Chiang Mai -- Food!

my (tony's) favorite subject (or close to it).  the food here is simply amazing and there is little i can say beyond describing the pictures below.  there are two groups of photos here (i hope as i write this before importing the photos).  first, there are pictures of how food is sold for people to take home to eat or prepare as part of a larger meal.  think supermarket and prepared food counter spread throughout the city.  the other group is food sold to be eaten right away (what i often call street food, cart food, restaurant food). 

Dried shrimp

 this only looks like regular vegetables, but in fact they are all pickled:  tomatoes, cucumber, squash and a bunch of stuff we could not figure out or understand when we asked. 

 But these we know are pickled garlic (Fiona, eat your heart out): 

 And strawberries (tons of strawberries) arranged in stacked pyramids for display.

 This is pork floss in the making.  ("Rousong (肉鬆), also sometimes called meat wool, meat floss, pork floss, pork sung, is a dried meat product that has a light and fluffy texture similar to coarse cotton, originating from Fujian. Rousong is used as a topping for many foods such as congee, tofu, and savory soy milk. It is also used as filling for various buns and pastries, and as a snack food on its own. Rousong is a very popular food item in Chinese culture, as evidenced by its ubiquitous use in Chinese cuisine." Wikipedia, last checked 9 Feb. 2012.)

Prepared red curry paste (curries are especially common in the north, including the regionally known Keow Soi, sometimes called burmese curry noodle soup.  we simply call it delicious).  the green you see in the back is not a green curry paste but a green chile paste that is often served as a condiment and is super good.  

Ok.  so this view is intentionally odd, i admit.  it was shot from above a stall in a massive market (more in a subsequent entry)  this stall serves this green curry (both pots are the same) along with local chiang mai sausages as well as other thai sausages, sticky rice (which is eaten in the same meal as steamed rice but with fingers in little balls), and other fixings to take home or the office for eating later.  this is not where the food is prepared;  it is brought from another place in the market  we ran across.  these guys (guys haul and women serve) carry large baskets of sticky rice, pots of curry, etc.  and return empty handed to collect more.  the food is then dished out into plastic bags (more common than other containers), wrapped with a rubber band and sold. 





Oh, this is not really food (and we saw no evidence that anything more unusual than innard or crickets are eaten in chiang mai. but i had to add thsi for the animal lovers.  Dogs are really well fed, don't bark a lot, and seem well fed (really different than we saw in Mexico or Malaysia). 

On to food we were eating.  below are scenes from stalls (where you just buy the food to eat and walk), stalls which use any available space, sidewalk, street, open area in front of closed business for tables, and sort of restaurants.

roasted shallots and garlic

Tricycle Food cart (grilled meat)-- this is food to buy and walk with while eating

Congee (known here as Juk)

Restaurant serving above congee

Fried Chicken and cracklings (both very common)

Peanuts and rice steamed in taro leaves and bamboo shoots.  Also common all over. 

Rice pastries (the different colors are from different color rice)

Semi permanent stall with sidewalk seating (notice the electric cable, which plugs into plugs on the electricity pole)

Cold Noodles stall, this was in the sunday night market (more later) and quite temporary

fried something next to prior stall at night market

this added for its humor value.  this stall in same night market was in the wat i wrote about in a prior entry. 

Another stall in the same wat at the same sunday night market 

Stall with seating inside

food to eat while you walk.  i took a chicken leg (more meat than the head) to the next stall, where sherry and i shared said leg along with noodles (of course). 

 that's it for now.  next, i hope, is street scenes (very loosely categorized) and maybe a couple of elephant pictures.