Fruits Common to the USA

I just went across the street and spent I really can’t speak for the rest of the USA but being from California I can tell you that many fruits I eat here in Bangkok on a daily basis are readily available in supermarkets.  There are a couple major differences.

Fresh fruit is very convenient.  I already blogged about the yummy Thai oranges which are usually juiced. I have yet to find a street in Bangkok without at least 1 (there are usually 2 or 3) fruit stands.  From my apartment I have to walk about 5 meters to the nearest!  You go there, point to the fruit you want which is usually chilled and sliced and they put it in a little plastic bag with a skewer so you can eat it while you’re walking down the street.

These fruit stands are open from early in the morning (I can’t actually tell you if this is really true because I usually wake up around 2pm but I assume to be true) to late in the evening.  I have gotten fruit around 11pm but most of the food stands in the street are closing down by then.

The price is also very nice.  The little pre-sliced bags of fruit cost 10 baht (29 cents) each!  All 6 bags of fruit which you see above cost a total of $1.74!

Types of Fruit Readily Available

I’m not sure about the seasonal aspects of the fruits but the most common fruits I see are papaya, watermelon and pineapple.  There is also canetloupe, mangos and Thai guava to name a couple.  I will give a quick rundown of how the fruits taste as certain fruits are more likely to be sweet and ripe while others are often unripe.

Papaya

When I first moved to Bangkok I didn’t really like papaya.  It may have been because I never had good papaya in the US.  I remember papaya to having a pumpkin-esque after taste in the US.  I can tell you in Thailand I have eaten papaya every day for the past 3 months and I have only had a couple of poor tasting bites.

Watermelon

I’ve yet to see any fruit stand without watermelon.  It is fresh, sweet and delicious most of the time.  It comes sliced without the rind.  Sometimes you can find yellow watermelon which tastes the same.  Sometimes the watermelon is de-seeded and sometimes it has the seeds which you can spit out in the street if you like.

Pineapples

Pineapples are pretty much in every fruit stand as well.  The slices come ready to stab with a skewer and be eaten.  I had pretty good luck with pineapples as they are almost always ripe, sweet and tasty.

Mangos

Mangos taste different every time you get them.  Sometimes you will find them hard with a little bitter taste to them.  I think this is how some people like them.  I actually like them hard sometimes as they are not as sweet.  The soft mushy mangos are absolutely delicious in the Thai dessert mango sticky rice which is so delicious it is going to get its own blog entry.

Thai Guava

I learned in my Thai language that the Thai word for guava is ‘farang’ which also means foreigner!  I put 2 + 2 together and figured that guavas were not native to Thailand which is true, they originate from the tropical Americas but have been in Thailand since the 17th century and are available year round.

I’ll admit, up until now I had no idea what this green fruit with a white hard inside was.  I thought guavas were pink on the insdie and I figured it was some kind of apple.  I have had some Thai guava which was very bitter and some which is sweet.  The Thais sprinkle salt? which is avaiable at the fruit stands on the guava.  I like the sweet kind better as it is very crunchy.  WARNING:  Don’t eat this stuff fast unless you want to visit the dentist.  The little seeds can sometimes be very dangerous for the ole’ molars!

I’m not too sure how ‘common’ this type of guava or guava in general is in the US but I decided to put it on this page because I had heard about it before.  Part II will be devoted to some of the fruits I have recently discovered and had never heard of before I moved to Bangkok.

The Fruits of Thailand:  Part II

Homeless:  Here & There

Coming from San Francisco where I lived in SoMa and worked in the Mission District I had my fair share of experience with, crack heads, drug dealers, gang members, mentally ill psychos and of course homeless people.  Moving 7,000 miles across the world, I have left most of the crack heads, drug dealers, gang members and mentally ill pysychos behind but still deal with a fair share of homeless.

Bangkok is much much bigger than San Francisco and I haven’t been to most of it but so far I am guessing that San Francisco has far more homeless people per capita than Bangkok but there is a big difference.  The homeless people in San Francisco are mostly a mixture of people with mental illness and drug addictions which is far difference from the homeless in Bangkok.

Homeless in Bangkok

There are a fair share of homeless people along the Sukhumvit which is the are with the most cash flow in the whole country of Thailand.  You would think that the majority of the homeless would be in an area where the most money is walking around so overall there are very few homeless in Bangkok compared to San Francisco.

The primary difference I see is the homeless in Bangkok are truly homeless while the homeless of San Francisco have far more options to improve their life.  You see people with missing limbs and other deformities literally lying face down in the middle of a busy sidewalk and they appear to have been there all day.

I would say the ratio of people giving change to the homeless is about the same in both places.  I myself, often will give small change if I have it handy.   I have something I call “Homeless Packs” which I make for the homeless.

Homeless Packs

In San Francisco I would create Homeless Packs of stuff which I didn’t want anymore.  I would usually put some old (but nice) clothes, cleaned, and folded in an old backpack and put some other goodies in there and give it to homeless people I walk by.  I figured it was better than the city’s stupid homeless meters and the idiots who give them money right in front of a liquor store.

My last homeless pack I gave away was on the last day of living in my apartment.  I had 12 or so beers and 4 bottles of wine and some hard liquor which I stuffed in a computer bag which weighed about 40 pounds full booze.  I told a homeless guy by my work that I had a secret mission for him.  His smile when he opened the bag was priceless.  I saw him on the block about 40 minutes later and he told me he passed the mission.

Since all my belongings fit in a couple pieces of luggage now and I hardly buy anything the only thing I have to give away is money.  It works out great because unlike the homeless people in San Francisco, the homeless in Bangkok are actually starving and I would think that any money I give them will go directly to food and water to stay alive rather than a 40 at the local liquor store.

I take all my coins under 5 baht, some Malaysian Ringittes for good measure and throw them in a little plastic bag.  One, 2 and .5 baht coins are pretty much an inconvenience to have in your pockets anyways.  The first homeless pack which probably had 150-200 baht I gave to a little kid who was begging at the BTS entrance of MBK.  He looked pretty shocked when I gave him the pound bag of money but I looked back and a minute later he gave it to the homeless guy across the way which I guess was his dad.

I have heard about the parents or adults using the kids as ‘bait’ and seen it in Manila but I guess it exists all over.  I remember last time I was here at Khao San Road there were these little kids who came up to you with laminated note cards which said something like, “Hi my name is XXX, I am gathering money to attend college, I want to be a doctor.  Could you please help?” which I guarantee had a guy sitting in an apartment counting the money.

I had a spill of small coins a few minutes ago so I decided to blog about homeless packs because on Monday on the way to Thai language class I have scouted out a homeless lady who I will give my newest homeless pack Monday night.

Eating at the Hospital

I will admin, probably the only reason I went to Bumrungrad Hospital’s food ‘mezzanine’ in the first place is because it is a 1.5 minute walk from my apartment building.   It is not the only reason I go there on a semi-daily basis though.  The fact is there is some good, clean food in the internationally renowned hospital.

Whether it is a destination for people living or visiting anywhere else in Bangkok is a question.   Having a 24 hour McDonald’s may be a good thing to know for nearby Nana Plaza late night partiers though.  I will blog about Bumrungrad’s other places to get food in a bit, but today I’m blogging about the Japanese restaurant which I had been eyeing for nearly a month and not visited.

Sushi in Thailand

A total coincidence but I was jogging down Sukhumvit 23 today amidst all the foot traffic, traffic and of course air pollution and I saw a street vendor selling sushi in the 90+ degree heat.  It still looked like “art” but not the kind of art I like to get myself involved with.

Sushi restaurants in Thailand are not as common as in San Francisco or New York.  Bangkok is an hour away from any seaports so I would think different types of fresh fish take at least a couple days on ice to get from the sea to any place selling sushi.

I am not saying I’m ‘sushi expert  but I have eaten sushi everywhere from Brazil, to Costa Rica to San Francisco to the world famous fish market Tsukii in Japan which has the freshest and some say best sushi in the entire world!   In San Francisco I had sushi about 3 times per month but at this point I hadn’t had it for over 4 or 5 months so it was time.

Ayame

I always noticed Ayame amongst the Bumrungrad mezzanine restaurants but I knew it was more expensive and had sit down service like a normal restaurant.  I never saw more than 1 or 2 tables full in Ayame and when I went in I was the only person.

I was seated and first thing I noticed was 2 sushi chefs.  This was good news because I know from San Francisco, any sushi bar w/ no dedicated sushi chef(s) is almost 100% likely to have terrible sushi.  Ayame is decorated with traditional Japanese items, has a couple of large fish tanks to add to the experience.

I ordered a ton of food as usual and I didn’t know what to expect.   I started out with a wakame salad which tasted the same as every wakame salad I’ve ever had.  I had some teriyaki chicken with the skin and a lettuce salad which was decent as well.

In Japan I had to ask for my sushi “wasabi nuki” (without wasabi) because they put the wasabi on top of the rice under the fish.  I tried to explain to the Thai waitress and she didn’t understand so I figured they would leave out the wasabi.

I first tried the salmon nigiri which I get every time.    The salmon melted in my mouth which I think is good?  I tried the saba nigiri next and it was pretty good as well.  I had a roll they called ebitem maki which had seaweed on the outside and I’m pretty sure had fried shrimp in the middle and it was pretty good as well.

Price

Price is probably always going to be an issue when I talk about restaurants because I tend to eat a lot more than the average person.  Sushi restaurants pose the biggest problem because you pay per piece.  In this case I will detail my bill at Ayame to avoid confusion.  The price reflects an order of sushi.  If you order an entré only and an appetizer your bill will likely be around 500 baht.

Total:  1,272 Baht ($37.26USD)

Wakame (seaweed) salad: 150 baht
2 Sake (salmon) Nigiri:  300 baht
1 Saba (mackeral) Nigiri:  100 baht
1 Tamago (egg):  60 baht
1 Ebitem Maki (roll w/ fried shrimp):  200
1 Order Teriyaki Chicken w/ Salad (no rice): 200
1 Asahi Beer:  90 baht
10% gratuity:  108 baht
Vat tax:  84 baht

Overall Impression

I thought Ayame sushi was pretty good.  Nothing I ate there made me angry for being so bad which was an often occurance in San Francisco’s many sushi restaurants.  I left satisfied, and full although I spent about 42x more than what I spend on average for lunch!

{Han-Baa-Gaa}

I have a good idea.  How about go to Thailand, go to an American style luxury shopping mall, and then eat some Japanese hamburgers?  That is exactly what I did when I went to the Japanese burger chain Mos Burger in the Siam Paragon shopping center.

Back in San Francisco, living across the street from a Thai restaurant,  eating Thai food more than once a week was completely out of the question.  Fast forward 3 months and I live in Bangkok and eating Thai food is a daily occurrence.  Sometimes Thai food is on the menu multiple times per day.

Change of Pace

Eating Thai food often makes you crave certain things.  For example, while eggs are pretty much served every meal, a good American style breakfast is one thing sorely lacking here in Bangkok.  Another thing eating Thai food all the time makes you crave is hamburgers.

Why do hamburger cravings come?  Maybe it because beef is never on the menu for any average restaurant.  Maybe it is because the most common burger options you see are McDonald’s and Burger King?  Whatever the reason Mos Burger was the choice of the day.

Where to find Mos Burger

I forgot to bring my umbrella to my Thai language class so after when it was pouring outside I had to take the BTS somewhere instead of walking home and getting my books soaked.  I ended up going to Siam Paragon shopping center.  Siam paragon is a giant shopping center which is purported to be the 2nd most luxurious mall in Bangkok.  Beleive it or not, this was the 1st time I have went to Siam Paragon which was in effect just like any mall back in the states.

Walk in the Siam Paragon center straight from the BTS exit and take the first escalator you see down.  On the bottom floor you will find dozens of restaurants and the “Gourmet Grocery” which is a huge, expensive (for Thai standards) grocery store.  Mos Burger is right in the middle.  It is surrounded by a fence where you walk in, order, get your number, grab a seat and have your food delivered in a couple minutes.

How was it?

I don’t know whether my ‘burger ecstasy” was from lack of eating burgers which I never ate in the states or what but I thought the standard cheeseburger I had at Mos was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had!  It wasn’t too big but it had a delicious flavor.

You can see in the picture a Ahi tuna looking topping on the burger.   I’m not exactly sure what it was, I’ll just call it ‘mystery sauce.’  To me it tasted tomato-ish like sloppy Joes on top of a burger which was on top of a onion and mayonnaise mix.  All together it was delicious.  I have read that Mos Burgers has created a craze in Japan and Asia like the in-N-Out Burger did in the US a few years ago.

Unfortunately I took the salad instead of the french fries so I can’t tell you anything about the fries.  The salad was decent, not bad, but nothing to write home about.   There was really nothing more to talk about, tasty burgers with quick efficient service.

Price

I spent 139 baht ($4.08) for a ‘value meal’ 1 Mos Cheeseburger (79baht) 1 Mos Salad (49baht) and 1 coke zero (26baht). I was pretty full but I could see people ordering more than 1 hamburger which I think 2 would be the magic number if you were really hungry.

Eat your Greens

When I came to Thailand for the first time I saw the green these ground green fruits on street stands.  There are so many delicious fruits on the street stands ( which I will blog about later) that I never bothered to ask what the fruits were.  Even if I asked what they were, I would no doubt hear a Thai phrase which I couldn’t understand anyway.

Well it turns out, these green fruits about the size of small apples are one of the most common fruits in America, they just look different.  In Bangkok they taste a little different.  They have a wide variety of tastes, some sweet, some tart and they always seem to be ripe.

Green Juice ?

The juice is sold more often on the streets of Bangkok than the fruit.  The juice sometimes is very sweet and sometimes has a little tang to it.  It is sold in containers of around 400ml for 20 baht (58 cents) and 40 baht on the street, usually chilled.  It is quite refreshing on a hot humid day walking down the streets of Bangkok.

What exactly is this Tasty Green Fruit

I figured if I was going to blog about something as mundane as a normal household fruit for every American I would leave it a mystery for a bit.  The last hint about this fruit and juice is, the juice can kill you!

Have you figured out what this mystery green fruit is yet?

Oranges!