Thailand - Café Con Monica

Chinese Food

October 24, 2013

One of the things I love most is food.(thats my inner fat kid talking) but really I do. I fell in love with the food in Thailand right away and am basically ruined for life because nothing will compare. But I have not had this same experience with Chinese food. I have found some things I really enjoy and some things I would rather not see ever again.

Here are some of my fave Chinese foods that I am going to try making and finding here in the US:

Red Bean Konnyaku jelly

This stuff is delicious and different. It has a jelly like texture and obviously uses red beans which is not usually something you find in a dessert but Asians love red beans in their sweets!

Kai-Lan (Chinese Broccoli)

I love Broccoli and this tastes nothing like it but it was delicious and I never once went to a restaurant and didn’t order it. I made it in my apartment all the time too! Here is a recipe if you would like to try making it.

Eggplant…

I’m convinced they put crack in their eggplant dishes. Before moving abroad I had eaten eggplant less times than I have fingers. Now I miss it so much and have asked one of my old chinese coworkers to give me a recipe to try and make it at home…minus the crack of course.

McDonald’s Taro Pie

I should be ashamed of myself for admitting this but I loved these things! I am a fan of the McDonald’s apple pies even though I rarely ate them here so I definitely interested in trying these. They were amazing and I am so unhappy with McDonalds for not having them here.

Jian Dui(Sesame Taro Balls)

Another Taro food that I fell in love with. They are probably horrendously bad for me but I loved them anyway. Deep Fried and I think made with some kind of rice? I think it might be possible to find them at a Dim Sum place…I will investigate this!

Yangmei(Waxberry)

These are delicious and have an odd texture sometimes sweet sometimes tart…but I was very excited to find a fruit I hadn’t tried before.

Fish balls

I couldn’t really find a proper name for these but they are delicious. They could really be all kinds of parts of the fish or not even real fish but I don’t care. They are spongey balls with a fish flavor that taste great in soup or with noodles. I often ordered them as a snack at 7-11 and it was not uncommon to see people walking around eating these with skewers.

There are other things I miss…but these were some of my favorite.

Have you tried anything while traveling that you miss now?

The Party Don’t Start Till I Walk In!

May 9, 2013

Love this link up…It brings out my favorite kinds of posts…you know the kind with drunken pictures of everyone acting their very best!

I realized I don’t talk about the fact that I am living in a foreign country quite as much so I thought I’d share a trend I picked up after leaving the states…drinking out of buckets !

Thailand!

Only pro’s should try this one….

And the last and most recent…..

So now you all know…everyone should drink out of buckets!!!

Travel Days: Month Long Asia Trip

February 18, 2013

Oooh boy what a long, exciting, exhausting, adventurous trip! I have to admit it was so hard to come back to this apartment. Going on such a long trip with a friend from home, granted she lives in NY so I don’t see her all the time anyway, but nevertheless I found myself really wishing I was heading home after the trip and not back to my place in Jiaxin.

Traveling with other people is hard. Much harder than say a loved one or boyfriend or alone. Sometimes you have to do things you probably wouldn’t do on your own, you have to compromise on things you might want but they don’t and above all you have to get used to how someone else does things for the entire trip. I admit I spent a lot of time being pretty crabby this trip because I felt like the first 24 hours after my friend arrived basically set the tone for the trip. Two broken cameras, hours spent looking for her, tears and anger and no sleep. It definitely set my mindset to a whole different place than it was beforehand.

Some things I learned on this trip:
1. There are always going to be more things than you have time to see
2. Maybe its better to visit fewer countries and spend more time in the ones you do than to jam pack your trip and spend very little time in each place
3. patience is a skill that takes an amazing AMAZING amount of work
4. It is ok to say no when you know you need to

It was a once in a lifetime trip and I am so happy that I took it and got to see all the places I did. Its hard to say my favorite place because I fell in love with Thailand when I was there last year but I did really enjoy Cambodia. There was just something about the atmosphere that I really appreciated, not to mention Angkor Wat was seriously just plain beautiful.

So now its time to get back to work with the kiddies and start planning my big trip for July. This time I am going to be sure to not over plan this trip and force too much into a tight timeframe!

I wish I could just show you all the pictures like I do on FB but that is too much work and I just don’t like doing it so I’ll post some fun pictures of the trip. My friend has so many awesome ones on her backup camera so once she posts those I will be sure to steal them and share!