Chiang Mai Love

So here we are in Chiang Mai.
There's many reasons it's glorious here:

• Much less traffic and a slightly slower pace of life. Reminds us of Boulder and Cuzco, Peru.
• Much more vegetarian food!
• We were walking down the street from our hotel the first night and were wondering if we were going to find a veggie spot. The second Dave said it, there was a huge VEGETARIAN FOOD sign that just popped out of no where. Amazing. Dave ate some mushroom seitan grilled in a banana leaf. That made him very happy.
• The food is super creative, as it's inspired by more than just Thai and Chinese here. There's a large Burmese influence that really adds some excellent tastes.
• Our favorite places, so far:
• Khun Churn - unbelievably veggie buffet for $4 per person. Huge salad bar, unlimited unsweetened iced tea and amazing curries and noodle dishes. So good.
• iBerry. Boutique ice cream shop with local flavors - durian (yucky smell, great taste!), black sesame, mango, etc. Could have been in Brooklyn or Portland. So cool.
• Whole Earth. Fancy veggie restaurant. A bit pricy, but delicious.
• Salad Concept. Again, should be in NY. Huge salad with 5 toppings for $2.
• Veggie Stall. One of our few attempts at street food. All veggie. So yummy. $1 per dish.
• Freedom House. Great non-profit org, working with Burmese Refugees. Delicious and unusual salads and brown rice!
• Much more NGO, entrepreneurial, and environmental spirit here
• We've found several excellent spots that support refugee camps, shelters, and other great causes through their work. It's nice to be able to eat at their spots and support them.
• The owner of our first guesthouse (The Dozy House), just started her place up 3 months ago. She's a really driven lady and has produced a great guest house. Huge fans!
• A no-foam policy at the Saturday night market...only compostable containers allowed (ie banana leaves!).
• Shopping!
• It's no secret that Elli enjoys a good boutique and resale shop. Chiang Mai has many fantastic options and cool streets to walk around. Not as many malls here as in Bangkok, so it's much more enjoyable.
• Weather
• It's way cooler in Chiang Mai than in Bangkok. Enough said.
• Much more nature here
• There are actually TREES in Chiang Mai
• And gardens (Dave's hospital has a whole garden outside of it)
• And flowers! (see royal flora post)
• Much more "religion in action" here
• The wats here are very active centers of learning and prayer. We've had the opportunity to watch monks studying, chanting ceremonies, and much more.
• The monks here are bustling about....that's not to say that this didn't happen in Bangkok, but it's much easier to see in action here in Chiang Mai

There's only a few reasons it's not so glorious here:

• "Haze"
• So the Bangkok Post warned us of a "haze" that has descended on Chiang Mai.
• The Thai equivalent of the EPA called it "unharmful" and most probably an "extra ozone layer."
• This is all BS: it's of course harmful, and whether it's ozone or just particulate matter, it's no good. The real fact is that's probably been so long since a rainstorm that all the pollution has simply built up.
• The selfish bottom-line: all the typical places where there's beautiful views have absolutely zero view right now. Meh. We have imaginations.
• Transport
• Bangkok has an amazing public transit system and taxis are on a cheap meter system (if you can get a driver who will use the meter!). Chiang Mai has a different, and more challenging for the tourist system. There are crazy red trucks (former pickup trucks) that you flag down, and tell them where you're going. They're small public busses, but the driver decides where they're off to. Hopefully one is going your way and for 66 cents you're off. The old city is very walkable (2k to each side), but we live about 45 min (walking) away. Many people rent bikes and just about everyone drives a motorbike.
• And finally: Don't bring your durian (or your dog) in the hotel, please!

Eating and Breathing Bangkok

I've had quite the week: 

• Day 1: Tour with Bangkok Food Tours
• 3 hour walking tour with 5 tastings. This was an excellent way to start my food exploration of Thailand, and a nice way to meet other travellers. I had the most delicious papaya salad (sans shrimp). That's a pork salad in the background. I heard it was tasty. This company was highly recommend in the NY Times and I understand why - they are very organized and really take you to local spots - not tourist destinations. We also took a boat across the river, from the dock near the Mandarin Oriental, so it was nice to see another part of the city.

•  Next I walked around Khao San Road and affirmed why I'm so glad we're not staying in this part of town! Yuck. 
  

•  Day 2: May Kaidee Cooking School
  
• This is the famous vegetarian restaurant and cooking school - May was our teacher for the day and is quite a riot. It's as much a show as a class. It was a huge class - about 15 people. I got there early to help prep, as otherwise they prep everything for you! No chopping required. I wish I too had 5 assistants in my cooking classes! We made 12 recipes, which was almost too much. 
• Some good veggie substitutions to note: 
• Instead of using fish sauce, which is quite prevalent in SE Asian food (made from fermented anchovies, not shellfish), they use a mixture of dark and light soy sauce. 
• They also use miso paste in their curry pastes instead of shrimp paste.
• Tomatoes are used to give red color instead of shrimp oil.

• I'm glad I took this class, as it was a lot of fun, but not the most focused on technique. I'm going to take a private class with May (same price as the group class!) to get more of her veggie secrets! Check out her outfit! She wears a different one (equally beautiful) every day.
• Day 3: Bangkok Thai Cooking Academy
• Another cooking school - vastly different than May Kaidee. I forgot to mention that May dances at the end of class for all of us - complete with headdress! At this school, you remove your shoes before entering, and it's a much calmer environment, with 7-8 students total. 
• There were 6 students in our class - mostly foreigners living in Bangkok. I was the only American and the only vegetarian. We made a delicious green mango salad, a steamed shrimp (tofu for me) with lime sauce, fried chicken (tofu) with tamarind sauce (yum!) and sweet corn in tapioca (ehh). They use corn in sweet desserts, and I'm not totally sold. Give me sticky rice with mango any day! 





 It's amazing taking classes here - there are about 3 assistants per school - they clear dishes, set up everything at the stations and bring out ingredients. At some schools they even chop everything. It's a different way to live, for sure. At first I didn't like it, but I'm appreciative of the calm it brings to a cooking class, especially to have that calm when Bangkok itself is so insane. 


My dishes for the day (minus dessert): 



 Day 4: Ma-San-Man Bangkok Thai Cooking School 

• Right next door to May Kaidee, I thought I'd try out a different approach. This was an excellent school as well! We prepared 8 or 9 dishes, and actually cooked and prepped most of the items ourselves. The teacher was excellent, very knowledgeable and obviously an excellent chef. They were also happy to make veggie options - using mostly mushrooms instead of meat. I brought home many leftovers to David, who was quite happy to eat my work. 
• Here I am preparing Tom Yum soup (the secret is the Tom Yum paste! - don't worry, I'll share once I've found my favorite recipe!) 

• And here's my version of Panang Curry - using a red curry and Thai basil.

• In the past two classes I discovered a new love - coconut sugar. It's like maple sugar, but $1 per pound, not $30 per pound. I could make a great business exporting this to my culinary school! It has the consistency of fudge, with a light, not-too-sweet flavor and it gives incredible depth to recipes. I'd choose it any day over brown sugar. 
• I couldn't get a cab going home - for some reason two cabs rejected me based on my destination (near ths hospital...?) so I walked and walked and then a nice Thai lady told me in English which bus to take. She saved me at just the right moment. Otherwise I would have probably walked for 3 hours to get home. 

 David should be off early today and we're hoping to explore Chinatown before going to Chabad on Sukhumvit Rd for Shabbat (the synagogue is named Beth Elisheva - how lovely!). We've heard this is the expat/business chabad, and much calmer than the Israeli/backpacker on on Khao San Rd. 

David will blog soon about the "breathing" part of this post! Then the title will make far more sense. 

I'll share some recipes in my next post! 

-Eli 

Special Diets

Greetings from Bangkok! 

We're a bit behind in our posts, but here we are! Alive and almost-well and now finally fueled by wifi at home.

Day 1: 

• Finding our dorm at 1 am
• Very very hard
• No street signs, no one knows where "TropMed House is," but many think they do
• Nice taxi driver drove around in circles x 20mins, finally to find some students who knew where to go
• Slept for a few hours
• Big goals today: get thai sim cards, stay awake, and hunt down vegetarian food
• Walked at least 10 miles through the concrete jungle that is Bangkok.  Things are so congested and busy here there is the sidewalk and road, then the skywalk and skytrain, and then the highway above both of those.  Depending on the time of day, you can't really get through on anything beside the skytrain.
• Sites
• Victory Monument
• BTS Skytrain
• Malls
• European/Glitzy American-style malls are numerous. Every international brand known to humankind can be found here.  Eli's favorite part: toilets with Japanese seats ie: warmed seats that give you a nice toosh wash then toosh dry when you're done.
• Gourmet grocery store. Kind've like a whole foods in the basement of one of these monstrosities. We had a delicious carrot-passion fruit juice for $1. 
• MBK. Like an open-air market inside.  Each floor is dedicated to one thing, so we found the cell phone floor.  You've never seen so much cell phone.  Anything for your cell phone in any color/shape/size.  Crazy.  So for $3 each, we now have Thai cell phone numbers.  Thank goodness MBK has a food court floor with a vegetarian stall!!

• Meditation house. An amazingly cool and calming house in the middle of craziness.


• Bakery. Dave's first encounter with Asian bread.  Not entirely impressed right now, but hey, it's really not their specialty, right? Will continue the research. 
• Chatuchek (JJ) Weekend Market. Huge market with over 8000 stalls. We didn't buy anything (too overwhelmed perhaps), but if you want it, they have it - x100. 
• Reason for the post's title: meat is incredibly prevalent in Bangkok's food scene.  Like insanely prevalent.  Unless you specifically want to eat vegetarian food, you'll be eating meat.  This was surprising to us, and as far as we've gathered from speaking with the locals, this is only a change that's occurred within the past decade.  More to come.
• Oh, the real reason for post's title: Eli started off vomiting on the plane (yea for airplane food poisoning), then Dave kept the vomiting train going after eating some funky mushrooms in the hospital cafeteria (you know the kind :-). But we're both on the mend and finally enjoying some delicious Thai treats. 
• Bottom line for today: Bangkok, as other major cities (but in particular this one, even more so than Latin America), is a place of intense and unfair contrasts. On one side of the road, Bentleys and Porsches are roaring into Louis Vuitton and The Four Seasons, while on the other side of the road, people are scraping by on a small bowl of rice.

More posts to come! Cooking schools, hospitals and more Bangkok craziness...