Local Lunch

As we got off the boat at the Floating Market, my friend asked where we could get a good lunch. He recommended a place just down the road. We went "down the road", but then the road split in two directions... We chose the left path and soon found the joint. Right off the road, it had some guys grilling outside and some tables under a thatched roof. No tourists at all, only Thais. I was psyched. The place is known for their papaya salad, so we ordered some "not so spicy." Then we had some sliced pork and cucumbers, pig stomach and kidney mint salad, sticky rice and grilled chicken thigh.

The papaya salad was actually quite spicy. Either they didn't see the note on our order or they like it really spicy. My friend said it was probably the later since people in rural areas eat food much spicier than in the city. The pork and cucumbers came with a dark red chili sauce that wasn't that hot. And the pig mint salad was quite good and slightly spicy. The chicken was meant to be eaten with the sticky rice in either a chili fish sauce or a sweet chili sauce. Having a sweet tooth I had a lot of the sweet chili sauce. I found the sticy rice very interesting. It's not like East Asian sticky rice, which is short grained and very moist. This rice is medium-long grain, not moist on the outside, but is very "adhesive." So it's very easy to get a big clump of it and dip it in sauce. My friend warned me that it's very hard to digest and can make you feel pretty sleepy. I definitely fell into a food coma on the drive back to Bangkok, but I don't know if it was from the amount of food or the sticky rice...