Sunday, February 16, 2020

Around Town

We ate dinner a couple of nights ago at a place called The Faces. It is tucked behind the Chiang Mai Gate Market and I walked past it many times. The ambience was amazing; it was like being in a forest fairyland. The food was very good, but not remarkable.



A non-linear collection of photos:
 
Frogs ready-cooked for your dinner

Lily pads on the moat

Peppercorns for sale at the market
Veggies at the market
Salt and pepper shakers at a restaurant

Offerings at the stupa I walk by daily



Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Flowers and Food

This past weekend was the annual Chiang Mai Flower Festival. Sometimes we have gone to the park where many displays are put up, but didn't get around to it this year. I decided to go to the parade on Saturday morning; I found a ledge to sit on but lasted less than an hour. By the time it gets to our area, it's been going for a couple of miles and the marchers and floats are widely spread out, with lots of regular traffic in between. I saw about three floats and number of marchers, including a band. I think what I enjoy most are the various kinds of regional dress various groups wear.

Part of one float

A group of marchers

Flowered dolphin decorating a traffic island
There is a large, lighted sign in the soi (alley) next to our building advertising the Chang Restaurant and Cooking School. We never tried it, so one evening recently we went there. It was a lovely location, lots of wood in the decor. The food was OK, fairly bland. The best thing we had was a plate of tempura veggies (but not great for a photo).

Chang restaurant interior
... And more food:

I've seen this fruit at the Saturday Walking Street Market several times. Last week I bought a bottle of the juice. It tasted exactly like Hawaiian Punch (or my memory of it; it's been many years since I tasted it).


We've added passion fruit to our breakfast concoction of muesli, yogurt and fruits.


Another Saturday evening market photo -- the size of the shrimp is amazing!


I've seen crickets, grasshoppers, etc., but this is the first time I've seen scorpions for sale. No thank you!


As an appetizer, we got some shrimp dumplings. Delicious!




Tuesday, February 4, 2020

A Special Lunch

Our friend Ming's family home is in Chiang Mai, although we met her when she was a student in Goshen. She recently completed her Ph.D. from Purdue University in Food Systems. (Congratulations!!) She has been here with her family for a visit and we were able to get together for lunch on Monday. She picked us up and we drove out to the edge of the city to a northern Thai place her aunt recommended.

When we arrived, the place appeared attractive. After a bit of confusion as to which place we were meant to be, we were seated.


Dan took this photo of Ming and me.


We ordered a plate of assorted northern Thai appetizers. The bowls had sauces, the brown one being ground pork and the green one being chilis. Two kinds of sausage, a tan-colored kind of solid pork pudding (? not the right word, but I can't think of another way to describe it), pork rinds, and some slightly cooked vegetables, including purple sweet potato.


We got a Burmese style pork curry, which we've had before. It is slightly sweet and very good.


I don't know what this dish was called, but it was a kind of green cooked up with egg and something else. It was fairly mild and a nice flavor.


There was also a small salad bar and we had some cucumber, carrot, and some very unusual greens.

There is so much variety of food available here and I am a bit embarrassed at how narrowly we regularly eat. So thanks to Ming, we really tried some different things!