Bogna,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: more north than east. But just searching on Google Maps
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: just for hotpot buffet, there's like twenty in this one
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: square mile. So I guess that's what you should take
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: away from this. Even if I can't remember the exact name,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and they're all rated like four point eight to five
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: stars by hundreds of reviewers. The buffets there are so good,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and there's actually a lot of Mala specific like the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: kind of like if I go back there, I'm gonna
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: have to try all these different buffets, but I don't
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: know if they're all all you can eat, although some
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of them definitely are because it's in the name, But
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of the names are in Thai, so maybe
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that's why I can't remember the name, because it was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in Thai, and that is a language that has confounded
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: me every single time I've been to the country. But
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the point is that there are all you can eat
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: buffets everywhere in that country. Across the street from my
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: favorite hot pot, one was sit down stir fry barbecue,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: all sorts of food with who know, like fifty different
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: dishes at least potatoes and barbecued meats and greens and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: French fries and she o mine and just like everything
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you can imagine. And that one was only four dollars
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: four or five dollars one hundred and fifty bots, so
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like four fifty something like that USD and that's all
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you can eat. You go in, pick up a plate,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: sit down, everyone's eating around you, and you scarfall. So
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and that was right across the street, so I'd like
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to go there on occasion. And then if you go
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to one of the night market buffets that are out
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: on the street, they can be as little as two
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: two fifty for all you can eat meat and vegetables,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and their selection isn't going to be insane like the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: four dollars buffets, but they still have beef and chicken
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and usually some type of fish. They won't have shrimp
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: or a lot of the quality, more valuable cuts, but
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you can get unlimited barbecue or hot pot meat for
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: two point fifty in a little tent with a tarp
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: over it to create a special little own restaurant space,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and they put tables and chairs out front, and it's
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: two and it's all you can eat. It's insane. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: one of them I remember did have shrimp, and I
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: was like, that's so crazy. They didn't have unlimited shrimp.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: They would usually have like one bucket per night. But
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: if you were there when they opened, then you could
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: eat is you could eat all the shrimp if you wanted.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: In that first hour and then eat all the beef
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you wanted after that and pay them eighty bot or
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: seventy bot or whatever it was, which is two dollars US.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: So the buffets are unnaturally prolific in Thailand. They are everywhere,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the all you can eat ones even they're just all around.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: There's wherever you are in Bangkok, there's one right next
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to you around that area, and they're in every decently
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: sized town in Thailand across the country, so that all
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you can eat buffets are just everywhere, and they're all different,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: because that's what buffets are. It's usually a family or
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a group of pea people and they make their food
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: that they like. But so you can go to all
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the different ones find the one you like. And the
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: most expensive I paid there was thirteen dollars, and that's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: because it was barbecue and hot pot and sushi, and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: it's all you can eat, all three of those. Oh
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: they also had a local seafood one, so you could
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: get crab and shrimp and squid and octopus and fish,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and that was five point fifty something like that, about
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: five US dollars. I think it was one hundred and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: eighty bot, something very close to that, which is like, yeah,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: five point fifty USD for all you can eat premium
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: seafood and just all the delicious food in a little
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Thaie hot pot which doesn't have flavor. It's just over
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a grill. They put like a hubcap sized curved plate
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and you just put water in and then just cook
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: it until it's cooked. But there's not a lot of
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: spices in that, although they do have the tie spices
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes that you can like spicy soy sauce that you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: can put on it, and those are going to be
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: very fresh seafood dishes or seafood products that you cook yourself,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: so you can cook it exactly how you like it.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of these five dollars local seafood places will
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: have one grill and one hot pot for your table.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And this is another reason why when I talk about
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: saving money, I recommend Thaighland so often because it would
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: be really easy get your tefel certificate, get a job
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: teaching online very easily for fifteen dollars an hour. Your apartment,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: even in the middle of the city in Bangkok is
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: going to be three hundred and fifty let's say, four
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: hundred USD all utilities included Wi Fi. Everything is going
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to be in a four hundred dollars apartment bed, private bathroom,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: HAWA or so that's like twenty five hours of work
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: at fifteen dollars per hour. And remember you're not paying
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: any taxes as long as you stay outside of the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: US for eleven months out of the out of three
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five days, it's not even the calendar year.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: If you leave in July and you don't get back
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to the States until July, you can extend your tax
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: deadline by a few months automatically and months after that
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: if you want to. And then when you file your taxes,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: you can choose July to July I was outside of
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the US, or July to June I was outside of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the US for eleven months, So it doesn't have to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: be between January first and December thirty first, any eleven
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: month period out of any three hundred and sixty five
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: month period that falls over the taxes. When you do
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: your taxes, that qualifies you for no income tax up
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. So these
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: buffets you can easily eat well over two thousand calories
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: of food from any of these places, or if you
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: really feel like you need three square meals a day,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you just go to the three dollars buffet and you're
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: still spending nine dollars per day. Oh no, that was
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: two dollars, so you're spending six dollars a day for
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: all you can eat three times a day. Or let's
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: round up, because the expensive outside ones are three dollars each.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: There are one hundred BOT instead of seventy BOT. So
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: let's say that ten dollars a day. If you went
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to three all you can Eat buffets per day, although
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: most people wouldn't need that much food, it'd be just
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: as easy to eat, you know, an mourning or brunch
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: meal for two or three dollars and then go for
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: three dollars there at night. But we'll say ten dollars.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Let's say you spend ten dollars going to three all
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: you can Eat buffets, you need three hundred dollars, and
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: then you need another three hundred and fifty for your apartment.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Six hundred and fifty dollars, even if you get fifteen
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: dollars an hour teaching English online, which is a pretty
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: on the lower end and very easy to find on
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the dozens of online teaching platforms, especially if you have
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: your tefel certificate. That's what forty three hours working I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: think that's right. Fifteen goes into six fifty roughly forty
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: three times. So you work ten hours a week, you
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: have paid for three all you can eat meals, plus
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: your all utilities included, centrally located apartment in the most
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: expensive city in Thailand. If you live out in one
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of the suburbs, you can catch your rent in half
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: two hundred pretty easily. So yeah, after those ten hours
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: a week that you're teaching English online at fifteen dollars
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: an hour, every hour you work after that is an
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: extra fifteen USD you put in your pocket. Ten hours
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a week pays for your room and board and utilities
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and Wi Fi. And then if you want to of course,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you can teach as much as you want. So if
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you want to work an extra twenty hours and do
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: thirty hours a week, then you're saving thirteen hundred bucks
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: on top of that every month. If you want to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: work forty then you're saving closer two thousand a month.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And like I said, if you live in the suburbs,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: then you're going to save closer to twenty five hundred
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: a month. That's at fifteen dollars per hour. If you're
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: making twenty dollars per hour, then you only have to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: work seven hours a week to make that rent and food.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: That's six hundred and forty per month, seven hours a
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: week at twenty dollars per hour, and then every hour
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you work after that in your pocket. Again. Now you
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: probably don't want to work that much. I don't. Once
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I realized that I didn't have to work like how
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: American management told me, I have to work to obtain
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: basic necessities of survival, I worked with what was comfortable
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: for me. Chin that was a lot of work, especially
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: at that time, I was really curious about starting a
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: business with my friends and putting together a curriculum and
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: doing all this work that I didn't need to do.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And you don't have to do it either. Get a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Tefel certificate for forty bucks. It'll take a couple weeks
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of your time to take the PDF tests, and then
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: working seven to ten hours a week, you will pay
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: for great food and your apartment, and then you can
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: save thousands a month after that for whatever you want
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: or need. And that is part of why I like
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: these all you can eat but face in Thailand. I
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: tell them to everyone who asks me what they should
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: do about money, I'm like, look, China is pretty great
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: for that you can live in China and save the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: same amount of money pretty easily. But Thai people are
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: also the nicest people in the world, or among the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: nicest people in any country you're ever going to be in.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: In China, if you can figure it out on your own,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you're going to have some trouble until you can speak
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Mandarin pretty well. In Thailand, if you can't figure out something,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: even if you can't speak a lick of tie, which
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I still pretty much can't, they will help you until
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you are helped. It's just a compassionate country. There are
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a compassionate people, and there's so many tourists that go there.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: They know most of the concerns tourists have. Or do
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you get a haircut? Where do you buy your food?
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Where's a new apartment? So they know, like they've dealt with.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Like I said, forty million tourists or thirty two million
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: international tourists a year, so they will help you in Thailand.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So when I mention to people who were asking about
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: how they can save money or get out of debt.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I usually mentioned Thailand first because it's a lot less stress.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It might not be as easy as China to save money,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: but it's nearly as easy if you're comfortable teaching online
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: because they pay much less in person teaching in Thailand.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: You'd make almost half as much teaching in Thailand per
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: month as you would make teaching in person in China
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: per month. But if you teach online two Asian students
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: East Asian students while you're living in Thailand, which is
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: totally okay, you don't need a digital nomad visa or
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: anything like that, and you just move there and start
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: teaching online. A lot of countries don't care if you
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: are a digital nomad. They don't insist you get some
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: kind of visa. So, yeah, you moved to Thailand. Everyone's
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: super nice, everything super easy and accessible. You get a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty dollars an hour job, work seven to
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: ten hours a week, save the rest of the money
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: thousands a month. And that is what is so great
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: about these omnipresent buffets. I mean, they're everywhere. I can't believe.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: It's still crazy to me how many buffets there are
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: in Thailand. Like, I had been to Thailand so many times,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and my friend was going to travel to Bangkok and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: she asked me to go with her because I had
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: been there so many times and she kind of wanted
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a tour guide to show her around. And I was like, ah,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: i've been there, I should probably go to a new country.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: And then I literally was like, ooh, the buffets. Plus
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I get Hango with my friend I haven't seen in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: a while, and so I was like, yeah, okay, I'll
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: see you there. And I went there and this is
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the last time I went. I stayed there for two
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: months and got buffets like every day because they're so
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: good and everywhere, so I could try all the different ones,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and it certainly, as I've mentioned, never came close to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: breaking the bank breaking the wallet, let alone the bank.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Oh Okay. The next good favorite food of Thailand that
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: is so difficult to find but so satisfying when you
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: can find it is grilled squid with thy spices. And okay,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you can find grilled squid everywhere, but there's one specific
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: type that I really like that I have a very
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: difficult time finding. And I'm not sure if it's because
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: cuse it's an older method of grilling the squid or why.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I really don't know why. So you'll see a lot
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: of tourist food night markets. There'll be a hundred, literally
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: or hundreds of different food stalls, and they'll have a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of food cooked in different ways, and it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: all going to be like ten out of ten food
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: like eight out of ten. It's all gonna be a
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: really good food for very cheap prices, even in the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: touristy parts. But that's never where these squid guys are.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: These squid guys are always some old, homeless looking person
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: with a WHEELI cart and the cart has a grill
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: on it, and there'll be like four or five squid
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: on it, slowly grilling with red some kind of red
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: powder they put on and then the oil they put
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: on everything they barbecue in Thailand. And it's very simple
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: and it costs five bot usually, so like fifteen cents
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: per squid. And the price doesn't even matter because I
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: would pay five times as much for that squid versus
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: one of the normally cooked ones, because the spices just
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: aren't as good. This spice blend. It's so much like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the you know. It's very much like the South American
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: red spice blend they have here that I, of course
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: cannot remember the name of. It's kind of like an
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: all spice mix, but specific to Thailand. And it's spicy
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and savory and salty and delicious, and it coats the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: entire squid in a very fine layer, and it clings
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: because of the oil they put on it. And they
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: just slowly cook these squids, and if you point to them,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: then they'll move them over to the hotter part of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the grill, like one side's hotter in the other sides.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: They have a gradient so that after they cook one squid,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: they can kind of keep it on, you know, warm,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: without burning it before a client finds them. In the alley,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: they tend to hide in and cook their squids in.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And I found this one guy and he made the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: perfect squid, and I got one. Then I went back
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and got three, and then I went to him. Every
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: day I could find him, but it was so difficult
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to find him, and I never knew when he was
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: going to be going out, and I didn't find him
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: in the same place twice. He was usually in the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: same neighborhood, but it wasn't a huge area, and I
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: walked all these streets every day. I walk every day
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to keep like in exercise and also to keep social.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: But I had such a difficult time finding this guy.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: And I can't speak any tie, so I couldn't ask
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: him like where are you? Where are you? Usually? But man,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: when I can find the right grilled squid person, and
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I found a couple, they're really tricky for me to find,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: but every time I do find them, it's the exact
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: same thing. It's not huge squid. It's usually the smaller,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: like foot long, and they're all super bright red because
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: they're coated with this red thaie allspice mixture and oil
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: slow grilling over this thing, and they all are cooked
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: in the same way. And I don't know what it's called,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: because every time I know how to say, what is
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: this called? But every time I do that with anything
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in Thailand, they just say the most basic word of it.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: So they'll tell me like squid or maybe grilled squid,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: But there's no different name for the types of grilling.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Different people like to grill the squid. It's not a
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: particular name of technique that they use for that squid.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So I just have to. I just have to walk
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: around the city and try and find someone with the
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: bright red spice dusted slow grilled squid that I like.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And it's always very satisfying when I like it. And
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: that's definitely one of my favorite ones when I get
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: a good grilled squid. There was one lady, one lady
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: in China who made good grilled squid and it was
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: shockingly good. It was as good as this tie squid,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: or at least close to it. And I was like,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: holy crap, this is the only other person in any
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: other country I've been to that could cook squid the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: way I like it. I was actually with another person
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: who didn't like squid that much, and when they ate
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: this slow grilled spiced squid in China, they were like,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: oh my god. They went like crazy. No, you know what.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: That wasn't even in China. That was in Taiwan. Yeah,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: there was this one lady in Taiwan who made such
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: good grilled squid and she on the beach. She had
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: like a little stall on the beach. That was great.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So anyway, if you're walking around the streets and you
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: see an old grandpa without a shirt, stick thin and
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: pushing a cart with a few squids, bright red squids
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: grilling on a small little stove. That's the guy to
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: get the squid from. Man. I love that stuff. That
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: stuff is good. Or that grandma on Taiwan. You should
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: go look her up. It was a black sand beach
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: in Taiwan. Oh geez okay. I understand why I started
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: with all you can eat buffets and buffets in general
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in Thailand because they're so amazing, But I kind of
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: can't believe I didn't start with pad crop hau kaidal
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: pad crap paw kaidal is the first Thai phrase I
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: learned to say because it's my favorite food. Like my
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: favorite single dish is probably pad crap paw kaido. It's
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: just white rice, stir fried pork with basil and a
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: few other spices and a soft boiled fried egg on
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: top or easy cooked fried egg. I guess, softy oak
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: fried egg. Yeah. So it's like just a little like
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: on a plate. It's very common. It's like the Thailand
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and food dish. Also, you can get it tons of places,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and I'll go to different places for different meals and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: try and get it from every different place because there's
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: always one person who knows how to cook it really well,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and then I'll go back to that person every day
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and a little manda rice, a little bit of stir
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: fried pork and basil and ginger and other spices, and
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: they ca ngeal into a brown sauce. That's the best.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: It's the best sauce. It These Panama sauces kind of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: remind me of it, But I do think the crophile
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: is a little more flavorful, maybe because the basils mixed
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: in there, like actually stewed in with the gravy. It
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter, it's so good. I have one or two
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: dishes like this in many countries that I judge the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: expertise of a restaurant buy, or at least how much
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to like the rest of the dishes. At
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: a restaurant in China, it's either huegu a ro the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: twice cooked pork, or Gambian dojiao or gumbi and sigido,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: depending on which province you're from. If they can cook
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that dish, right, that's the restaurant I want to go
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: back to. Same thing with this. In Thailand, Patkrap pau
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Kaido probably in the States, it's bacon. I feel like
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: so many restaurants can't cook bacon correctly. And if you
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: can't cook bacon correctly, anything else that's mildly difficult to
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: cook is going to turn out crap padakrap. Paw Kaido
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: and Thailand, it's like the perfect food. There's some vegetables,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: there's a good rice that mixes with the brown sauce
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: so good. There's a fried egg for extra protein, stir
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: fried meat, and the basil gives this lovely kick, nice
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: spicy slide. Oh man, that flavor. That flavor is bananas.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: It's so frickin' good. And there's not a lot of
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: oil or brown sauce or anything. It all is in
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the meat. It's in the pork they stir fry somehow,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: like there's a little oil left over, and that's really
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: good with the rice. But it's the meat you eat
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: with the rice that just has such a just an
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: intense flavor. And I like very strong flavors. So yeah,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I know I was talking about the brown sauce, but
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: there isn't that much sauce. It's really just the residue
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: left over, and all that flavor is packed into that
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: ground pork meat that they stir fry so frickin' good,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: and it is reminding me of the best restaurant I
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: have ever been to in Thailand, right next to this
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: coffee plantation that I rented a house in for I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: don't know, a couple months or something, maybe just a month.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I wanted to stay longer, but the friend I was
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: traveling with, I think, needed to get back to civilization
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: or something. But it was just this little house in
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: the woods next to a river. And the house was
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: two hundred bucks a month, I think something like that.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't next to a lot of towns or anything.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I had to get off the bus halfway between two
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: cities and then walk down to this house. But it
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: was a five minute walk away from the only restaurant
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: for twenty minutes radius walking. But that little place that
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: was sometimes a restaurant and sometimes not because the sort
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of de facto landlord worked there. She was the cook,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: but she just wasn't always there. But once she realized
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: that I was going to eat everything from her spot,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: she was there a lot because I was throwing money
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: at her because when she cooked the pad krap Pawkai
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Dal It knocked me on my ass. It was the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: best one I've ever had, and I had had it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: at one hundred different restaurants in Thailand, and I couldn't
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: believe that this remote bamboo forest restaurant was the best one.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I was insane, couldn't believe how good it was. She
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: fried but kept the yolk soft perfectly. The fried wasn't
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: a burnt fried around the edges. It was just perfect.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: The ground pork had a little residual spiced oil from it,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: but like I said, it was all in the in
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the meat itself, all that flavor, the basil like, and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: then and then I devoured it. Sometimes I would go
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: in and I'd get two of those, which is super
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: rare because it's a filling dish. But it was just
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: so good. If I wasn't satisfied with one, I'd just
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: devour another. And she had glass bottled coke and a
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: little fridge behind the counter, so sometimes I'd get one
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: of those. And I heard she had she had like
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a kid. She had a daughter and a son, and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: the daughter was already pretty good at English. She was
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: like ten years old or something, which is really surprising
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: because they they don't push English as strong, and it's
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: pretty rare to find, uh, pretty good English speaker, like
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: conversational English speaker in a lot of parts of Thailand.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And hear this rural bamboo forest. And her mom was
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: also pretty good at English, so she had been teaching
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: her daughter. And at one point she asked me if
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I could stay and just live with them and become
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: like the teacher, and she'd just give me the house
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: for free and she could pay me in like the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: food and all that. And I was like, that sounds
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: great to me, but I also I could have done
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: it for a little while, but I don't know how
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: long I could have been that hermetic, but it was
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. And that brings me to my next favorite
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: food in Thailand. Garlic fried soft shelled crabs. Holy crap.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So this restaurant, my favorite restaurant in Thailand, probably had
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: forty or fifty items in total on the menu, but
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of them. It was like stirfried garlic, pork,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: sturfried pork, garlic, beef stirfried garlic, chicken stirfried garlic, so
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: very similar dishes. So I really only had to try
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: like a dozen before I got how much I liked everything,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: but I was obsessed with a padcrop pou kaido, the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: stfried basil pork, and I got that constantly. And then
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: one day after I had gotten like ten sturfried basil
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: porks in a row over a week. So she was like,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I think her name was Ann, the lady who ran
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: this restaurant, and Ann asked me maybe you should try
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: something else. We have a lot of food, and I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, sure, why not? And I looked for
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: all the stuff that I hadn't tried yet, and I
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: saw garlic fried soft shell crab, and I realized I
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: had kind of glossed over it because I'm not huge
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: on crab. It's kind of a pain to dig into.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: But then I realized I had never had soft shell crab,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and I was like, well, it's a dish. I mean,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you can probably eat it. I'm pretty sure you're supposed
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to just eat the shells on the crab, like you
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: don't have to mess with digging into it for the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: flesh or anything like with heart shell crab. So I
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: asked her for the saft shell crab and she said great,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: pulled out some garlic oil and crabs and a few herbs,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: threw them in a pan, sizzled it up for like
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: five minutes, threw it on a plate, gave it to me,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and I bit into the first soft shelled crab and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: there was just an exlosion of flavor in my mouth.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Like it was. I couldn't believe how good it was.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I like crunchy stuff. I like different textures. There was
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: rice with this, of course, and the soft shell crabs
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: were really really soft shell. You could just bite everything
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: and just eat it up, and there's just a little
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: bit of crab flavor in each one. So I don't
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: know how to describe it, but that's what it was.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: It was this tasty crunchy things with rice and some
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: herbs and garlic. It was divine. It was so good.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, okay, and it instantly
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: became like my new favorite dish. I got that half
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the time, and I got the padcrop haw kai dao
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: half the time. I went back to getting more and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: more pad crap haw kaido though, because half the time
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: she didn't have the crabs or no, you know what.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: It was. More often Anne wasn't around. She was working
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: on something else. She had like seven jobs, and when
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: her mom cooked the soft shell crabs. Her mom was
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: not as good a cook, so everything just tasted normal,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: still really good. But now I was hooked on Anne's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: ten out of ten cooking every single dish. So I
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: wanted my round crunchy fried garlic with my soft shelled
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: garlic crabs like everything ten out of ten. So I
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: didn't get it as much. But whenever Anne was there
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: and I was sure she was there, I would ask
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: her for the soft shell garlic crabs like half the time.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: And this one time she looked in the buck and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: she was like, oh, we're out of crabs, sorry, And
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it's okay, I'll get the pad
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: crop how guide Now of course she was like no, no,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, and she called to her daughter and
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: she was like uh in tai and her daughter ran
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: down and I was like, so should I get the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pad crap pow and she was like, oh no no.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I told Juliette to run to the river and get
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the crabs, and her daughter Juliette ran down to the
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: river that was going right around this restaurant, ran down
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: to the river and came back in like five minutes
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: with twenty of these crabs, threw them in the bucket
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and pulled out the twenty crabs and did the exact
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: same thing, cooked it all up with garlic and spices
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: and fried it all. Started it to me on the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: place with rice, and the whole time my jaw was
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: metaphorically on the floor. I didn't let on how shocked
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I was at this turn of events. But the reason
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: these crabs tasted so good was because they were alive
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: ten minutes ago, living a totally fine life in the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: stream until Juliette's deft hands plucked them from the clear
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: water and I got to enjoy them in a fried dish.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Oh man, they were so good. They were as good
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: as every time. So they were always fresh, these crabs.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: And sometimes in the little house that I was renting
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: in the bamboo forest nearby, I would swim in that
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: same river. And after Juliette got those crowds from the river,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I started looking around. I was like, Oh, yeah, there
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: are these little crabs everywhere, and that's where they're soft shelled.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I guess it's in the river. Maybe their soft sheld.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: I really don't know, because I caught a whole bunch
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: of crabs in Thailand. I was living in a beach
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: house in that really famous island. Pouquette. Is that it Pouquette.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I was living in a beach house and Pouquette and
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: I would walk around on the beach at night, just
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: listening to podcasts for my evening walk, and I noticed
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: these things running around. I was like, oh, those are
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: sand crabs, and some of them were pretty big, like
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: as big as my hand, and I started wondering if
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I could catch them and eat them. And then I
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: spent a few weeks running around on the beach at
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: night catching sand crabs, and it was pretty fun. I'd
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: bring them back in this huge pale I brought with
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: me and then cook them up at home, and some
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: of the small ones were soft shelled, but most of
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: them all were hard shelled, and I felt like I
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: was going to break my tooth. I was very careful
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: trying to bite each one after I cooked them, and
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the soft shelled ones were great, but there was too
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: many hard shelled ones. It wasn't really worth the trouble
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: of running after them on the beach, although it was
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: worth the fun experience of chasing crabs on the beach,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: which is really funny and pretty fun to do and
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: very satisfying. When I got like a giant one the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: size of my hand, I got better and better, and
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I started getting bigger and bigger crabs. And there was
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: this lady on that island who made mohidos for a
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: buck fifty or something, I can't remember. They're really cheap.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: And we got to be friendly because I got a
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: lot of muhidos when I was in Puquette, and she
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: told me that her and her mom were fishermen or fisherwomen,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: and I showed her the crabs I had caught, and
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: she was like, whoa, those are pretty big. And we
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: talked about also that beach was so weird, like giant
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: fish would just wash up on the beach sometimes and
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: lay there. And I showed a picture of a huge one,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: like huge, like as large as my torso big, like
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: it was large. And I showed a picture to her mom, like, oh,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: where where? And I told her and I was yesterday,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, if you see it, if
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the eyes are not white, it's good. You can take
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: it home and eat it. And I was like stop.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Of course, I didn't even think of it because it
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: was such a large fish and so bizarre, just lying
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: there freshly dead, and she was like, look around the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: gills since they're not gray. It was very freshly dead,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and I didn't realize what it was at first. But
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the waves there are very strong, so I think what
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: happens is they pick up fish, slam them, sort of
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: stun them, and then wash them onto the shore and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the fish don't come too in time enough to swim
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: back to the sea. Because I found pef pufferfish and
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: several other fish just laying on the beaches in the evening,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: but none mostly pufferfish. After that big good one that
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: she said was good for eating. I looked it up.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: It's like a queen's something fish. I don't know. It
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: was super cool, though I wish I took it home,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: although I could have fit in my freezer. I would
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: just have to cut off the head and the tail
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: and then it would fit in the in the refrigerator
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I had. It was big and I wanted to eat it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I also didn't know how I would carry it home,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: like how I would physically carry it home, because I
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: had to walk up a mountain like to get to
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: my beach ass and I did have my backpack man
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: probably could have I should have just tried. I would
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: have looked insane, but I normally look pretty crazy anyway.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, padcrop aukai dal is my favorite staple dish
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: in Thailand. For sure. That's the dish I'll get more.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: That's the single dish I will get more than any other.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: I love going to the buffets the softshell garlic crab rocks.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: But it was very difficult to find it exactly how
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I like it. A lot of people cooked it maybe
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: on too low a heat, so it didn't actually crisp
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: up the garlic and stuff. It was more like soggy
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: oil crab and garlic. Which is it still tastes good
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: because it's garlic oil, but I like the crispiness and
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the less oil left over after you fry something. And
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: that is very difficult to find because people it's easier
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: just throwing oil then cook. I mean, I still don't
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: know how to do it correctly. I can't fry stuff.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: I can't really fry stuff the way I like it.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: So when I find someone who can in a restaurant,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: it's a very rare and very exciting time for me.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Oh you know what, turmeric sausage. That's what I call it,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: because they sell like six ten. They sell so many
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: different kinds of sausages. Half of them are just different
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: hot dogs, but some of them are real sausages in
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Thailand on sticks, on skewers, and there's I don't like
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: any of them because it's mostly hot dogs are really
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: crappy meat. But there's one that is clearly made from
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: real meat, I believe, ground pork, and then it's stuffed
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: with turmer and a whole bunch of other spices. But
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: because of the turmeric, they're bright orange like sausages instead
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: of gray or red. Yeah, they're this bright yellowish orange,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and they have a lot of fresh herbs mixed in
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: with the meat. I don't know why they only make
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: this one fresh one. They could clearly make a bunch
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: of fresh ones. Maybe it's just too difficult to make them,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: But then they cost the same. It's like the hot dog.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: If you get the hot dog on a stick, just
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: a crappy kosher hot dog or whatever Oscar Meyer hot dog,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: it's a buck on a stick. And then if you
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: get this super fancy one, it's a buck on a stick. Actually,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's only ten bots, so it's like thirty
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: cents for either one of them. But so I always
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: get the one with real meat and real spices and
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: real chilis ground up inside the sausage. And man, that
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: became once I finally I stumbled upon it because I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: tried a lot of them, and not everybody has this
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: orange turmeric sausage, and like I said, they don't differentiate.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I've asked every person that sold those what they call them,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and every single time they just say sausage in thie,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: which is the exact same word they use for the
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: hot dog sausage and for the regular gray sausage, and
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: everything's just us sausage. So there's no special name for
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: this turmeric sausage made with real meat and fresh spices
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: and chili peppers. And they make a few a day
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: and when they're gone, they're gone. But they are so good.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: They're packed with flavor and everything's fresh and just delicious.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I think I ate four of those in one day, though,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, that was a lot of
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: oil and spices and sausage. That's just like, you don't
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: need that much fatty turmeric sausage. I didn't really regret it.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I was happy, though, had a splash out day, just
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: one wild and I would usually get one or two
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: of them a day when I didn't have an all
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: you can eat bfet to day, or I didn't have
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a restaurant around that did really good powdacrop Pawkeye. Now,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I would find one of these guys, like maybe one
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: in five to one in ten of the guys who
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: sell sausages sausages on the street, and there are one
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: hundred of them on every block, like ten to twenty
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: percent of them sold these or in jell o turmeric sausages,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and they were all pretty good, and some of them
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: are better than others. Some of them are a little
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: too tart, they have a tanginess. Maybe that's just because
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: they're not super fresh, I don't know. But when they're
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: not too tart, they're just delicious. And even the tart
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: ones are delicious. It's just good food over there. So
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: that's definitely an entry on this list, turmeric sausage. And
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: you'll know what I'm talking about, because if you're there,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: you find the guys selling the sausage links there's all
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: the different kinds and then there's one that doesn't look
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: like the others. Most of them look like hot dogs.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: A couple of them look like gray sausages. They're usually
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: pretty sour. And then one of them is a yellowish
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: orange stuffed in a sausage link casing about six inches
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: long or so, and they're all on skewers. And I
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: would suggest getting the turmeric one. When you get the
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: turmeric one, or really any sausage, I think they do this.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they do this with all of them,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: but if you get the turmeric sausage, you always get
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: a little plastic bag with slices of cabbage. They freshly
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: slice it right there. Throw the slices of cabbage in
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: the bag, throw a couple of chili peppers, and then
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: put the turmeric sausage in there. So you have a
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: little salads to go with your sausage, which is really
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: great because it is a fatty, oily sausage, so it's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: good to have that the sharp bite of the cabbage
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: they're with it, and a little bit of vegetables so
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: you're like, hey, I'm not just clogging my heart. Here's
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: a salad in a bag and chili pepper to burn
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: out that oil. Yeah, turmeric sausage is still a favor
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: if ivery. I forget about it every time until I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: go to Thailand, and then I'll see someone slaying outside
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: the road and my body will be like, well, go
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: get that right now, Go get that immediately. So good
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: turmeric basil, bunch of fresh herbs and spices, chili peppers, whatever, meat.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: It is pretty shirts pork with a salad and oh
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: so good. Oh geez, speaking of so good. And this
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: is more of a snack, so that reminded me. I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: mean the turmeric sausages, fresh and dried mango. The fresh
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: mango is fantastic, but I in particular I like a
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: lot of dried foods because the flavor is usually eat
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: so much more concentrated when there's less water in the food.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: And mango, oh mango. And in Thailand and a lot
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: of countries where they have dried mango, it tends to
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: be dusted with a lot of sugar. But if you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: look around, there's usually someone selling dried mango without the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: added sugar, and mangoes are plenty sweet already, so oh,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, dried mango. I would buy bags of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: that some days I would only eat dried mango when
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I first the first time I visited Thailand. That was
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: back when I was still living on two hundred dollars
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a month or so, so I was spending one hundred
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: dollars on my housing per month in Thailand, very easy
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: in the hostels to do that. And then I had
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: one hundred maybe one hundred and fifty left over for
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: food for the month. So that's three to five bucks
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: a day, and a big bag of tried mango was
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: three to five bucks. And sometimes i'd get two three
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: dollar bags or one giant five dollars bag, and I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: would just walk around all day after I had the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: first one in that dried mango flavor. It's fresh too,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: It's always bright yellow, bright fresh. Hit me in the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: mouth and just knocked my brain out of my head
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: with the intensity of the flavor. I went days where
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I would just ate mango, and I think it got
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: to the point where I gave myself some kind of allergy,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: because now I get like, like the roof of my
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: mouth will get itchy a little bit if I eat
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: too much of it too often nowadays, but I can
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: still eat bags of it. I still eat bags of
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: it anyway. But the dried mango in Thailand is the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: best dried fruit in the world for me. It's so
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: goddamn good, and it's everywhere in the country and they
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: sell it in the stores if you can't find it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: anywhere locally sold. But the people also like Grandma's, will
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: just chop it up into thin slices, bake it in
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the sun, throw it in a bag, and sell it
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: on the side of the road or in those giant markets,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: And those are the ones I prefer because they usually
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: don't add extra sugar onto the mango. Oh it's so
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: good to find like a giant bag of it for
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: five bucks and just happily munch on it. And they're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: full of carbohydrates. They have a lot of good vitamins.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Mangoes do, but because they're full of carbohydrates, they're kind
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: of a they're pretty good complete food for the day.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not exactly starving myself. I have a belly full
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: of mango at the end of the day. And that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: was good because I was backpacking a lot when I
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: first visited, walking between towns every week or so, and
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: I would, yeah, I would grab a huge bag of
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: mango dried mango and just eat it slowly all day,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: which wrecked my teeth at the time, but my teeth
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: were already crappy. It didn't wreck my teeth. The mango
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: reminded me how terrible my teeth were after not using
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: an electric toothbrush for the first thirty years of my life.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Luckily I was in Thailand, and if you go listen
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: to the medical Tourism stories or Thailand Dentistry, maybe that
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: was maybe I talked about it mostly in the Medical
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Tourism episode. I got all my teeth fixed, and now
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I can eat dried mango alaan and my teeth don't hurt.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: Knock on wood, Okay, that's the dessert. That is the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: last favorite Thailand food. Those foods they're all so good,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and there's all there's so many other things. There's stir
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: fried clam dishes, there's this omelet they make with clams.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Just the shrimp there are so fresh. The seafood there
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: is amazing all over the island. The seafood's amazing, But
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: then so is every single pork and beef dish. And
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of people like chicken dishes. They're good there.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: I just don't like chicken as much as I like
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: red meat. Yeah, this is all the food I have
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: for my favorite Thailand foods right now. But if you
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: are worried that you're not going to find anything because
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Thailand sounds like an exotic place or whatever, boy are
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: you gonna find really good food all around you even
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: if you just I would just look for those all
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: you can eat buffets first, and then the mango rice
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: or dried mango because everyone sells the mango fresh and
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: ride in every fruit market and it's pretty much always good,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: so that's good. And then if you just go to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the all you can eat buffets and they have Korean
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: all you can eat buffets, Chinese, Taile, you can eat buffets,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: seafood specific, red meat specific, all different kinds. They have
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: vegetarian buffets you can or you can just get the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: vegetarian stuff at the regular buffets because all of their fresh,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: all their vegetables and fruits are always fresh in Thailand.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: It's phenomenal. It's fuh no nomenal. So there's just with
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the all you can eat buffets, you can pay five
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: maybe ten dollars and look for the kind of food
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: you like that they make because there's such a blend
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: of cultures in that country, and then you can look
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: for more restaurants similar to what you liked at those
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: buffet places, because you can try a whole bunch of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: thing at the buffets. But do it. If you have
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: any inclination to visit a beautiful country with super nice
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: people and clear ocean waters, yeah you should do it.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I will say. I know I mentioned Pouquette, but their
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: beaches are not great for swimming. I would go to
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: most other parts of Thailand where they have tons of
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: great beaches for swimming and snorkeling and all that stuff.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: And you can rent bikes and drive from town to town,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: or you can just backpack around. You gotta be careful
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: of those wild dogs at night in the country. The
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: dogs are bitey in Thailand and other countries. But yeah,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: just know that if you're going to backpack, and I
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: did this many times in the night all the time.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: But if you're worried about dogs or something that is
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a country, definitely in the country there are wild, angry
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: dogs not on leashes. Well, you know what, sometimes it's
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: worth fighting through a wild pack of dogs to get
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: to the next mala. All you can eat buffet. Thank
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: you so much for listening. I love talking about great food,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: so this was pretty fun. I wonder how many other
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: countries I can do this with. Maybe if I don't
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: have enough to talk about with other countries, I'll combine
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: a few countries. But Thailand definitely has more than a
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: few good dishes. I'm sure I forgot some on here,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: but that's okay, because if I think of them, I'll
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: tell you about them next time. You can talk to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: me a bit of a rambler at gmail dot com
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: or all the socials. I hope you have a great
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: rest of your day, and I hope you're in Thailand
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: right now eating mango or hot pot or powdkrap pakaido
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: or garlic fried soft shell crab or whatever your favorite dishes.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: My mouth is water ring for my favorite foods.