That night

My MIL brought the kids home from Kapit last Friday afternoon.  Suddenly felt my 2 older kids grown a lot after few weeks of absence. They grown taller!! Or maybe it is me? Lol.

In the evening we went to Hong Fu restaurant (opposite Medan Mall) for dinner. Another favourite eating place of us.

As usual, the restaurant was packed. Maybe because it was school holiday and many people came back for the Ching Ming.

But our food came out less than 10 minutes after we ordered. We had its yummy but salty pork belly with dried chillies. 

 And this delicious and crunchy stir-fried midin in red wine.

My boy's favourite, Deep-fried Japanese soft beancurd with minced meat gravy. He finished his bowl of rice just with this dish.

 Meanwhile, this is my girl's favourite dish, fried pork trotter. She simply love the tasty skin. *wink*

And not forgetting their sea snails. Fresh and tasty as usual, with the fermented beancurd dipping.

It was a wonderful dinner and everyone enjoyed it much.  And kids are back to schools. Another busy semester for both as exams are coming up. End of May.

Weekend Menu # 59: Warming chicken soup

School holiday is over and tomorrow kids are going back to schools. It has been a relaxing holiday for me after back from Thailand a week ago as both older kids were holidaying in Kapit with their grandparents. Since both kids were not around, I have tv all to myself. Lol.

And I hardly cooked for the past week. Like what hubby said, kitchen was closed. Now the kids are at home, I have to start cooking again. I actually prefer to eat in than bringing them out for meals. Less headache. 

I have a pack of this ning shen soup pack from Eu Yan Sang when I got it for my gift hamper.  Hubby asked me to cook some chicken soup few days ago, so I decided to use this pack for my chicken soup.

The herbs are ready packed, so basically just throw everything and thawed chicken meat into slow cooker.  Cook for 2 -3 hours and then add light soy sauce and salt to taste.



And I have a very nice, sweet herbal chicken soup for everyone.  Suppose to be for body warming and good for the heart function.

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Miscellaneous Picture # 17: On the road

Thailand's vehicles are very colourful and some of them really amazed us. The highways were great, smooth and wide.  From the sky, we could see the long stretching highway which is very straight all the way.

 

We were surprised by the trucks here, which were colourfully painted and one truck carried 2 trailers.  Maybe a way to save fuel, reduce pollution and jam by Thai government?



 

The truck that carried 2 trailers on left hand side

The front of the truck.  This one is pretty plain; others are very colourfully painted!

I don't think this is allowed in Malaysia or any other countries.  Overloaded!!

Found this big foot in Pattaya blasting the music away on the road

 

The modes of transportation for the people are many to choose from.  Such as the motorbike, taxi, pick up taxi, sky trains and tuk-tuk.

 

Motorbike drivers waiting for customers to hop onto their bikes

The sky trains are very convenient and they are very punctual

 

The excitement of all is riding the tuk-tuk!  A must for anyone visiting Thailand!

Bangkok 2014 | The day we say farewell

Overall we spent 8 days 7 nights in Thailand. It was a wonderful holiday. We enjoyed ourselves although we walked a lot but that is what holiday is. We seen a lot as we walked and ventured around by foot.

Our flight back to LCCT KL was 1005am (Thailand time). We stayed in First House Hotel in Soi Juldis, Pratunam. A very crowded area with many vehicles passing through the small "soi" (lane) and along the lane walk side was cart sellers with their stuff. Just outside the hotel, we can  see many people walking and cars, taxis and tuk-tuk crawling back-to-back.

The lane is crowded even at 8am in the morning

A cart selling noodles to passing crowd

It took us about 30 minutes to reach Don Mueang airport. After dropped our luggages, we walked a bit around the airport and discovered that it is in its 100th anniversary. Indeed a very old airport.

We had our breakfast in the boarding hall at this Piri-Piri Portugese cafe. Hubby spotted his favourite breakfast meal so without hesitation, he ushered me into this cafe which is next to Subway cafe.

He ordered 2 set of breakfast meal for THB175 per person plus drink. For the long time, I actually enjoyed this simple breakfast. Maybe I were bored with eating noodles in Thailand for breakfast for a week. Lol.

Toast, bacon and egg breakfast for us

I like this saying on its sugar wrapper

So with full stomach we headed to the boarding hall to wait for our flight back to Malaysia. We did missed Malaysia during our holiday. Like they said, home is where the heart is. And we missed our kids too.

Bangkok 2014 | Can't resist

Bangkok is a food paradise, where you can find local food almost everywhere.  On the road side, hawkers pulling their carts or motorbikes, selling their food to walking patrons.  We did not dare to try much of the food because of hygiene, if you get what I mean.  The dust from the vehicles etc.

But we did ate wanton noodles and kuaw chap from few food carts.  Sometimes the nicer food can be found from those food carts than those restaurants and café.



Enjoying my duck noodle

Duck noodle -their noodle is like mee suah

Stewed duck noodle - this one is like silky kuaw tiaw

I had one duck noodle in Pratunam, very tasty. 5-spiced duck meat with mee suah-like noodle. Its stewed duck noodle also not bad.

Chunchy roasted pork noodle soup

I love Thai egg noodles especially the one that they served with roasted pork belly. Simply delicious. Hubby had few bowls of this noodles there. But hard to find egg noodles as I believe Thais like mee hoon and kuaw tiaw more. Or it is not so?

But if you want Pad Thai (those flat egg noodles served with peanuts and seafood), restaurants are definitely your option.  We had one Pad Thai in one of the restaurants opposite Berkeley Hotel Pratunam on the 2nd night. 

My first time eating Pad Thai

I ate a lot of Tom Yam Kung in Thailand.  Think I missed them the most!

One thing about Thailand eating places and even the food stalls at the street side, they are pretty clean.  The toilet hygiene is better than Malaysia's, sorry to say this.  So far, the places we have been to in Bangkok and Pattaya, they were clean.  The street side stalls have dustbin for you to throw your cigarette butts and rubbish.



And what I missed about Pattaya? Its beach, coconuts and bbq squids with small sized cucumber and spicy and sweet sauces dip. Just THB150!! Very fresh.



Pattaya 2014 | Go ga-ga over beef

Hubby was really hunting down the good beef noodles while in Thailand.  In Pattaya, we tried out few places of their beef noodles, but we both agreed that these 2 were serving great beef noodles.  But one thing about noodles in Thailand, they usually served those mee hoon and kuaw tiaw look alike as their noodles.  They called mee hoon and kuaw tiaw noodles as well.  We were confused by their noodles.

We stayed in Sabai Resort which is located at the Pattaya 2nd Road. This road is very long and it stretched more than 1km.  On 2nd day in Pattaya, we walked at the Beach Road, along side the Pattaya Bay beach.  We did not walk much along the Pattaya 2nd Road, but we took tuk tuk and paid THB10 per person for tuk tuk to drive around the Pattaya 2nd road and Beach Road.

After our tiring 2nd day walking in Pattaya, we decided to try out the food stall in between Sabai Resort and Alcazar building. Hubby ordered this super disgusting beef soup for sharing and ended up we did not touch any of the innards. THB100 per bowl. Hubby picked this dish from the photo displayed, thinking it was beef soup. So, sometimes photos can be misleading too.

Do you dare or like to taste this bowl of cow's innards soup?

On 3rd day, when our feet were getting better, we walked a bit along Pattaya 2nd road and looked around.  We bought some shirts and clothings that day.  And also tried out some beef noodle in Boat Bakery for a early dinner.

The Boat Bakery served Western and local food.  We tasted its Beef Noodle soup (THB55) and Pork Noodle soup (THB45).  The soups were sweet and alright to me.  I think the Thai loves to eat sweet thing.  The iced milk tea they served here was rather sweet for me.  We take-away its Bacon Egg and Double Cheese burger (THB60) which was pretty good.

Boat Bakery with a restaurant right next to it

Chunky beef with noodle soup

Thai pork noodle that tasted sweet

The yummy bacon egg and double cheese burger

In the evening, after few drink in a go-go bar, we decided to take a ride in tuk tuk around the area.  It was jam that night as the next day, Pattaya Music Fest was held for 3 days in Beach Road.  But that did not stopped us from enjoying our last night in Pattaya, looking and enjoying the night light and happenings.

It was around 11pm when we hopped down at the Pattaya 2nd road.  We were both hungry so we were looking for supper and after about 15 minutes walk we found a Chinese Restaurant. This Chinese Restaurant is opposite Boat Bakery, same row with Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.  Next to the restaurant is a night market.

Beef noodle soup

Yummy cold dish

A very exclusive Chinese Restaurant as they served shark fin soup and Chinese dishes.  Hubby just wanted to eat beef noodle so we tried its beef noodle and I ordered white porridge and pork ham cold dish.  I like the ham cold dish, and I ate a lot with my white porridge.  Or probably I were too hungry??  Lol!  Total THB700 for our supper plus drink.  Chinese tea is free of charge.  If we have time, we will definitely come back here to try other dish, but time is our constraint.

Pattaya 2014 | Not my ordinary watch

I seen a lot in Pattaya. A real eye opener to me. Used to watch these in tv but now come to see them right in front of my eyes. Unforgettable holiday I had.

Muay Thai

Went for a show on our 2nd night (18/3) in Pattaya Boxing World Stadium (next to MiniSiam night market). The show started at 8pm and our taxi driver helped to buy tickets for us (THB120 per person). 

We were there for 2 hours. First 2 fights involved young boys. I think they are around 12 years old. Imagine how young they were when they trained to be a Muay Thai fighter. Sigh!

2nd fight involved a foreigner and local boy, which the foreigner won. All announcements were in Thai so we did not understand a single world the Emcee was saying.

We caught 4 fights that night. As the night went, the fight was getting tense and the indoor stadium was also more raunchy with people betting. Before the heavyweight fight started we left as we told our taxi driver to pick us at 10pm.

Sexy girl bars

The A go-go bars and pubs are a sight in Pattaya. Sexy young girls in skimpy attires dancing on the pole to those who watch. 

Singha and Chang are the 2 local manufactured beers. I lost count how many I have drank. My limit is 1 bottle a night. Before half bottle gone, my face has turned blush and I was a bit giddy. But worry not, I normally do not drink. ;)

Pattaya 2014 | Walking feet

We over stressed our feet on 2nd day in Pattaya (19/3), as we strolled along the Pattaya Bay coast. Initially planned to rent a motorbike and drove around Pattaya but after all the walking, we decided that walking is better. We can see more and it was a good exercises. Of course, our poor feet were worked to the limit as we walked for more than 3 hours on 3rd day. The day before we went for full body massage for 2 hours (THB45). I think all gone down the drain. Lol.

From Sabai resort, the beach is just about 15  - 20 minutes walk. We did not go for swim as it was damn hot. The sun here was very warm even around 8am! Many tourists were sun-bathing on the sandy beach. Sun block is a must. And I think I got myself a tan too! *wink*

Yours truly on the beach

Sun-bathing folks

(Far away) That was our destination -Pattaya city view point, on the hill top

Stopped by Hard Rock shop for its Pattaya Hard Rock tee

Along the way, we stopped at Hard Rock shop, then lunch at Baywalk Restaurant and 15 mins fish spa (THB10) and a tailor shop just before Walking Street.

Tingling sensation when the fishes feed your feet

Red curry

Beef fried rice

Maybe we were too hungry, the beef fried rice tasted nice. We ordered non-spicy red curry. I preferred the red curry than green curry where the Thais love to add green chillies in their green curries.

View of the beach from Baywalk restaurant

Walking street is a very "happening" street with mostly populated by A Go-Go outlet. It is men' heaven on earth. Lol.

A meaningful signboard on a pub

The welcoming arch to the a go-go, bars and pubs street

The Walking street is an old and colourful street

We walked all the way to the bottom of Pattaya view point which is at the end of the beach and where pier is located. 

We were too tired to walk back so we took a tuk tuk (THB10 per person), a pick up truck that works like a mini bus, where you can hop in and out at any places you want.

Our feet was wobbly after the long walk and I felt they were numb and senseless when we gone for a foot massage centre. There were so many massage parlours to choose. Just don't hop into those big parlours as most of them are not only offer massages but other services as well. Those small shops are much better. THB200 for 1 hour foot massage. Better than those in Malaysia which most masseurs are from China and cost RM25 for 1 hour.

Overall in Thailand we went for 1 body massage and 3 foot massage session. I like Thai massages!