rice cake confessional

We rolled up to the Hong Kong YMCA (which btw is surprisingly nice) pretty late. Good thing we were with Jen who knows this part of HK like the back of her Cantonese hand. We ended up at Macau Restaurant which you can tell is a good choice since it was 10pm and still poppin with lots of locals pulling up stools.

I *think* this is a honey lemon drink. Although, I feel like it was more complicated than that. In any case, it’s listed as one of their specialties, I ordered it iced, and I thought it was nicely refreshing. Extra points that it was served in one of those old school metal diner cups.

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That’s what the noodle bar at the Marriott Cafe is called in Phuket. The party starts at 12:30pm and for THB550 you can stuff yourself silly. Now for the parade of pictures.

The types of noodles change daily but you can expect glass noodles, rice noodles, egg noodles, fat rice noodles, etc. The green ones are flavored with pandan (a very fragrant leaf used in a lot of SEAsian cooking).

On one side of the buffet are raw veggies like cabbage, lettuce cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, etc. The other side has a variety of meats – sliced pork, sliced chicken, fish balls, squid, fish, meat balls, etc. There are also seasoning sections that have everything from white pepper to crushed lemongrass.

To get ‘em stir fried head up to the kitchen and pick a sauce. I tried phad kee mao the first day and then soya sauce (pad see ew sauce) the next day. They also throw egg in there for you.

This was my first go round. It has loads of veggies, egg noodles, squid, and chicken. Notice the eggroll in the back – they also have ready made dishes like curry and fried fish.

Day 2 with the fatter noodles, mushrooms, pork, chicken, cilantro, bean sprouts, and other goodies. I also snagged a few fried shrimp to top it off.

You also have the option of turning your noodles into a soup instead. Just mosey up to the broth guy and pick one. This photo is courtesy of Julia. Rice noodles with tom yum broth.

My mouth is watering looking at these pictures. Cantaloupe, dragon fruit (looks gnarly, tastes like kiwi), pineapple, and watermelon for dessert.

More desserts. This one is wrapped up all dainty like. Talk about attention to detail. Inside is a coconut milk and pandan jelly/cake thingy. Tastes kinda like pandan maja blanca (if you know what that is).

Everyone’s favorite mango and sticky rice with little pinipig on top. The mango was so, so, so delicious. At some point we abandoned all other dessert dishes in favor of gorging ourselves on mango. Sweet, not fibrous, ripe, juicy, delicious.

Our first day here we were so full we couldn’t move for a good 2 hours while our bodies struggled to digest the 8lbs of mango we each tried to stuff down. We couldn’t help it – they were so good! We also got too happy piling on all the goodies on top of the noodles. Oodles of noodles indeed!

Real ballas stay at the JW Marriott in Phuket. The place is pretty nice and pretty huge and pretty awesome (and pretty expensive).

Our visions of frolicking in the sand were dashed due to the monsoon weather that met us when we arrived in Phuket. Unfortunately for us it continued without disruption for the entire three nights we were there. Luckily, the JW is a full on resort so there’s really no need to ever leave its premises. Plenty of places to eat, a few shops, lots of pools, a spa, even its own night market.

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Yah, that’s right we ate at the hotel two nights in a row in Chiang Mai. What can I say? We were too lazy and chicken to venture too far from the hotel. We were also beat from all the monkeying around in the jungle and decided that turning in early would be ideal. If it makes you feel better we sorta kinda walked through the Night Market.

Can we take a moment and just give props to the awesomeness of my picture taking skills right now. These were taken on Jlin’s camera as I was too lazy to go upstairs to grab mine. Veggie egg rolls freshly fried served with a sweet and spicy sauce. They look like little nubbins.

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We had this meal as part of the Flight of the Gibbon package on our first full day in Chiang Mai. It was served in a small outdoor restaurant in the mountains 45 minutes outside of Chiang Mai in Mae Kompong village.

We each got our own bowl of spicy chicken green curry. Very fragrant from the lemongrass, a light broth of curry and coconut milk, and native chicken with a few veggies. They had a tofu version for Jessica to enjoy.

We also got a dish of steamed veggies – squash, cabbage, bell peppers, and cauliflower that was lightly seasoned and flavored with pork belly.

Watermelon and guava (pass, I do NOT like guava) for dessert.

So what the heck is Flight of the Gibbon you ask? It’s one of those ziplining adventures where you get to hop from tree to tree and pretend to fly through the jungle. There’s a bunch of these all over the world and the one in Chiang Mai is quite new – opened just this past January.

For about USD60 the Gibbon folks (who ps are super nice) will pick you up from the hotel, harness you up, zip you through the trees, feed you lunch, send you to a waterfall, and then take you back to your hotel. Not bad right?

That’s me and my big booty in the back there. There are two of these skybridges during the trek. The entire thing is super safe. There are 2 guides for each group of 6-7 trekkers.

Me on the zipline flapping my arms like a dummy and Mr Nui ready to catch me in the foreground.

There are three or so drops throughout the course which keeps things interesting. The giant tree in the picture is actually two trees intertwined with each other. The last drop is 60+ meters down. For major fun ask to be attached by your back instead of your front. It’s much more exciting that way.

To book your own adventure visit www.treetopasia.com

We had our first dinner in Chiang Mai at the hotel. We were pretty tired from our sprint through Bangkok Airport and had arrived in Chiang Mai just as night fell making the area around our hotel less appealing to venture out into (yah, we’re scared of the dark). We had a lovely dinner served by the nicest, sweetest hotel staff in the history of hotel staffs.

So that you can best enjoy your meal they’ll set out a fan, a citronella-type candle near your feet, and will lend you some natural mosquito repellant spray. The menu has both Thai and Western dishes. We jumped on all the Thai food and started with some spicy tofu and eggplant for the vegetarian.

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If you can help it, I’d recommend finding another way to Chiang Mai. I had never heard of Bangkok Airways until I found myself at their ticket desk at the Bangkok Airport. Since we had come in on a different airline (Cathay Pacific) we booked it to the transit desk to ask them to transfer our bags for us.

Now for people who don’t use transit desks ever this might seem strange. Honestly, you can usually head to the transit desk and they can pull your bags off of the baggage carousel and then it will magically appear at your final destination. Easy as pie.

Not so for Bangkok Airways. They told us they could *try* but that we would not know if they had been able to do it until after we landed in Chiang Mai (and were either with our bags or without them). Um, no. She suggested we go through immigration, get our bags ourselves, and then check in again. Wow. Ok. Did I mention we had about 1.5 hours inbetween flights?

After a mad sprint to the transit desk, another speedwalk to immigration, a dance around the baggage carousel, another rush to the check in desk, and then more running to the gate we made it to the lounge (everyone gets to use the lounge for this flight) with 15 minutes to spare before boarding.

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Why is breakfast always one of the more awesome meals of any trip? Perhaps because breakfast is one of those meals that rarely gets transported to other shores in restaurant form. Who knows.

On our last morning in Singapore, Charif took us to the Hawker Center near the office. We had tried to venture to one of these HCs earlier in the week but had never made it. Needless to say we were blown away. They look so small from the outside but are really expansive inside – like the tougher, gangsta relative of mall food courts. Lots of selection and super cheap.

We tried out Quay 18 (or was it 16?) and put down SGD2 for the breakfast special.

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Woot. Din Tai Fung post #2.

We thought we were being really special by having lunch at DTF at Raffles City. We found out later in the day (after walking down Orchard Road) that there are about a dozen DTFs in Singapore. Okay not a dozen. Per the website there are 5 in Singapore. Compare this to the single DTF that serves all of North America. Singapore ain’t even that big! Why are there 4 on Orchard Road? Dang.

The one at Raffles City is the newest and the menu is shaped like a bamboo steamer. Cute!

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You know the Jumbo Floating Restaurant in Hong Kong? Yah this is not that one.

[Side Note: I'm watching Top Chef and Spike has a new, janky, plaid hat which is just as ugly as his other hats. Gross.]

Anyway, back to the Jumbo. First off, if you decide to take a trip here keep in mind that there are not 1 but 2 Jumbo’s at Clarke Quay. One of them is near the MRT stop/mall and the other is on the same side but the farther end of the Quay (pronounced KEY not kway). The MRT stop one has a nicer view but the farther one (the one we ate at) was a little more comfortable since they have ceiling fans for the outside tables. If I haven’t mentioned it already, it is friggin’ HOT in Singapore. Like, really HOT.

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