This fabulous meal of Thai fishcakes, green mango salad and red curry with chicken was cooked by us at the home of a lovely Thai lady called Angsana
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There are lots of things in life which are really good ideas. Making mobile phone calls and driving a car spring to mind. You see, individually both give rise to exciting opportunities for social experience, travel and mind expanding. But, doing both at the same time is quite likely to shorten your life or someone else's quite quickly. Going to Angsana's house to learn more about how to cook delicious traditional Thai food (we had a lesson at Thalai Thai restaurant in Hua Hin in 2011) was an absolutely excellent idea. Not only did we eat a great meal and improve our understanding of Thai culture, we met her husband and two utterly delightful children.
Next morning we were heading down to Singapore for two nights so we could rendezvous with some new friends. As traffic in Bangkok centre is pretty awful most of the time, leaving most of our luggage with concierge at our hotel until our return two days later so we could use the BTS and Airport Express train was also sensible. It would be much cheaper than a Limo or a taxi (in Bangkok there's always the possibility that a "taxi meter" won't have seat belts) and we would see some new sights on the way. It's only when you put these two terrific plans together that you have trouble.
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There are lots of things in life which are really good ideas. Making mobile phone calls and driving a car spring to mind. You see, individually both give rise to exciting opportunities for social experience, travel and mind expanding. But, doing both at the same time is quite likely to shorten your life or someone else's quite quickly. Going to Angsana's house to learn more about how to cook delicious traditional Thai food (we had a lesson at Thalai Thai restaurant in Hua Hin in 2011) was an absolutely excellent idea. Not only did we eat a great meal and improve our understanding of Thai culture, we met her husband and two utterly delightful children.
Next morning we were heading down to Singapore for two nights so we could rendezvous with some new friends. As traffic in Bangkok centre is pretty awful most of the time, leaving most of our luggage with concierge at our hotel until our return two days later so we could use the BTS and Airport Express train was also sensible. It would be much cheaper than a Limo or a taxi (in Bangkok there's always the possibility that a "taxi meter" won't have seat belts) and we would see some new sights on the way. It's only when you put these two terrific plans together that you have trouble.
That's a lot of bird's-eye chillies for two people
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Each of the three dishes seen above contain a certain amount of pepper. Mostly in the form of red and some green scuds (bird's eye chillies) but also copious finger chillies. I counted 27 red scuds into the mortar for grinding. Smashing them made my eyes water for two days. Try as hard as I might I couldn't avoid getting the juice on my hands. Taking out my contact lenses afterwards gave me a little warning of what was to come.
Now, there are two parts of the human alimentary tract which are sensitive to the effect of capsaicin. The mouth and the other end. Of course when you eat such a delicious meal, hunger and the rich flavours make you highly motivated to overcome the gradually increasing discomfort and anyway Angsana was very generous with the ice-cold water. There is no issue of motivation for facing what comes 12 hours later. Neither is there any reasonable way of obtaining relief from the soothing effects of ice-cold water. Leastways not if you are travelling by public transport. Suffice to say we were a little delayed in leaving the hotel by a few return trips across the threshold (of pain as well as the foyer of the Grand Hyatt Erawan). We ended up cutting it pretty fine but we just made it to Suvarnabumi in time.
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Each of the three dishes seen above contain a certain amount of pepper. Mostly in the form of red and some green scuds (bird's eye chillies) but also copious finger chillies. I counted 27 red scuds into the mortar for grinding. Smashing them made my eyes water for two days. Try as hard as I might I couldn't avoid getting the juice on my hands. Taking out my contact lenses afterwards gave me a little warning of what was to come.
Now, there are two parts of the human alimentary tract which are sensitive to the effect of capsaicin. The mouth and the other end. Of course when you eat such a delicious meal, hunger and the rich flavours make you highly motivated to overcome the gradually increasing discomfort and anyway Angsana was very generous with the ice-cold water. There is no issue of motivation for facing what comes 12 hours later. Neither is there any reasonable way of obtaining relief from the soothing effects of ice-cold water. Leastways not if you are travelling by public transport. Suffice to say we were a little delayed in leaving the hotel by a few return trips across the threshold (of pain as well as the foyer of the Grand Hyatt Erawan). We ended up cutting it pretty fine but we just made it to Suvarnabumi in time.