Moon Cakes 月饼

HAPPY MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL

Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival! This holiday falls on the full moon in the middle of Autumn in the Chinese lunar calendar. It's popular in Thailand and around the world too, and commonly known as the Moon Cake Festival.

This week, Siam Paragon Mall had an area set up where all the famous hotels and bakeries in Bangkok could set up stands and sell their moon cakes. Each one was different. Some of the moon cakes were the traditional round lotus paste, egg, or durian flavors.

Others had more unique flavors or shapes, such as those from Moone Bakery, which were sold in a beautiful presentation box and told one of the legends of the festival.

I bought a pack of four mini moon cakes to take back to my office and share on Monday. Even the small ones are a little bit expensive! The four flavors I decided on were custard, green tea, chocolate, and orange (which I sampled at the stand- it's really delicious!).

Of course, I also had to have a moon cake myself... for luck, you know? Each year I like to try to find a unique or special moon cake to try; something different from the others. This year, my girlfriend was with my, and we decided on one called "Crimson Opera", which symbolized fortune. It was layered with beetroot, cream cheese, and white chocolate, and had a rich cheesecake-like texture. As the Thais say, "aroi" (delicious)!

Dinner with Geoffrey (3/4)

A Visit to Michael's School and a Dinner High Above the City

After three years, my mother finally got to visit my school and see where I work. It was midterm week, so the student's weren't in class, but she got to come to my office and see what my days are like as a teacher.

After work that day we headed back to the hotel to change and get ready for dinner. My boss, Geoffrey, had invited us out do dinner at Bangkok's tallest building, the Baiyoke Sky Hotel.

It was cold and windy when we arrived at the top just after 5:00pm. The idea was to go to the rotating observation deck, get the view of the city, have dinner, then go back up to the top to see the view again at night.

Delicious Thailand (2/4)

Delicious Thailand: Eating Our Way Across Bangkok and Phuket

I've often said that it would be impossible for a visitor to go hungry in Bangkok. With no shortage of amazing cuisine, Thai cuisine has something for every taste. In this post, I'll be discussing some of the great food that my mother experienced during her visit to Thailand. As a poor English teacher, I don't often get to eat as well as I do when my family is in town!

Mandarin Oriental

One of my mother's favorite experiences while in Thailand was a Thai cooking class at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Because it was a weekday, she was the only student in attendance! She was lucky enough to get a private cooking lesson with the chef.

Black Ginger Restaurant

In Phuket, Thailand's most famous island in the glittering Andaman Sea, we visited one of the most interesting and delicious restaurants from our time in Thailand. The restaurant was part of the resort we stayed at in Phuket. In the middle of a lagoon, you had to take a boat across the still water to get to the restaurant, the interior of which was decorated all in black and silver.

During our stay in Phuket Mom and I dined at Black Ginger twice. The first time, we ordered a set menu so as to sample the best that the restaurant had to offer.

The second time we went there was for the Ayutthaya-style dinner buffet. It was almost certainly the nicest and most interactive buffet at which I've ever dined. The head chef of the resort was walking around chatting with guests and advising everyone as to how to best get the most out of their dinner.

One tip she shared with us was to use a pinch of salt to counter the effects of some of Thailand's more spicy dishes. She said her daughter doesn't like spicy foods, and a pinch of salt on the tongue is a quick and effective remedy. I haven't tried this, but I feel like she knows what she is talking about!

While we enjoyed our meal, a musician dressed in a traditional Thai outfit performed Ayutthaya-period music for the guests.

With a wide selection of curry, pad Thai, seafood, and a huge dessert buffet including (my favorite) lukchup, the buffet had all of my favorite Thai dishes that I could show to my mom to try!

Colorful Thailand (1/4)

Colorful Thailand: Part 1 of 4 of my mom's recent visit to Bangkok

To better understand some of the references I'll make in this post, you can read my brother's account of his travels to Thailand from last year.

the Thai Garden at the Survarnabhumi Airport Novotel

It was one of the first things I noticed when I first landed as well: Thailand is nothing if not a colorful country.

"Stepping out of the airport I noticed two things almost immediately. The first was that it was a very purple airport. The building had purple ads on it, and the parking garage across the street was entirely purple as well. I knew that Thailand was supposed to be a very colorful country. That's an understatement! The second thing I noticed was the humidity. It wasn't hot by Texas standards, probably only in the 80's, but the humidity was horrible. Even at 2am we were all sweating badly by the time a van came for us only a minute or two later."

That is an excerpt from one of my earliest posts, from the night when I first stepped off the plane at Survarnabhumi Airport. I think it would be just about impossible, even for the short-term visitor, to miss the importance of color in Thailand. 

Thai silk at Jim Thompson's House

Mom landed in Bangkok very late on a Friday night. She had booked her first night at the airport Novotel Hotel, which was a very smart move, because instead of dealing with a taxi and trying to check in to a downtown hotel after midnight, all we had to do was take the shuttle van across the parking lot to the hotel.

The next morning, after an amazing buffet breakfast at the hotel, we transferred downtown to the Courtyard by Marriott, a comfortable hotel in a great central location where my family had stayed last year as well. After checking in, we went to the Jim Thompson House Museum. My mom recently read Jim Thompson's biography, and wanted to see his beautiful Thai-style house again.

lotus flowers floating in a large pot

Thai dancers at Jim Thompson's

delicious smoothies

The next morning, we visited Wat Saket, my favorite temple in Bangkok, and one of the best ways to get an amazing view of the city. Although both my mother and I really enjoyed taking the canal boat last year (that's the way I always get to Wat Saket), I hadn't been feeling very well, so we hired a driver for the day. Mr. Uti, our hired driver, was a friendly and professional man who picked us up at our hotel in his taxi and took responsibility for us for the day.

ringing the gong at Wat Saket

Wat Saket, the "Golden Mount", is special because it's built atop a hill and offers a remarkable view of the old parts of Rattanakosin Island, the oldest part of Bangkok. As the chanting of monks played softly over the speakers hidden in the jungle growth, we slowly wound our way up the hill past fountains, gardens, and bells (which I've been told one must ring to let Buddha know that you're coming to the top).

the city from atop the Golden Mount

After that we went to what may be Bangkok's most famous temple, Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. My mom really liked this famous statue because of Buddha's intricately decorated mother-of-pearl inlaid feet, but unfortunately the feet were under renovation and covered up. Also there were a lot of pushy Russian tourists there that day.

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

One of the more colorful evenings that we spent in Bangkok was on the Chao Phraya River, when we took a dinner cruise along the "River of Kings". The dinner was accompanied by a series of traditional Thai dances and a mini kohn (Thai masked dance) performance.

dance performance on the Chao Phraya River

Wat Arun at night

But Bangkok is more than just colorful... it's also delicious... Stay tuned for part 2!