FOOD

Before I got sick in Thailand, I had been planning to write an entire post about Thai food and how much I love it. It's been almost 2 weeks since the last time I was sick (and I know it won't be the last time, but I'm so happy to be able to enjoy food again for the time being), and I think I'm ready to talk about the wonderful goodness of the foods I've eaten.

Let's start with banana pancakes. I know I've mentioned them before, but I just can't help mentioning them again. At home I typically eat a banana a day, so I thought that when I started my travels I'd shun them for mangos and other tropical fruit. I was wrong. Nearly every time I see banana pancakes on the menu, I order them. Some are crepe-like pancakes with bananas cut up and placed in the middle, drizzled with honey. Others are crepe-like, with nutella spread all over the crepe and the banana folded inside. Some are thick, with cut up bananas cooked into them. I could go on and on. I've also tried mixed-fruit pancakes, but they're just not as good as the banana ones. When I get home, I'm going to perfect the art of the banana pancake. I'll probably have people lined up for breakfast every weekend.

On to the curries. I love red and yellow curry, but have never been a huge fan of green curry. Although on this trip I've eaten some green curry that was really good, I still favor the red and yellow. The best I've had so far was the duck curry with grapes, pineapple, and tomatoes OR the pumpkin massaman curry. I'd never been a huge fan of massaman curry until we were on Koh Phangan, where our favorite restaurant served it and I became addicted. Maybe it was just the pumpkin. I ate pumpkin salad, fried pumpkin with chicken, pumpkin massaman curry, the list goes on. It was amazing.

And the coconut curry was excellent going down, but the night I got sick I had eaten it and I don't think I'll ever look at coconut again. Which is too bad considering my favorite dessert used to be bananas in coconut milk.

The phad thai we ate in Thailand was mostly good, but I think it's just as good in Seattle, which was huge for me because then I didn't feel obligated to eat it everywhere I went. I could branch out and try more interesting things than just sticking to what I knew was good and I couldn't get back home.

We've eaten what seems like a million shakes - mango, banana, banana & coffee, pineapple, mixed fruit, oreo, snickers - all are good. I've never been a juice person, but I would settle for a mango or banana shake (no yogurt in these ones, just ice) every morning from now on.

Since we got to Malaysia, Cindy and I haven't been able to figure out what real Malaysian food is. It's either Indian, Chinese, or Thai, and they seem to love their "Burger Kings," which are on the menu in many of the places we've seen. When we were on Pehrentian Kecil we ate a lot of BBQ chicken and even had fajitas a few times because we couldn't figure out what was authentic Malaysian. All of the food on the island was relatively healthy, which was a huge relief since we were sick of eating fried everything except for fruit all the time, with the exception of the Roti Chenai (sp?), which is a really greasy flatbread served with curry that's great for breakfast. Once again, we think it's Indian, not Malaysian. And the gato gato (boiled vegetables served with peanut sauce, not cat cat) was good, but again - we're not sure it's Malaysian. More investigating will be done before we leave this place.

There's my food update - not as good as it would have been if I hadn't gotten sick and hated food for a good week, but it is what it is.