Sidewalk eating: bangkok

Having a business in the fashion industry requires me to travel a few times a year. My usual haunts are Bangkok and Hong kong with an occasional visit to China. What I love about these places are the various things you find in terms of food.

Bangkok is a city full of food. Everywhere you walk you can see fruit vendors, and street food of all sorts. People here are very sanitary and you can rest assured that eating is quite safe. Once during our travel, my mom, like a typical chinese person bent over one fruit vendor and took a lanzones (duku in indonesia, lang-sat in Thailand)  and ate it. The old lady vendor eyed my mom. (chinese like picking vendor's fruits and tasting it). My mom, still pouring over the fruits threw the peel on the side of the road. The old lady grumbled, stood up and picked the peel my mom threw (this, while saying something in the native language.. w/c I am guessing would be cursing us for messing up her fruit and littering).

Most of the time, I stay in the Chinatown section of Bangkok. - food life here starts from  6pm onwards, when the stalls  come out and the people of Bangkok (sometimes you see a mercedes benz parked and the owner eating at a sidewalk stall) converge to eat. 

During the day, you can still satisfy your taste buds with the various barbeque you can pass by

this lady has no sale... thus the face

i love how they put the chicken between those skewers

I chanced upon this stall during lunch and there was a line of workers getting food. You can also get it with a side order of sticky rice

my "SUKI" BBQ guy

 My regular BBq guy usually sets up at about lunchtime. He sells the pork BBQ at 5 baht per stick (7 pesos or 15 cents) last time I was here, funny thing is, I took 3 sticks and gave him 20baht and he gave no change... maybe the price is now 7baht and he gave me a discount for being a good customer.
Communication is very simple. just point, get the sticks and then give excess payment and then wait for them to give you change.-- hahaha

they usually will point to the rice and inquire if you want some. or the chili sauce... (just tell them NINOY - for "only a little"... bec you wouldn't want to choke on too much chili sauce and believe me... a little goes a long way.)

I also saw a funky kind of fruit.. the first time I ever saw this kind - they call it SA'LA (short A)

It looks like a durian but red and smaller. I tasted it, it kind of tastes a bit on the sour side. My friend said they sometimes put in in syrup (to make it sweeter)

I also saw them roasting some bananas.... (didn't get to try it though)

All around you can also get FRESH orange or lime juice. This will cost about 60baht (90 pesos or $1.8) per 8 oz bottle. You can see them squeeze the juice right in front of you.

see the box of lime peels?

I highly recommend you try the juices. They help refresh you when you are tired from working and walking all day! I don't think we have anything like this here in Manila. 

I didn't get to take pictures of other street food around the area (I have my regular job to attend to--- you know!). There are still the juicy sausages, the various fruits, the grilled squid.... and I think I'll save that for a later post. 

The one thing you should always remember while traveling is-- keep an open mind, don't be afraid to try anything at least once, and see if the vendor has clean hands.

Happy Eating!