#HakkaLimsRnRInThailand2017 - Day 5

Day 5 itinerary:

9am – Thai food cooking class

2pm – Shopping*

6pm – Dinner, and night market

Bonding over food again!:

To me, this was the most special part of this tour.  We learned to cook some Thai dishes and ate what we cooked.  I’ve never done cooking class during overseas trips; in fact, I’ve not taken any cooking lessons in SG either.  It was novel and fun for me!

The place chosen by our tour guide for us was “Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School”.  We were each to do 4 dishes; one stir-fry, one curry, one dessert, and a compulsory deep-fried poh-piah.  We were given a menu to choose from, for example I choose “Banana in coconut milk” as my dessert whereas Lynn choose “Mango sticky rice” (the 3^rd item of dessert that nobody chose was “Deep fried banana”). 

The class started with a tour of the inhouse garden.  There, the teacher introduced the few common ingredient in Thai food, like ginger, lime, err.. and others.  She must had shown us about 10 items, but the culinary-challenged me can only name 2 here! 

Next, she brought us to a local market.  We were not required to buy any ingredient, so this trip was just to tour the local market.  There, WK bought some pre-packed spice mix for MIL.  And my dear mum insisted on buying some durians, which no one in the group was really interested to eat when on a trip..

Once we get back, we started with the stir-fry dish.  The steps were almost the same for the various dishes.  Firstly we prepared part of the ingredient (like chop up garlic and pound various spices).  Then the teacher demonstrated the cooking, sprouting instructions on the amount of salt/sugar/sauces to add while cooking.  Next, we cooked individually.  Finally, after each dish was done, we brought it back to the dining table to eat!

First dish: Cashewnut with Chicken for me and Lynn; Pad Thai for WK

Second dish: Deep-fried poh-piah 

For this dish, 2 volunteers were asked to fry the fillings.  We volunteered the best cook among us: WS.  Then each of us wrapped the fillings in the poh-piah skin.  Next, there’s already a pot of very hot oil on the stove, in which the teacher deep fried her demo piece.  Each of us were supposed to go up to that wok to fry ours individually.  Well, me and Lynn chickened out; WK fried 3 at one go!  My hero!

For the third dish, first we learn to make the curry paste, which we then use to cook the curry dish.  For example, I learnt to make “Penang curry paste”, and I used this paste to produce “Penang curry (chicken meat)”.

All 3 of us choose this item; it was supposedly the least spicy.  On top of that, we could determine the level of spiciness by controlling the amount of chilly.  Lynn’s output looked the most yellow as she chose “level 1” :)

Finally, the dessert dish which we were all very excited to do!  After we came home, Lynn, with a lot of help from MIL, did the mango-sticky-rice for Christmas gathering.  All of us loved our dessert!

Everyone enjoyed this part of the trip, except Uncle SK.  He doesn’t cook, and opted to sit out.  Not only did he not cook and thus had no output to eat (as lunch), he refused to share ours too.  Aunts kept lamenting that what an extremely shy guy he is, so much so that he didn’t even want to venture out of the place to explore and find food on his own. 

We ended our lesson slightly after 1pm, with a busting belly.  I think Lynn thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity that allowed her to cook.  And I can’t help miss the fact that it would be a lot fun if WL had taken part too.    

Shopping* in comfort:

I put an asterisk against the word shopping, as it wasn’t part of the itinerary.  After the cooking class, we were supposed to visit a local market, but aunt felt that it will be too hot to walk outdoors in the afternoon.  So she got the guide to recommend a shopping mall. 

At the mall, the few of them went to Nike factory outlet and bought 3 (or was it 4?) pairs of track shoes.  Not dirt cheap, but reasonably priced.  I think Aunt Cindy took this as an opportunity to get her sister and brother, who would continue to wear utterly worn out stuff, to replenish their wardrobe.  I know that uncle SK also got a watch at the night market, but I don’t know what else since I didn’t shop with them.  And I got a pair of pretty, red-colour (causal) thongs for 300baht here too.  Hah, that what tourists ought to do!

The shopping continued:

That night, after dinner, we (the Yaps) finally hit the night market outside and opposite our hotel.  Actually all of us went, but we were too big a group to shop together, so I went with WK and Lynn.  It’s a pity that I did not get to do proper shopping with the gals (aunts and WS), which would be much more fun.

Opposite our hotel was a night bazaar, which was well lit and well ventilated (picture below0.  The variety and designs were better.  If we had came to this place earlier, I would have bought the tee shirts (souvenirs for myself, MIL and Lynn) here instead of the stores along the street.  Here, Lynn finally saw a few Ah-kuahs!  I kept teasing her to “prove” their gender, not by looking but by hearing their coarse voices.