Chiang Mai, Thailand Meals - Part Two

Continuing on from Part One of what I ate during my brief trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, here's the second (and last) installment!

The dish above was actually one that I built myself at my hotel's buffet lunch - and I did a pretty nice job if I do say so myself! The broth was a really spicy chicken curry soup, then I added cooked egg noodles, a squeeze of lime juice, fried noodles, and cilantro. It was super spicy and definitely got my nose running, but I really loved it!

I didn't eat a lot of desserts on my trip, but the dessert spread at the buffet was too hard to resist!

Pictured above is a blueberry mousse cup, which I got just because it was so pretty, and a pandan cake, which I had to try because pandan desserts were everywhere in Thailand! From what I understand, pandan desserts are made with pandan leaves, which are used to flavour and colour desserts in several Asian countries much like we would use vanilla here. The taste of pandan desserts is pretty unique and very hard to describe - the cake I ate it in was very sweet and coconutty, but my sister also tried pandan popsicles and jam while she was there. I'm going to have to keep pandan in mind for next St. Patrick's Day, if I can manage to find it here!

The day after we rode the elephants (see previous post), my whole body was super sore, so my sister and I decided to book Thai massages at the spa in our hotel. The massage was definitely a unique experience - lots of pulling, twisting, squeezing, and even punching - and I'm not sure I'd ever get one again, but it did feel nice after the pain subsided! After our massages, they brought us a lovely tray of tea and snacks:

I wanted to share this because the snack was so simple but really tasty! It was just plain rice cakes that were served alongside bowls of honey, white sesame seeds, and black sesame seeds. We figured out that we were supposed to dip the surface of the rice cake in honey, then dip it in the sesame seeds, which stuck to the honey. It was a really nice snack that would be easy to replicate at home (and is not too bad for you either!)

After our massages, we sat by the pool for a while, then relaxed with some Thai beer and chips:

I don't normally buy potato chips at home (mostly because I would eat the whole bag in one sitting), but as I mentioned earlier, chips are one of my favourite things to look at and buy in other countries because I love discovering new crazy flavours that we don't see at home! I couldn't read the writing on the chips I bought, but from the picture and taste, I believe they were barbeque chicken. They were pretty tasty, but I'm not too upset that we don't have them here :)

For our last dinner in Thailand, we went to Dash! Restaurant & Bar because it was rated #1 on Trip Advisor. It was in a beautifully designed building and the staff there were so welcoming and friendly. My pictures of the food aren't going to do it justice because it was really dark out, but the food was delicious!

To start, Gen and I split a papaya salad, which we'd been dying to try the whole trip:

We both absolutely loved it - it was fresh, crunchy, and full of flavour with just the right amount of spice. For my main course, I had to order pad thai because it was my last chance to order it in Thailand!

Again, my picture doesn't do it justice, but it was so good! They gave me a gigantic plateful which I sadly couldn't finish. I really wish I could have brought it back home with me!

On our last day, we only had time for lunch at our hotel before we left for the airport. To start, I had some veggies, sushi, and an iced coffee:

All were good, but I especially loved the iced coffee - it was so much better than any similar drinks I've had in Canada! For my main course I had pad thai again (I couldn't resist!), and for dessert I tried mango sticky rice:

Mango sticky rice was everywhere in Chiang Mai, especially at street vendors, but on the last day I realized I hadn't tried any yet so I grabbed the little dessert from the buffet. The sweet rice and ripe mango were delicious, but the coconut cream drizzle on top was to die for! I think I may have to try to make my own mango sticky rice at home some time - hopefully it's not too hard!

Sadly, we had less than four days in Chiang Mai before we had to head back home. The trip home was too long to count: we flew from Chiang Mai to Singapore, then spent the night at the airport there (about 9 hours), flew from Singapore to Tokyo for a brief layover, then flew the longest portion of our flight home to Toronto. During our long night at the Singapore airport I decided to try kaya toast, which is really popular in Singapore, but I'd somehow missed trying it when I was there earlier.

Kaya is like a jam, but is made of eggs, sugar, coconut milk, and pandan, giving it that familiar green colour. It's really sweet but is quite tasty - I actually had it twice in the airport, the other time it came with an embarrassing amount of butter which I won't post the picture of!

While we were waiting to board our plane early in the morning, I ordered one last fruit smoothie, this one a "mango green tea mantra":

It contained mango, mango nectar, green tea, vanilla yogurt, sorbet, ice, and an "immunity booster" made with zinc, echinacea, vitamins A & C, and more green tea. It was really, really good, and I think the immunity boost worked because I was seated next to two people with colds on the plane and so far I don't show any signs of having caught it!

When we stopped in Tokyo on the way home, I wasn't very hungry but felt like I would regret it if I didn't take the opportunity to try sushi in Japan! Unfortunately, airport prices are a little ridiculous (a California roll was about 20 bucks), so I ordered the cheapest one I could see: avocado. I was hoping Japan's sushi would somehow taste infinitely better than what we get at home, but this tasted about the same - I guess it's pretty hard to make basic avocado sushi taste special! It was still good though!

Now I'm home safe and sound and trying to get back into my regular routine, which will include getting back to regular recipes on the blog soon! I had a wonderful trip and really hope to be able to return soon to see a lot more, but for now I'm happy to be home to my boyfriend, family, bed, and kitchen!

In case you missed my other recaps of what I ate on my trip, here they are:
Singapore - Part One
Singapore - Part Two
Thailand - Part One

And if you're interested to see more, check out my sister's posts of what she ate in Singapore and Thailand too!