Reviews Of Down And Out In South East Asia

Well, my new book Down And Out In South East Asia has been out for a week or so now, and I’ve been very pleased - not to say hugely relieved - with the reviews so far.  Even from people I didn’t pay to write them (I’m joking of course - my ‘marketing budget’ wouldn’t keep Jay Rayner in L’Oreal shampoo for a week).

It’s the sequel to my bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London, and tells the story of how failed chef and hack Lennie Nash sets off to eat his way through SE Asia, with a half-baked plan to buy a restaurant.

Along the way, he encounters a host of weird characters from frazzled bar owners to Walter Mitty CIA agents to seedy sexpats to ice zombies four years over on their visa. The book is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

There is an edited extract on Khmer 440 if you fancy a read - where Nash launches a doner kebab business in Cambodia with mixed results...

But anyway, here are the reviews I’ve had so far...

Chris How: “I loved this book, and it made me slightly ashamed of my own rather pedestrian gustatory experiences in Asia. This is no hippie-dippie 'how I found myself in Asia' travelogue: Alex shows us the darker, grittier side of life in another world, generously spiced with well-researched helpings of real Vietnamese and Cambodian cooking.

“I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Asian food or travel.”

Christian Williams: “Down and Out In South East Asia is a great read from start to finish. It takes you from the grim reality of 'The Hill' with its truly bizarre characters to the food markets of Vietnam and Cambodia, where some of the best eating is to be found.

“Finishing the book made me look into a holiday in South East Asia and I might just do it, but I will be giving 'The Hill' a wide berth.”

Claire: “In Down and Out, would-be chef Lennie navigates a precarious path in his quest to set up his own restaurant in a place in the sun.

“Whilst this travelogue follows the usual backpacker circuit of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia (the standard destinations for those 'doing Asia'), Down and Out stands out in that it takes you well off of the culinary beaten track and the staple dishes that feature in your Lonely Planet guide food section.

“Your taste buds tingle from the exotic flavours and street foods that Lennie seeks out with sweaty determination, tempting even the most seasoned traveller to want return to take a braver step in their digestive exploration of this part of the world.

“But as always, the longer you stay, the more you see, and Lennie has his mettle tested in this seemingly exotic idyll by its less attractive underbelly made up of a strange collection of misfits who have long since lost their grasp of reality and in some cases, their moral compass, if they ever had one.”

Chippy: “Thankfully it wasn't quite as bleak as 'London and Padstow' (which isn't to say I didn't love that one too). I'm looking forward to Lennie's next adventure.”

Down And Out In South East Asia

Well it’s finally done. The book I mean. If you enjoyed my bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London, about cooking in restaurants in the UK and the larger-than-life characters that inhabit them, then hopefully you’ll like the sequel Down And Out In South East Asia.

It sees the return of failed chef and hack Lennie Nash - this time setting off to eat his way through SE Asia, with a half-baked plan to buy a restaurant. 

Along the way, Lennie encounters a host of weird characters from frazzled bar owners to Walter Mitty CIA agents to seedy sexpats to ice zombies four years over on their visa.

The book is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Anyway, I’d be delighted if you read it. It’s only out as a Kindle book to start with, and costs £1.99 - about the price of half a lager in the UK now, I’m told. Go on, you’ll have a lovely warm glow inside knowing you’ve kept me in noodles for another day...CLICK HERE

Bog Standard: Why Some Restaurants Just Aren't Flushed With Success...

I am continually bowled over by how much restaurant toilets vary in Thailand. You get everything from plush lavatories with fresh hand-towels, hand cream, incense, and a lollipop man to, well, let’s not go there.

The importance of good toilets is something that’s often overlooked by eateries, both in Thailand and back in Blightie and beyond. In Bangkok, for instance, I know many Thai and farang customers who choose a place as much for the cleanliness of the powder rooms as for the food.

Most restaurants that have been built in the last ten years or so in the Land of Piles, sorry Smiles, usually have decent toilets. But it’s a shame that many of the older, and in many cases far better restaurants, don’t have lavs that match their wonderful cooking.

There is a fantastic place near Nana Plaza, Bangkok, that is sometimes so packed you have to stand on the pavement and wait for a table to leave before you can tuck into their incredible roast duck and curries. I’ve seen Thais standing around for 40 minutes before getting a seat, the food is that good.

But when I went there, I couldn’t believe the toileting arrangements. When I asked the direction to the gents, the owner looked at me in slight surprise as though it was the first time she’d ever been asked.

Then she escorted me down a side street, and waited at the top of it while I relieved myself behind the bins. I felt quite awkward standing there with the old chap unzipped as people strolled by.

But the stench was far worse, stirring unpleasant memories of Glastonbury. So bad in fact that I couldn’t finish the rest of my delicious meal. The smell of nam pla no longer had the same appeal, for some reason.

Thailand also goes in for novelty toilets in a big way, like the picture (above) I took in a restaurant in Chiang Mai. But there is definitely a limit. The one (below) from an eatery in Chonburi Province is wrong on so many levels, it’s not true.

Its Canadian head chef apparently brought the tissue holder over from Vancouver. If I saw that I’d never dine there again. As I say, the importance of toilets to a restaurant's takings often falls between the, er, cracks.

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Food Poisoning Link Probe In British Couple's Death In Chiang Mai, Thailand

Police are investigating a possible food poisoning link between the deaths of a British couple and a New Zealand backpacker in Thailand.

Pensioners George and Eileen Everitt died in the same hotel in Chiang Mai where Sarah Carter, 23, and her two friends collapsed after eating at the city’s Night Bazaar food market.

The pair, from Boston, Lincolnshire, were found dead in their room in the three star Downtown Inn. Mrs Everitt, 74, was found lying on the bed. Mr Everitt, 78, was in a sitting position on the floor, with his face falling on to the bed.

Police said no drugs, medicine or poison were found in the room. And there was no evidence of violence or wounds on their corpses. Tests are being carried out on their bodies at Maharat Chiang Mai Hospital.

A police spokesman said: “We do not want to speculate on the cause of death but if there has been any poisoning it should be revealed in medical tests.”

The couple had been staying at the hotel since February 9, the same day Ms Carter (below centre) died from food poisoning. She and two friends were struck down hours after eating at a street food stall.

Amanda Eliason, 24, (below left) recovered after emergency heart surgery. Emma Langlands, 23, (below right) who ordered a different meal from the stall, also suffered food poisoning but later recovered.


Initially police said Ms Carter’s death was caused by eating toxic seaweed. Her father Richard said this has now been ruled out as the cause of the food poisoning but tests are continuing.

Thai police are now investigating the hotel’s kitchen and ventilation system.

In August 2007, 15 people died and more than 100 were taken ill in Thailand after eating poisonous puffer fish, which had been coloured to look like salmon.

The month before, police arrested a man in Samut Songkhram province who was planning to sell more than a ton of the illegal fish. They were to be sold to restaurants and made into fish balls.

Although puffer fish – called fugu in Japan - was banned in Thailand in 2002, it continues to be sold in markets and restaurants. Its ovaries, liver and intestines contain a deadly poison. It is prepared by highly-trained chefs in Japan and consumed by thrill-seeking gourmets.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said an investigation has been launched to try to establish how the couple died. She added: "We are in touch with the family and are helping them through this very difficult time."

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Thailand: Hallucinogenic Fish And Cobras

Yesterday I had a great day in Thailand’s Rayong Province – an area where tourists are thankfully as rare as nine baht notes. I travelled there with my ex-pat friend John and his heavily-pregnant wife Pla, and on the way we stopped at Khao Chee Chan, which also goes by the name Buddha Mountain (above). Standing at nearly 400ft tall, it's the biggest Buddha image in the world, and was carved into the cliff using lasers and then filled with gold leaf.

Later, we saw a couple they knew, who had built a beautiful house on a piece of land overlooking lily fields near Rayong. When they bought the land it was completely overgrown and home to a pond that the neighbours had stocked with fish. They cleared the jungle and left the tallest trees, and built a prefab house in the middle of the plot.

I was very jealous. Although they were cut off, Jim and his Thai girlfriend Fi were living the good life and had filled the garden with vegetables and fruit tree saplings. Two years later, they were living off the land, eating bamboo shoots, lemon grass, basil, galangal, tomatoes, aubergines, bananas, huge mushrooms grown in boxes, and eggs from their hens and ducks.


When they fancied a change, they caught a few fish from the pond and fried them in breadcrumbs or made Thai curries. They were living there happily with their three huskies and two cocker spaniels, and no children.

As I say, I was very jealous and envied the fabulous climate they lived in and the oranges they picked each morning from the trees. Until they told me about the snakes that is. They were being plagued by cobras from the wet lily fields at the bottom of the garden. They had put up fine mesh fencing, but still they came in.

Only the day before, Fi had screamed as they were letting the dogs out and Jim turned to see a 6ft black cobra a few feet from them. Jim had killed quite a few with his hoe, but this was much bigger. He threw a heavy stick at the snake, but missed, and it rose up and made lunging motions at them. Fi kept screaming and eventually it slithered away into next door’s garden.

The dogs had been less lucky at times. Despite their size, the huskies gave snakes a wide berth but the bravest cocker spaniel liked to grab them and shake her head violently, and batter the reptiles to death. A couple of months before she had run into the house howling in pain and pawing at Jim’s leg, her eyes swollen after an encounter with a spitting cobra. They had just got her to the vet in time, but she still lost an eye.


But it was the stories of the king cobra that most worried them – and whether it had any offspring. Years before they moved in, the neighbours said they had seen a 20ft-long monster near the pond. They were alerted by the sound of frogs being eaten – apparently frogs make a particular shriek when eaten by snakes. Knowing how deadly and fast the world’s biggest venomous snake is, and its enormous striking range, they took no chances and blasted the thing to death with a shotgun.

Poor Jim and Fi were clearly still shaken by the cobra encounter when they showed me round their land, but then I suppose it was one of the downsides of living in a beautiful country.

We fed the fish and I promised to catch a few and barbecue them that evening. Then we packed up the cars and headed out to Khao Chamao National Park to visit the waterfalls. We stopped on the way to buy food for the trip - beautiful roast duck and rice that came with bags of satay sauce and soy sauce with chillies.


And then we bought dried, salted pork similar to biltong and parcels of rice, minced pork and lily seeds wrapped in leaves.


But when we got to the park, the guards on the gate spotted the food and confiscated it. They were flabby and greedy-looking and looked like they hadn’t bought a meal for years. We handed over our delicious food, and my beloved ice box full of Chang beers, and the guards went through the motions of writing down our number plates saying they would return it on the way out. They even said we weren’t allowed to take water in, which considering the heat was ridiculous.

We paid the entrance fee (which was seven times more for foreigners) and prepared for the steep ascent into the jungle. Thai families were openly carrying water bottles and huge picnic hampers up there. Some even had ice boxes. I thought about those guards and my lovely ice cold beers. The buggers would probably be on their second one by now – can in hand, munching on a duck drumstick, waiting for the next farang to arrive.

I hadn’t come prepared and had to walk through the jungle in flip flops. After 20 minutes of climbing over rocks and vines, the sweat was pouring off me, and I thought about those lovely cold cans again. Ten minutes later, I had a pounding headache from dehydration and began to lag behind after stubbing my toes numerous times. I tried not to think about cobras. If they were that common in Jim’s garden how many would be out there in the jungle? They're not in the trees - they ARE the trees! Flip flops would offer no protection. If I was bitten, I’d be dead by the time I got to the bottom.


Eventually, we got to the Khao Chamao waterfall, stripped off our clothes and plunged into its deep ponds. The water was filled with black fish, which I found out later were a species of carp called tor soro. There were so many of them, you brushed against them as you swam, and if you sat on the rocks by the side they came up and nibbled your skin. Some must have weighed 6lbs and would easily have fed a family of eight.


But their numbers and size were down to the fact the Thais didn’t touch them. The locals said if you eat the fish you become dizzy, which is how the waterfall got its name Khao Chamao - meaning “to get drunk” in Thai. The fish apparently eat berries from overhanging trees, which don’t affect the fish but cause humans to hallucinate.


Now, I’ve always considered myself an adventurous cook, and it would have been easy to catch one of those fish. And I did think about getting some wood together and cooking one by the side of that waterfall just to see what would happen. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Maybe someone a lot madder and braver than me, like Anthony Bourdain or Bruce Parry, would have done it. Or at least have got one of their film crew to try it first. But I was too worried about getting back in flip flops as it was without running around being chased by imaginary cobras.

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Thailand: Sea Snails Cooked In A Clay Pot

I have just got back from a rather mercurial evening involving delicious sea snails and the evil tuk tuk drivers who plague the streets of Chiang Mai. I’d headed out to the night bazaar a little concerned about the major food poisoning investigation there over the tragic death of a New Zealand backpacker on Sunday.

But any concerns were put aside, and perhaps put into context, by the journeys to the market and back. I wanted to walk there, really I did, but the food market was much further than I realised and after the 58th tuk tuk driver had slowed down and beeped his horn at me, I relented.

I slid into the back and the driver sped off, cutting up two mopeds, narrowly missing a stray dog, and taking the first bend at such a speed that it made the back wheels wobble.


It soon became obvious that the contraption’s brakes were down to the metal when we hurtled over a canal bridge and almost into the back of a passing car. When the driver did actually stop at a red light, he looked at me in his rear view mirror, cranked up his radio, and said: “Why you want to go to night market? Many ladies, many bars here!”

At another stop, he tried again: “You want lady massage? I take you there.”

Finally, after another test of wills and his shot brakes, he dropped me off at the night bazaar. The place was packed with tourists and I headed around looking at the stalls, and then stopped off at a restaurant called Seafood Mho-O-Cha boasting “the best and fresh seafood in Chiang Mai”.


The fish and shellfish were packed in ice and looked as fresh as anything you’d get on the harbourside, even though Thailand’s second city is hundreds of miles from the sea. There were the usual mud crabs, blue crabs, lobsters, prawns and fish, and then I saw something I hadn’t seen so far in Thailand, and knew I had to have them.


The sea snails were piled up in the corner, like fat brown conches, and the manager only wanted 200 baht (about £5) for half a kilo. I asked how they cooked them, worried that they might turn out dried to foul-tasting grit like the cremated cockles I’d had in Bangkok. She said grilled, or something I didn’t understand. I asked how she would have them and she said something I didn’t understand, so I went for that.

After taking more pictures of the seafood, she wrestled me back to my table and I sat down and looked across at the next restaurant, which also boasted the “the best and fresh seafood” in town. Trying to put Chiang Mai’s seafood scare out of my mind, I bought a cold beer and a sang som, and then a steaming pot arrived at my table.

The waiter removed the lid and I was hit by a delicious smell of lime leaves, chillies and the sweet scent of fresh and best seafood. I hadn’t eaten all day, apart from three mussels a barman had given me that were as small as my tiny fingernail, and got stuck in.

The broth the snails were cooked in was absolutely fantastic. It was hot and sour, and filled with whole pink shallots, lime leaves, fresh basil sprigs, lemon grass, thick coins of galangal, and slices of red chilli. The snails themselves were beautifully cooked, and much firmer than whelks. There was no chewiness though, just like you get when you order fresh whelks at a decent seafood restaurant in Europe. They really were superb.


The shells weighed a tonne and were quickly scattered across an empty plate. They were so sturdy, I imagine if you dropped one on your foot you’d be hopping round for weeks – beholden to those merciless tuk tuk sharks. I finished the meal and drank the soup and sat there wondering whether to have another pot full.

The manager returned and I thanked her for her recommendation and asked her the name of the dish again. She asked someone else and said it roughly translated to “Thai-style sea snails cooked in a traditional clay pot” and was a speciality of the restaurant, and the only place you could get them in Chiang Mai.

Full and content, I headed out through the market again, but my good mood was quickly destroyed by another evil tuk tuk driver. It was obvious he hadn’t heard of my hotel, but kept insisting he had.


I knew it was all going to go horribly wrong and sure enough it did. After another Grand Theft Auto race through the streets, he headed the wrong way past the canals and kept ignoring me when I told him to turn round.

He took me up a couple more dark streets, and suddenly I was outside a neon-lit building in the middle of nowhere. It looked more like a boutique hotel than a go go club, but it was obvious what it was from the scantily-clad young women waiting outside. In fact, surrounded by dark warehouses and no witnesses, it looked exactly the sort of place you’d be lucky to get out of with your kneecaps intact.

The driver turned his engine off and the girls descended. The trouble with tuk tuks, apart from the criminal bastards who drive them, is they offer no protection to pulling arms. There are just three chrome poles, which means you can get attacked on three sides. But after a few minutes, I managed to get him to drive off again.

Then it was another chicane through the canal area, and more areas I didn’t know, and this time he dropped me off in the centre of Chiang Mai’s red light district.

“Bar here,” he kept saying. “Many beautiful ladies for you!” I’d had enough. I’m not a prude, but there was no way he was going to get his free gasoline bar kickback from me. I slid myself out of the tuk tuk, scowled at him, and told him I wasn’t going to pay him and walked off down the road.

I went into a bar and ordered a drink, and the driver followed me in, trying to get commission off the owner, who pointed out that all I’d ordered was a Pepsi Zero, and there was no money in that. Eventually he left, and sat outside in his tuk tuk staring at me darkly for 20 minutes, and waiting for me to leave.


When I left, he shouted at me again, and things looked like they were going to turn nasty, so I jumped in another tuk tuk and kept looking round half expecting him to be following.

But what might have saved me was the complete ineptitude of the new driver, who quickly got lost and after a few minutes we were on the city ring road. I started getting panicky thinking he was in cahoots with the other driver, and we were going to end up in some horrible Tarantino lock-up.

But there was no gimp, thank Buddha, and after another 20 minutes of dark alleys, he somehow found my hotel, which by then had closed. I eventually managed to find my way in, past the air conditioning units and rubbish bags at the rear of the guesthouse, and thankfully my key fitted the back door.

I headed off to bed trying to restore my good mood by wishing excruciatingly painful deaths on all tuk tuk racketeers, and thinking about what a splendid meal I’d had. There is only one thing for it though – tomorrow I hire a mountain bike.

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Thailand: Major Street Food Probe After Tourist's Toxic Seaweed Death

A quick update on my last blog about the tragic death of New Zealand backpacker Sarah Carter, who died after eating toxic seaweed at a street food stall in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Health officials are launching a full-scale investigation of food outlets in the city’s famous Night Bazaar, where Sarah, 23, (pictured above, centre) and her two friends Amanda Eliason, 24, (above, left) and Emma Langlands, 23, (above, right) ate.

Amanda, who also ate the seaweed, had emergency heart surgery and is now believed to be out of danger. Emma, who ordered a different meal from the stall, suffered food poisoning but is not seriously ill.

"We have never had such a case in Chiang Mai before," local public health chief Wattana Kanchanakamol said.

A preliminary report into Sarah’s death indicated a viral infection, he said. Experts are trying to track down the cause of the infection by collecting food samples from the Night Bazaar food market.

"The examination result is expected to be known in the next five days," Dr Wattana added.

He said one factor could be the fluctuating temperatures in Chiang Mai (it’s blindingly hot here during the day and chilly at night), which could result in food deteriorating more rapidly than expected.

Health officials are also being sent to other tourist areas around Chiang Mai to carry out food hygiene tests.

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Thailand: Tourist Dies After Eating Toxic Seaweed At Chiang Mai Food Stall

I was just about to head off for Chiang Mai to continue my tour of Thailand's food stalls when I heard some very sad news about a female backpacker dying from food poisoning after eating at the city's famous food market.

Sarah Carter, 23, was taken to hospital on Friday and passed away two days later after eating contaminated seaweed. Her two travelling companions Amanda Eliason and Emma Langlands survived the ordeal and are being treated in Chiang Mai Ram Hospital.

Amanda remains in intensive care after recovering from emergency heart surgery while Emma – who is thought to have ordered a different dish - has been moved into her own room and is now eating.

Sarah’s mother and brother have flown out to Thailand.

Her father, Richard Carter, from Auckland, New Zealand, said he had spoken to her when she was first admitted to hospital.

"It appeared to be just bad food poisoning. She appeared withdrawn and not sounding that good, but seemed all right," he said. "But within an hour of our conversation the thing just spread to her heart and strangled her heart."

He said the three women, who had all met at university in New Zealand, had bought meals at a "curry place" in Chiang Mai's famous food market.

He said he had been told that the toxin that killed his daughter was extremely rare. "They get one death every two years, but it seems only the tourists get it, the locals are immune to it," he added.

Thiravat Hemachudha, director of neurology at Chulalongkorn University Hospital in Bangkok, said toxins are found in certain types of seaweed around Thailand, but are "extremely rare".

Fish, typically bass and eels, can eat the poisonous seaweed without harm but the toxin can remain inside them and be passed on to anyone eating them, he said.

It is not yet known if Sarah and Amanda fell ill after eating fish or a local seaweed delicacy that was contaminated. Rotting seaweed can contain hydrogen sulphide, a highly poisonous gas with the odour of rotten eggs, which can cause vomiting and diarrhoea, but is rarely fatal.

Thailand is generally known for having higher food hygiene standards than many of its other Asian neighbours, and tourist officials have been quick to point out that Sarah’s death must be taken in perspective.

They say although you can expect to get an upset stomach when travelling to countries like Thailand, dying from food poisoning is extremely rare.

Travel experts say eating at Thai food stalls is generally safe, and you are as likely to get ill by eating in a five-star hotel where the food may have been sitting around for some time.

Food blogger Chawadee Nualkhair, who has just released a new book, Bangkok's Top 50 Street Food Stalls, says one tip when eating Thai street food is to look at the tray containing the traditional four Thai seasonings of sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, and chillies. “If the condiment tray is clean, the food will be clean,” she says.

However, standards obviously vary hugely. “I once went to a beef noodle shop on Ekamai (in Bangkok) where I found a dead cockroach in the chilli pepper-and-vinegar container. Needless to say, that shop isn't in the guide,” she adds.

The Best Fried Mussels In Thailand?

My Lonely Planet guide claims Kanchanaburi’s night market has the best hoi tod (fried mussels in batter) in the whole of Thailand.

Even though the guide has a fairly comprehensive food section, I’m always sceptical of such claims, and usually take them with a few buckets of salt. I mean, have the authors really tried every street food vendor in the country?

But, regardless, I thought it would be a shame to leave the town without at least trying them. The stall was perched half-way into the market (Th Saeng-hchuto), near the bus station, and if customers are anything to go by, it certainly looked liked it had a great reputation.

There was a large queue waiting for fish supper-style wrappers of hoi tod, and after ten minutes with nothing for company but a cold bottle of Tiger, I got to try them. But I was quite pleased really for the wait - it gave me the chance to watch every part of the operation rather than just standing there making them feel uncomfortable like I normally do.

Unfortunately, as I pointed out in my last blog, hardly anyone at Kanchanaburi night market has more than a few words of English, and my Thai is worse than dreadful, so I had to guess at certain parts of the recipe.

The stallholder had a flat wok in front of her, about the size of Pluto, which was heated underneath by a calor gas burner.



She poured vegetable oil on to the wok and within seconds it was spitting away like a trapped cobra. Next she added a few gallons of batter. I couldn’t ask her what was in it, but most Thai recipes contain tapioca flour, seasoning and soda water, and eggs are cracked in during the cooking process.

But she definitely didn’t add any eggs (not even pink ones) so they must have already been in the batter, which was about the thickness of single cream, and quickly formed a massive pancake in the oil.

After a minute she scattered in some chopped spring onions, coriander stalks, and a few wheel barrows of shelled raw mussels that were lined up on ice next to her stall.

Using two enormous spatula-type objects, she kept pushing the mussels around the pan until they were well mixed into the crispy batter. After a couple of minutes of circling action, she threw in half a tonne of beansprouts and let them wilt in the mixture.


She then scattered huge portions of the hoi tod, garnished with coriander, on to sheets of paper next to her, folded them up with a small pot of chilli sauce inside, and handed them out to the waiting crowd.

I grabbed mine and headed for a table. The flavour was mild and slightly under-seasoned, but extremely moreish and fresh, and worked perfectly with the chilli sauce. I reckon they would make a brilliant tapas dish or starter (I refuse to suggest they might make a good Valentine's Day meal - God, it's good to be out of the UK at this time of year!)

When I got back to Bangkok I tried them again, and they weren’t as good. I’ll have to take Lonely Planet’s word that those in Kanchanaburi are the best in Thailand.

Hoi Tod (fried mussels in batter)

The following recipe is my approximation of what I saw and tasted. I think it was the cooking process involved that was the secret to the dish rather than the exact ingredients and seasonings, so adjust it to your taste. If you can’t get tapioca flour, just use an equal tempura mix of plain flour and corn flour – it won’t make much difference.

500g fresh mussels
Cup of tapioca flour
Salt and white pepper
Ice-cold soda water
2 tbsps vegetable oil
1 egg
Small bag of beansprouts
2 spring onions, finely chopped
Two sprigs of coriander, chopped
1tsp finely chopped ginger
1 tsp finely chopped garlic

Remove the mussels from their shells, de-beard them, and wash well in cold water. Make the batter by putting the tapioca flour and seasoning in a bowl, and whisk in the egg and enough soda water until it is the thickness of single cream. You will probably end up with more batter than you need, so store in the fridge and use for something else.

Heat a large frying pan (you may need to do this in two stages, depending on its size) and when it begins to smoke pour in the oil. Then pour in a cup or so of batter and swish the pan round so the bottom is covered. Add more batter if needed, but the pancake shouldn’t be too thick, otherwise the dish will become doughy and unpleasant.

Using a spatula, push the crisping batter round the pan so it doesn’t catch and scatter in the drained mussels, ginger, garlic, and spring onions. Then stir again for a couple of minutes until the mussels are cooked. Finally toss in the beansprouts and coriander, allow to wilt, and serve immediately with chilli sauce.

The Mystery Of Thailand's Pink Eggs

From food and travel book Down And Out In South East Asia

I have just arrived in Thailand for a SE Asia food tour, and after one night in Bangkok, headed out to the relative tranquillity of Kanchanaburi, a small town surrounded by temple caves hewn into the limestone hills, and home to the famous River Kwai Bridge.

What a place! The food night market (Th Saeng-hchuto), near the bus station, is quite something, and after a tour of the vendors – selling everything from catfish to chickens’ feet – I sat down at a stall selling pink eggs. I couldn’t resist them when I saw them, and as the stallholder like everyone else at the market spoke English as good as my Thai, I have no idea what the dish was other than a slant on the famous Chinese dish One-Thousand-Year-Old-Eggs (aka Son-In-Law Eggs - although it's probably called Daughter-In-Law Eggs in Thailand).


It was only when I got back to my hotel and spoke to a chef called Apple, who runs Apple & Noi’s Thai Cooking Course in Kanchanaburi, that it became clearer. The eggs apparently are preserved in a mixture of lime, clay, salt, and rice hulls for a few weeks – a method of curing eggs dating back hundreds of years. I’d seen them before, but the shells had always been white. I asked whether they put beetroot in to colour them, but she laughed.

“They’re laid like that. They come from special chickens in the south of Thailand,” she said.

I still don’t know if she was winding me up, or whether the farmers fed them prawns or something. And when I did a bit of research on the internet, I was no clearer. There is apparently a special breed of chickens in South America that lay pink eggs. But they’re not really pink when you look at the photos. All I know is the only pink eggs I’ve ever seen have been at Easter, so if anyone can shed some light on this, I’d love to hear.

I watched the stallholder make the dish from start to finish (not the egg curing, obviously, that would have taken far too long) and the whole thing really blew me away. Not just his kindness and patience seeing some bleary-eyed farang towering over him, watching every knife stroke (and any cook will tell you how irritating that is), but its simplicity and fiery magic. In fact, it was so full of face-slapping flavour that you could barely taste the raw onion in it. And that’s what I call a salad.

First, he carefully cracked open two pink eggs, exposing translucent, dark-amber whites.


Then, for some reason, he pulled an elastic band tight and sliced the eggs into quarters with it.


He arranged them on a plate – their yolks oozing out like rotten aubergine – and proudly held them up for me to smell. Was that a faint whiff of ammonia? Sulphur? Mustard gas? Or some other chemical weapon?


He grabbed a mixing bowl and threw in a handful of ginger cut into julienne strips. They were as skilfully sliced as anything I’d seen in a Michelin-starred kitchen, and there wasn’t a mandolin in sight.


He asked how many red chillies I wanted, and I held up five fingers. He then pounded the chillies in a pestle.


He added them to the ginger before seasoning with a little sugar, salt, fish sauce and lemon juice. Then he chopped up a sprig of coriander and finely sliced a quarter of an onion and mixed the whole lot together and arranged it over the eggs.


What a blast of primary colours! There was only one drink worthy of such a salad and that was a massive bottle of ice cold Chang beer. I sat down and tucked in as the Thais giggled away, pretending not to watch me. I admit the egg itself looked far from appetising, but I threw myself in and began wondering when I’d last had such an incredible meal. The white had a gelatinous quality, and the yolk was rich, creamy and soothingly salty. It was difficult to describe the taste, but I wanted more of it. If this wasn’t umami then I don’t know what was.

After another Chang, I headed round the market again and took more photos. Food trucks in the US and London? Blah! Nonsense! Go to Thailand. They were doing food trucks and motorbikes decades before they were trendy...


Throw another catfish on the barbie...some fish from the River Kwai:


Cooking on gas...spicy Thai soup:


Steamed chickens for noodle soup:


Massive pot of chicken with rice:


For afters...bags of flavoured syrups at a sweet stall: