Bangkok Winter still hot! - Damnoen Saduak floating market

While the floating markets in Bangkok are all very touristy already, it is still interesting to experience it at least once lah. So we booked this Damnoen Saduak floating market and Mae Klong train market half-day tour package from Mama Tour at Kao San Road for THB600 (SGD24), including a mini van to the hotel to pick us up.

The journey to Damnoen Saduak floating market is about 2 hours and when we finally reached there, we were transferred to the little boat the tour agency has arranged for us.

























Like seriously, in Bangkok, you not only have traffic jam on the roads, you have boats jam on the river too!







Apparently a lot of people are here for the River Noodles that is popular in all floating markets. And there are quite a few boats selling them, each claiming to be the best, and all with their own crowd.





So of course we have to try the River Noodles too lah! And the verdict? Kind of taste like our fishball bee hoon, just replace the fishballs with meat balls. But still very tasty lah!

Bangkok Winter still hot! - Seafood and Iced Tea

We've heard so much about how cheap seafood is in Thailand so a seafood dinner has to be in the plan.

After reading a couple of blogs, we singled out a couple of recommended seafood restaurants, and we finally chose Song tong because it is nearer to our hotel.



We ordered some of the more popular dishes like curry crab, fried oyster omelette, pork satay and this, our favourite, grilled big head prawns! These prawns with large chunk of flesh are grilled to a perfect smoky taste, and that paste in their heads was really rich! But they're not cheap! These 3 big prawns cost more than the curry crab lor!



When ordering the crab, my Thai friend pointed out that the locals prefer to order shell-less crabs. Yup! They really don't like to dirty their hands like we do when we eat chili crabs! And so she ordered us a plate of curry crab without shell! And the verdict? Hmm... while the taste of the little crab meat fried in curry and egg is quite tasty, but I still want my crab shells!



On the way back to hotel that night, we bought a cup of Thai iced tea from the little stall in the basement of Terminal 21. And I've confirmed that it is the best Thai iced tea we've ever had! The tea is so strong and fragrant and is mixed so well with the condensed and evaporated milk! Ok it is still sweet like the rest, but its fragrant makes you forgive its sweetness! Next time when you're in Bangkok, look for this "thumb up" brand of Thai iced tea! You won't regret it!

Bangkok Winter still hot! - Papaya salad at Somtam Nua

You can't go to Bangkok without eating papaya salad, and Somtam Nua is definitely the place to go to. Of all the salad we had in this trip, I find Somtam Nua's papaya salad easiest on my palate. Tasty and not too sour.



Somtam Nua is so popular among the local and tourists that even at 2pm, we had to queue for a table. But luckily the turnover was pretty quick so we didn't have to wait for too long.



We ordered iced tea and coffee, and as usual, they are super duper sweet!



Besides the usual papaya and peanuts etc, SomTam Nua also added crispy pork skin to their papaya salad! That really bring the whole dish to another level!



The other popular dish in Somtam Nua is the fried chicken wings, and every table has one! They're really crispy and very tasty with the aroma of fried garlic! But that's not all! If you dip the wings in their chili sauce, you'll be in heaven immediately!



We ordered the sweet and spicy fried fish as well, as inspired by our neighbour on the next table, and didn't regret it. The fish was fried well, with crispy skin outside but tender and moist inside. The sweet and spicy sauce makes it even more tasty.

Overall, we had a great and cheap meal at Somtam Nua. The only thing we didn't like was the sticky rice. It got cold very quickly and became really hard.

SomTam Nua 
Address: 392/14 Soi Siam Square 5, Rama 1 Road, Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok Winter still hot! - Eat Tom Yum Kung at Tom Yum Kung

Khao San Road was the first place we visited in Bangkok, because we had to go there to book our half day floating market and railroad market tour. Khao San Road is a popular ang mor place in Bangkok, with lots of budget hotels and tour agencies to cater to the backpackers. The only thing I don't get is, why isn't there any BTS or MRT station near this so-called backpackers heaven har? I thought backpackers travel by public transport one?

Anyway, after we managed to locate the tour agency and booked our tour, we had our early dinner at a restaurant called "Tom Yum Kung", which is famous for their... erm... Tom Yum Kung.



The restaurant is hidden in a little alley away from the main road, but you should be able to locate it by the huge red signboard they put up. Just open your eyes when you walk. The setup of the place is more European than Thai, which gives you a hint of their target market, and the price of the food. Ok lah, the price is not really that expensive, but I'll say it's above average in Bangkok lor.



Yup, for our first meal in Bangkok, we ordered the typical Thai food we usually order in a Thai restaurant in Singapore - Tom Yum Kung, Pandan chicken, Green Curry Fried Rice.



The Tom Yum Kung is not bad, not too spicy for me and just sour enough. I really like the prawns. They are big and juicy fresh!



But my favourite is really the Pandan Chicken. These are so different from those we get in Singapore! You can actually taste the pandan in the chicken! It is so fragrant and tasty!

Bangkok Winter still hot! - Staying at Grand Millennium

We searched through all the prices and pictures and comments of the ever-growing number of boutique hotels in Bangkok, but ended up with the hotel chain Grand Millennium. Well, there're a couple of reasons for us choosing Grand Millennium Sukhumvit Bangkok.

The price
We managed to get like SGD130 per night for a spacious room, which is not too expensive as compared to the smaller rooms from some of the cheaper boutique hotels. Okay, our room rate doesn't include Wifi and breakfast. But I'm getting a local SIM card anyway and I don't really fancy those mundane hotel breakfast buffets of toasts/omelette/juices and almost always cannot-make-it local delights.

The location
I know lots of Singaporeans are staying at Siam area, and for some, as near to Platinum Mall as possible. But I'm not really into shopping and don't fancy all the chaotic crowd upon stepping out of the hotel. I like that the Grand Millennium is tagged away at a quiet corner in Asok area. But still, we can walk to the Asok BTS and Sukhumvit MRT stations in less than 5 minutes. The new Terminal 21 shopping mall is nearby too for sudden shopping urge, and a 7-11 store even nearer for even more emergency food and drinks. So yes, its location works for me.

The room


The service
As an international hotel chain, of course Grand Millennium provides good service! Some more in Thailand the land of smiles! But my favorite guys are the doormen. On the first day after checking in, we wanted to go to Khao San Road, which we know is not served by any BTS or MRT. So I told the doorman to get me a taxi. Instead of follow my instruction blindly, he advised us to take a MRT to a nearby station then change to taxi instead, due to the long jam time on the road he was expecting during that time of the day. I've also noticed that whenever the doormen get a taxi for us, they'll instruct the taxi driver to go by meter too! Helpful guys, they are!

Porn's Thai food at Star Vista

Pornsak has opened another Porn's (wah big business wor!) at the new Star Vista, so we decided to check it out during lunch. Luckily we were there early because the whole place was packed by 12:30pm! Seems like Star Vista is attracting lots of lunch-goers from the surrounding offices!



Like seriously, how can you go to a Thai restaurant without ordering green curry or green papaya salad right? Porn's green curry is really nice - fragrant and rich. I think I can come here alone and order just this curry and a bowl of rice!

I'm someone that don't really like sour food and I've had some bad experience with very sour (at least to me lah!) Thai papaya salad. Luckily, the green papaya salad here is not that sour! I like the nice touch of that crispy bean curd skin (I guess!) which adds some texture to the salad. I think the salad will taste even better if they add some pomelo as well. After all, this salad is not cheap wor!



The minced chicken with basil leaves is overwhelming with basil leaves fragrance, so yes, another dish that needs another bowl of rice! But it does get kinda boring after chewing on the minced meat for some time. Maybe some vegetables added will be nice.



We ordered a small portion of the Tomyam soup which we heard is the authentic Thai kind, the kind that looks innocently clear but actually super spicy! And boy was this soup spicy! What we like is that it is not oily at all, but what we didn't like is that there are too little seafood in the soup. Could be a little bit more generous lah!

Overall, the food at Porn's is good, but for the three of us, it turned out to be about $16 per pax. So I don't think I can afford to lunch there everyday lah!

Old school dim sum at Red Star, Chin Swee Road

I really like dim sum. I'm a Cantonese so I guess it's in my blood. And sometimes I just want to break away from all those ATAS dim sum at Wah Lok or Min Jiang and simply go for something old school. Like Red Star.



I know porridge is one big bowl of carbo that will fill up half my stomach immediately and leave no space for the others, but I have to eat porridge when eating dim sum, and it has to be century egg porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥). There is not much meat and egg in this porridge, but the taste and texture is good. Tasty and silky.

The popiah (春卷) is not bad too, with lots of ingredient in it, even shitake mushrooms.



These two dishes are supposed to be the new Chef's Recommendations. The durian pancake is nice in the way that they are quite generous with the fragrant durian paste. But feel kinda weird to eat this as part of dim sum.

The chicken is good though. It has a really high class name too - Golden Dragon Chicken (金龙鸡) - sounds like the chicken pieces will jump up and kick White-chan any time. It is actually sotong paste and chicken wrapped under those crispy chicken skin. White-chan said this is really a must-try!



After that we had some classics like shrimp dumplings (虾饺) and chicken feet (凤爪). The shrimp dumpling was not really that good, not really the standard that I've expected. The skin was not Q enough and too bland. The chicken feet was really tasty though.



We had planned to have egg tarts to end our dim sum but when the aunty pushed a cart pass our table with egg custard bun (流沙包), we changed our mind. Their egg custard bun is quite nice, with rich, sweet and salty custard flowing out of the bun as you bite into them!

There're still lots of other dishes that we didn't order because there were only two of us with limited stomach space. But if you're ever going Red Star, do try their mixed beef internal organs soup (牛什汤), big bao (大包) and feng chang (粉肠), among other goodies!