(Fruity) Colors of Thailand

So we did street food. kind of. Does juice in a bottle count? Well we also did have tofu out of a bag. Papaya out of a bag. Banana out of a bag. Lots of food out of plastic bags. OH right and (Thai) iced tea. Although, is it still called Thai ice tea in Thailand? Do Thais even drink Thai iced tea? But they do drink coconut water. Lots of it. Considering all of the coconut meat that gets used to make all of the coconut cream for all of the green curries, paid thai and tom yum soup that us tourists consume :)

Dragon fruit juice. Who knew dragon fruit was a fruit much less juice producing fruit? All freshly hand squeezed! 

Dim Sum Done Right

On the top of my to-do list in Hong Kong? Get dim sum. ASAP. Crowned one of the top 10 best restaurants of the world by the New York Times and awarded one Michelin star by the Hong Kong & Macau edition of the Michelin guide, this internationally acclaimed restaurant has put all of my other dim sum experiences to shame. Who knew that Ding Tai Fung had its start  with a broke husband and wife originally selling tinned cooking oil? After some quick googling, I've also just discovered that there is a branch in Arcadia, CA...where the heck is Arcadia? Can they please open a branch in NYC already?

In no particular order...

Let the travel posts begin :) Three weeks of travel later, back in Philadelphia (in quite miserable rain) and lounging around until it is time to jet off to Prague. So far, the most captivating event of my morning is watching E! news, and uploading 200+ pictures to Facebook. Oh right and editting a bazillion pictures of food. Enough ranting about the freezing weather on the East coast and onto the actual food. 

Tom Yum soup with Udon noodles

Who knew sweet and sour in a soup could actually taste good? I've never ever enjoyed the sweet and sour combination found in Chinese take-out and various other Asian cuisines.  It just never seemed quite right - too much sour or too much sweet and nothing in between that was a resemblance of savory. Ah, but tom yum soup has proved me wrong. The secret? Lemongrass and Kaffir leaves which I managed to learn in my Thai cooking class (more on this one later!). Either way, this soup is not just sweet and sour but a wonderful   homogeneous blend of the two with wonderful ambrosial hints in every slurp. 

An eclectic twist of fried flat noodles, spicy chicken and basil leaves.