Thong Pa Pun is on the border of Thailand and Burma and is a drowsy small town with friendly warm people and amazing food. Nir (the friend I’m traveling with) and I stopped in this tiny settlement on our way to Burma, which was another hour away. We rented a small motel room that was a lot less sanitary than what we wanted and with ‘beds’ that were basically box springs on top of wooden boxes without the ‘spring’. But what more can you ask for at 300 Baht a night? Strangely the room had a pretty new looking t.v. with satellite cable. Priorities, priorities, priorities…! We walked around the town in search of a place to eat, something different- something other than coconut curry or pork and basil leaf stir-fry. Walking for what seemed like an hour, we spotted an oasis in the night air. The rather large eatery was lit up from a distance in the standard fluorescent tube lighting and I could see an apron-clad cook doing something in the open kitchen. The fresh seafood, various meats and vegetables were on display neatly over ice for passersby to tempt them- and tempting it was. There were fresh whole red snapper, pork intestines, snakehead fish, frog legs, and then the usual pork, chicken and shrimp. We were sold. The kitchen was just behind the display and was clean- no fly in sight. It was actually a nice kitchen and I’ve often wanted an outdoor kitchen myself like this one. The cutting tables were sanded down tree stumps, they looked pretty cool. We sat at a table and this is when the frenzy started. First off, the menu was in English, which was great because we could order more than the same old dishes we seem to order time and time again because we knew the Thai names for. It was a huge menu, about 4 pages front to back and some really crazy things on it like a fried pork intestine salad with cucumber and chilies. We ended up choosing: deep-fried hard-boiled black eggs (British?) with minced pork and fried basil leaves, glass noodle salad with minced pork and chilies, a custard-like tofu and seafood soup with a clear broth, stir-fried frog legs with basil leaves, and stir-fried marigold leaves with salted mackerel. Plus we had sticky rice that the waitress went to another restaurant to get for us. We watched a little of the cooking, starting off by a little girl bringing the chef his hat- a Rasta beret. It was the signal to get down to business. Nir filmed most of the cooking; I just took some photos of the kitchen set up. We sat down as the first dish was finishing. Now Thai people usually like to take their time to eat; talking, drinking whiskey, watching t.v. - what have you. We did not do as the Romans do in this scenario. The food looked so fresh and the dishes so unique that we went into a feeding frenzy. It was almost like a fever, human piranhas unable to control the sheer joy of the smells, tastes. To our embarrassment we must have looked as if it was our first meal in days, greedy ferong (foreigners in Thai)! My favorite dish was the salted mackerel dish. The sauce was sweet, balanced the bitterness of the marigold leaves and the saltiness of the mackerel. Truly amazing! Nir’s favorite was the frog legs. The frog legs tasted like a cross between chicken and squid texture-wise as well. The sauce was thick, oily and salty. The greens served with it were bitter but evened out the dish. I also like the black eggs. I have never had black eggs, let alone hard-boiled and then deep-fried black eggs. The actual eggs didn’t have much taste, but the minced pork was good and the light sauce was sweet. The fried basil leaves made the dish- crispy and light as air with the strong basil flavor. After our culinary high wore off and we returned back into civilized human beings; I felt stuffed to the gill, Nir said he felt just right. It was the best meal so far in Thailand.
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| minced pork with glass noodles |
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| soft tofu and squid soup |
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| salted mackerel with marigold leaves |
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| deep fried black eggs |
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| frog legs |
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