Food Porn

My favorite thing about Asia is the food.  Thailand in particular, not only has the best mix of different Asian foods (Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, etc.), but they've got amazing snacks.  I can't get enough!  If you've never been to an Asian market, go immediately and just look at all the interesting and delicious snacks.  You won't be sorry!  Side note: how are Asians so skinny?  They have the best food in the world, how do they not just sit and eat everything on the menu every day?  It's almost sad that the best food is wasted on the people who seem to be appreciating it the least.  Well, thank goodness I'm here to appreciate it enough for everyone!  

Anyway, in light of my most favorite pastime (going to Big C or 7-11 and studying each aisle like an art student at MOMA), here are some random pictures I snapped last night on a fat...I mean snack run.  Enjoy!

They even had a party of some kind at Big C and were giving away free cookies, doughnuts and balloons.

At one point, they even did a doughnut-eating contest.  I had to pinch myself to make sure this wasn't just happening inside my head (it's what I see in my dreams every night).

So, we went downtown today to get a 30-day extension (to stay in Thailand) and they were closed until Monday due to some sort of holiday.  Grrrr!  Since we were already downtown, we went to an outdoor market:

I feel like I'm in a Dr. Seuss book with all this mysterious fruit.  One fruit, two fruit, red fruit, blue fruit!  

Speaking of fruit, we finally bought and tried the durian.  It's a fruit I've seen both on Anthony Bourdain's show as well and the fat guy that travels and eats every gross thing he can find (it's like Travel Channel's version of Fear Factor/some sort of college hazing).  So, how can I best describe the durian?  Hmm....Basically the durian is a fruit that smells like a mix of old gym socks and rotten eggs stuffed into a dirty diaper and covered in sauerkraut.   

Aaron took this atrocious picture, so for once we can blame him.  This is the flesh of the durian (if you buy the whole fruit, it comes in a giant, spiky shell) and some parts were hard and others were mushy.  I opted to taste the hard part (the mush freaked me out) and if you can get past the smell (it's like going against every instinct in your body), the taste isn't nearly as bad.  It's not exactly good and it's kind of indescribable, I've never had anything like it before.  It's not really sweet, it could almost be mistaken for a vegetable.  Either way, one bite was enough for both of us and we immediately had to not only throw it away, but take the garbage outside and set it on fire, so it wouldn't stink up the entire neighborhood.  People LOVE the durian here, the fruit is everywhere and they even have dried durian and tons of durian products.  I honestly don't get what the fuss is about AT ALL.  Nothing about that is worth stinking up your entire house, maybe try eating a banana?  They're actually good and don't smell like old road kill in your fridge.

Let's end food porn on a high note, shall we?  Last night, we went to the restaurant directly next door to our apartment (talk about laziness...I mean convenience).  From the restaurant you can see our house:

I made Aaron circle it on his phone with a dorky app he has.  He even added an arrow.  What a nerd!

Here's what we ordered (we did take out and ate at home.  We were still in TV/sweatpants mode):

Aaron got chicken with yellow curry and mixed it with rice:

I got shrimp with yellow curry:

and a vegetable called morning glory (tasted like a mild version of green onion):

Man, I love Thai food!  Let's face it, I love ALL food, but Thai food is way up there.

Hope you enjoyed looking at the food as much as I enjoyed eating it!  If you think about it, I'm making a great sacrifice: ordering food and shoving it in my fat face, so you can enjoy the pictures without packing on the extra calories.  You're welcome.