Much of this day felt like a regular, ordinary type of day.
And yet, it wasn't.
There's nothing ordinary about waking up and heading down to the cafe for a breakfast that has you reaching for a quarter-plate portion of macaroni salad from the salad bar, and your regular hard boiled eggs that you dip in salad sauce.
There's also nothing ordinary about helping yourself to two thick slices of French toast (with butter)- because you're here in Thailand, it's the day after your birthday, and you can.
After Bartel's , I'm no longer surprised by how skilled they are with their Western cuisine.
And I no longer question whether I should, or should not take a good piece of French toast when they make it this good.
Some work got done in the morning, and then out it was to Ploenchit Boat Noodles for lunch.
This afternoon, instead of taking the BTS, I walked there, and guess what, entered the wrong lane, and nearly got lost.
Don't ask me how.
It's just one of those things that happens to me and I don't know how.
I had my regular bowl of Rice Noodles with Beef Slices, and let's just say I felt rather satisfied after that.
There's something really filling about the noodles here, and I don't know if it is the soup, or something more.
Doesn't matter how frequent I have it- I don't tire of the soup- and I've never been able to return to other styles of boat noodles back here on the island since the first time I had it there.
Lunch over we crossed over to Thong Lor to get bags of chocolate chip snacks, then walked all the way to the Emporium- the luxury shopping mall in Khlong Toei close to the Phrom Phong BTS station.
Here we lingered a little at Starbucks, taking a look at various stuff, then after that headed off for an early dinner.
Sri Trat Restaurant and Bar has her address at 90 Sukhumvit Alley 33 in the Watthana area.
How we managed to walk all the way from the Emporium to their place, I don't know, but let's just say that it felt like a very long walk on a straight enough road.
It wasn't one of those busy, lively roads- I didn't find myself getting distracted by tuk tuks or motorbikes or pedestrians in any way.
Just that a 15 minute walk felt like a very long one.
Sri Trat Restaurant and Bar is well known for its showcase of home-cooked dishes from the coastal town of Trat down on the far east close to the Cambodian border.
Known for their seafood and curries, Eastern food is, in their words, a balance between Central and Southern. The flavors have been described to be between the intense and the mellow, with a rich injection of both the land and the sea.
I'm not absolutely sure what it is that makes Eastern cuisine the way it is.
I also wish I could share more of what the menu had to offer, but I don't remember exactly what dishes they had, except for maybe one or two.
Something distinctive about their dishes is the presence of fruit.
And I don't mean the pineapple.
It would not be much of a surprise if it were- the pineapple, has, after all, been used in Thai-style fried rice, Chinese-style sweet & sour pork, and in a good number of other dishes.
But here at Sri Trat, there was the coconut, and the durian.
I would have loved to try Red Curry with Turmeric and Barracuda Fish, and their Massaman Curry with Durian (because where else can you find a dish that's cooked with durian?) but we decided to have dishes from both the coast and the land.
So on our table there was a plate of Crab Fried Rice, there was Soft Shell Crab with Fried Onion, there was Green Curry Chicken (old habits die hard), and near the end of our meal we thought the Fried Yam and Homemade Tofu with Tamarind Sauce sounded interesting, so we got that.
You know, there's something about Eastern cuisine that is, really, distinctive from the cuisine of other regions.
How to define it I don't really know, but let's just say it leans more towards the savory than the sweet, it has a combination of flavors that are all mushed together, yet distinguishable on their own, but more importantly, they're all unique on their own.
It's like, you won't find the flavors of their food at another place (unless it's also Eastern).
And even for a regular dish like fried rice, their rice had a texture soft and smooth, almost silky, so much so that it was difficult to not want more.
Perhaps I've been so accustomed to the dry-style of fried rice that a well-turned home-cooked style dish like this makes me feel extra special. We didn't even need to add the lime.
The Green Curry was, in one word, spicy.
There're some places whose green curry is very green and very coconut-y and is more sweet than savory.
Theirs was more savory.
And it was generous.
A part of us wished we could take it away.
A part of us wished we could finish it.
But there was still the Soft Shell Crab, and there was still the Yam that we had wanted to try.
We loved the soft shell crab.
It was perfectly fried.
Yes, there was a bit of the oil when you bit into the crab, but it was so crunchy and so crisp that you didn't feel it at all. What's more, it had been so well done that the parts that were meant to be crunchy (like the legs) were crunchy, and the parts meant to be crisp were crisp. The flesh of the crab wasn't dry either, and the whole crab was smothered with lots and lots of fried onions.
So plentiful were they that we had to scoop the onions out onto our plate like a little heap, and we went back to nibble on those onions even after we'd finished the tofu and the yam.
Will we have the yam again next time?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Perhaps next time I come I'll want to try their desserts and the Massaman Curry with Durian.
But we'll see.
They're quite structured with their quality and their service, by the way, and whilst it makes for a great place to entertain, one does feel the need to be conversational, homely, comfortable, and quiet.
This is, after all, a place that makes one feel very much at home, from the decor to the lights to the service and the lamp hanging on the wall down to the random fly that lands in your glass just at the moment when you're about to take a sip.
They gave me a new bottle.
We went back to the Lang Suan area after that, and because there was still a bit of time, went for a Thai massage at De Spirit before heading back to sleep.