Eating can be hard work

As I sit here typing on my laptop in Bermuda, I am remembering some of the meals that Vivien and I enjoyed in Penang in that last frantic week before we left on our annual pilgrimage. Why frantic? Well, it was because Viv had been away in China for a couple of weeks before that and I was pretty much laid up with a sports injury as well meaning that our fairly usual ritual of tennis, beers and then dinner at some restaurant with 8 or 10 others hadn't happened for a while. So when Viv returned and I made my first foray back onto the court post-lay off, there seemed to be some sort of almost desperate need to catch up. And as we only had a week in between before we left for Bermuda, all those dinners had to be crammed into a very short period of time.

I know, 'had to' does imply some form of compulsion that of course was not the case but when people that you haven't seen for a while ask you how you are, buy you a beer and say those dangerous words 'what are your dinner plans tonight?' .... well it would be rude to do other than agree to whatever was taking place for that night.

But it was relentless.

Curry mee and fried fish belly

Steamboat

Fish restaurant

Korean

Champagne brunch

Japanese homestyle

See what I mean? The steamboat dinner was especially memorable not only for the food but also for the other stuff....

Doesn't show the whisky to finish!

If this wasn't enough, when we arrived in Toronto we went to our favorite steak restaurant for a fix of large chunks of red meat...

I need a rest.

Hat Yai Part 1

It has been a while since I last made a post but in this time we have decided to spend more time in Asia to travel and experience as much as we can... not only food wise but of course...

We chose Penang in Malaysia as our base and at some point I will write more about Penang but for this post will concentrate on a weekend we just had in Thailand, based around Hat Yai, the biggest town in the south of Thailand. The reason was tennis so we stayed at a sports resort that had tennis courts but spent dining time in Hat Yai which is the context of this post.

The full itinerary. Hat Yai to Songkhala is at the top

On the day we left the resort and before we checked into a downtown Hat Yai hotel called Lee Gardens Plaza (awful incidentally), we drove out of town and headed... well wherever. It turned out to be northish according to Google Maps and towards Songkhala proper. Took about 30 minutes all told. Maybe more but not much.

Sirada Restaurant

The restaurant was on the lake shore and overlooked a multitude of fish farms which are very numerous in Thailand. The menu unsurprisingly was local and 100% devoted to seafood.  As not very many tourists come this way, the clientele is mostly Thais and local Asian tourists as in fact we were, from Malaysia.

Given that there were 40 of us, it was 10 to a table and one person or maybe two took it upon themselves to order the dishes. Typical of Asia is that the dishes arrive when they are ready, not necessarily in order so we had them as they came... which was totally fine by me of course.  One of our table took it upon himself to make sure we didn't run out of Tiger beers so we had plenty to keep us occupied.

Appetizer: fresh betel nut leaves wrapped into cone shape if you can then stuff noodles, dried shrimp, peanuts, anchovies, chillies inside and pop the whole lot into your mouth. Mass of flavors

Small shrimp drying in the sun. Much of the chilli here uses dried shrimp as a base

Grinding spices freshly

Deep fried fish

Grilled squid with lots and lots of chillies

Fresh greens sautéed with garlic

Scallops and asparagus

Omelette with chili

Fish stew stuffed into coconut. Lots of different fishes  plus of course chili

Deep fried minced shrimp rings... really good!

Piece de la resistance... steamed fish in broth. Eat with rice. Think this is fresh tilapia

What a feast! I certainly didn't need any dinner that night... but of course just had to. But that's another story.

Best thing was steamed fish, fried fish and the fried shrimp rings. Worked out to be 500 baht per head including quite a lot of beers... approx $15 USD per person. Try and find that in San Francisco!