Fast Food

I was walking towards the gym yesterday when I was beeped out of the way by a mobile vendor, in this case a moped with attached cart from which which hung dried squid and cuttlefish. These moped and cart sellers are common in Thailand and offer a wide variety of wares. Those that sell food either ride to a favourite location, where they settle for the day, or they ride around the streets, ringing their bell to alert people to come out from their houses or places of work and buy a snack. It's a complete mystery how most Thais are so slim as they do not stop eating. They snack throughout the day and still seem to be constantly hungry. These mobile carts therefore do a roaring trade, throughout the day, and sell a huge variety of foods.

Some carts sell an array of tropical fruit, displayed in a glass container and packed in ice to keep it fresh. You simply choose what you want and the vendor will whip out a chopping board and frighteningly large knife and chop it up into bite-size pieces for you. It's then popped into a plastic bag (which has a million different uses in Thailand - more on that in another blog), with a skewer to eat it with, and handed to you along with a smaller plastic bag which contains sugar and chilli - apparently fruit eaten on its own just doesn't cut it here. For Thais, everything needs a little extra spice! I may be strange but I personally prefer my fruit non-spicy and I think pineapple is sweet enough as it is, so I always forego the dipping mix.

Ice cream, Thai-style, can also be bought from some of these carts. Often made from coconut milk rather than cream, and with flavours and toppings such as corn, red beans, and bright green noodles flavoured with pandan leaves, they're not the sort of ice creams you'd find in your local ice cream van. Although cones and cups are often available, the most popular way of eating ice cream is in a bun. Yes, a bread bun. The ice cream is scooped into the bun, heaped with your choice of topping and then eaten like a hot dog. I have not tried this - funnily enough I have never had a craving for an ice cream bun - but I always imagine that the bun must get awfully soggy and would have to been eaten fairly quickly to prevent the whole thing from falling apart.

Many carts have an inegrated charcoal grill or hot plate, upon which they cook up food once they've settled themselves somewhere. Grilled pork, chicken kebabs, salted and grilled corn on the cob, meatballs on skewers, Thai sausage (which is very similar to Spanish chorizo), and spicy pappaya salad can all be found cooking on parked carts, sending delicious aromas wafting into the air to tempt passers-by.

Some carts are more like mobile restaurants, like the one that overtook The Parents and I as we were walking up to the Royal Cliff Sports & Fitness Club a couple of weeks ago. When I say it overtook us, I mean it just about crawled past us. It was so heavily laden it managed to only just keep moving up the small hill, its moped sputtering away as it strained to reach the top. It probably wasn't helped by the driver and his wife who, proving the exception to the rule, were rather on the heavy side. As well as the couple's considerable frames, the cart was weighed down with whole chickens hanging from the roof, plastic bags full of condiments and sticky rice, a variety of vegetables displayed in a glass case, a hot plate and wok, a large chopping board on top of which can only be described as a machete precariously sliding about, bowls and plates stacked up against each other holding a selection of cutlery, a large ice bucket, various cans of drink, and a few plastic chairs. I really don't know how the poor moped managed it.