Bangkok, Thailand @ Pratunam Market: Bangkok Street Food Through The Eyes of a Foodie… Round 2!

Romancing Street Food in City of Angels, Part Two!

Location: Pratunam District

Date & Time: May 2012 @ 8am

If Part One has not had you drooling yet, then I certainly hope Part Two will…

After my ultra-satisfactory breakfast of the Champions, I was determined more than ever to wander deep into the gastronomic street food along Pratunam’s main street. This is the second day in Bangkok and my nosh lust is magnified even more.

Nestled among the previous stalls of enticing street food, I found even more stalls with various offerings on the second day. It’s just so amazing to see the abundance of street food that one consumes throughout the whole day. Thais eat and munch all day but the secret to their ever so slim figures is the portion. Every dish is so petite in portion. Believe me when I say the American portion is probably five times the Thai portions!

Diving deeper into the breakfast scene in Pratunam, the daily food scenes intensified with more street vendors carrying all sorts of wares on human carts, mobile carts and tricycle ones. Vegetables, fruits, flowers, candies, clothes, food and all sorts of imaginable items are offered for sale. It’s all in an honest day of work!

Everything is so meticulously packed and arranged!

A seller was busy roasting green chilies over charcoal on my way out to the main street. The scent of the fiery toasted chilies is quite intoxicating to my appetite.

Hitting of the biggest stall in the market area, a group of ladies are busy churning out a variety of Thai Muslim dishes. Adorably cute, this lady worked her multitasking skills for my lens with much poses and much cooking skills at the same time!! Love it, love it!

She was whipping up fresh batches of Thai Fish Cakes (Tod Man Plaa)! The heavenly fragrant aroma was thoroughly addictive with hints of spices… bought two to munch on and wished for more… J

Her other groupies were making Thai Murtabak (Ma Dta Ba Gai) and packing up Chicken Briyani (Khao Mok Gai) for sale. Apparently both dishes are quite similar with ours with slightly variations. I don’t really see much of roti in Bangkok though. I guess Thai simply prefers rice and noodles over bread.

There was also a gorgeous looking Chicken Curry with Eggplant (Kaeng Phet) from the same stall! Looking creamy and spicy, I would have loved to try this!

More pictures of Thai street vendors selling Thai Salad, Salt Covered Grilled Fish with Thai Sambal (Nam Prik Kapi)…

Pork Balls of sorts… lol….for breakfast!!

More Grilled Pork Skewers (Moo Ping) with Green Chili… succulent, sweet, tender and extremely addictive! Paid 10 baht (est. RM1) each but flavors are totally priceless…

Fruits in Bangkok are exceptionally sweet… I wonder why… looking at all the glorious colors makes me crave for fruits now. I tasted a few pineapples, watermelon and mangoes and oh-boy, these were just so sweet and oozing with juices!

Came across this lady selling what looked like Thai Kuihs… just couldn’t resist taking photos of the amazing kuihs and its colors! Did some research and found them to be Thai kuihs wrapped with banana leaves, filled with various fillings and steamed.

Sticky Rice Flour Kuih (Khanom Keng), a traditional kuih made with rice flour and has a sticky and slightly chewy texture. Some are without filling and some have a salty mung bean filling.

This one is Banana Leaf Sticky Rice (Khao Tom Mud), a rice cake made from a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut milk, sugar, black beans and filled with banana. Usually steamed, there are some versions grilled. It has a sweet and creamy flavor. This one reminded me of my mum’s Hokkien Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake sans the banana made during festival for prayers.

Another interesting and pretty looking one is called Grated Coconut Pudding (Khanom Sod Sai). It is coconut pudding filled with shredded coconut filling in it. I believe the inner filling is tinted purple. The outer layer is made from glutinous rice flour and coconut cream. Echoing our local Kuih Koci in flavors but on a sweeter scale.

Corns are popular too! From sweet yellow corns to glutinous bi-color corns and purple corns, they are available freshly steamed. Glutinous corn has a smooth and slightly sticky consistency. The purple corns are also sweet when steamed and are also often used as natural food dye.

Steamed Peanuts (Tua Lisong Tom) and Steamed Sweet Potatoes (Mun Tom) are also available everywhere and all day long. These healthy snacks are good for munchies in between meals!

Thai Desserts is all forms, colors, flavors and textures! I managed to identify quite a few of them after much research.  Steamed Cakes (Khanom Pui Fai), Coconut Rice Ball (Khanom Tom Khaow), Golden Egg Threads (Khanom Foi Thong), Sticky Rice Cake (Khanom Thuay), Thai Steamed Cupcake (Khanom Pui Fai), Toddy Palm Cake (Khanom Tan), Sweet Jackfruit Seeds (Khanom Met Khanoon), Crispy Sticky Dumpling (A-Lua), Thai Coconut Candy and Thai Jelly (Woon). Foi Thong is an interesting batter of egg yolks and sugar boiled in sweet syrup and is usually formed into thin ribbon threads. Khanom Pui Fai is similar to our local ‘Huat Kuih’. I like the Thai Coconut Candy for its sweet and aromatic coconut flavor.

Thai desserts signify the culture of Thai, neat, meticulous, colorful and sweet!

That’s not all folks… there is still more Street Food to come!! In my next post, I ventured to another area of the morning market and discovered the most heavenly pork porridge and deep fried pork. In Bangkok, having one stomach is just not enough… sigh…

Stay tune for more Bangkok Street Food Part Three…