July 17,

Up and about with coffee/hot chocolate in hands, we watched some You tube to figure out today's plan of attack. We had a light breakfast of our yogurt and cookies, and decided on couple of places from the Roaming Cook. He has them together in one video, as they are right near each other. I also heard back about my allergy testing. I am not allergic to shrimp! Huh? Well, that was surprising, but at the same time a relief! We readied for food.

We went out just as it was raining, but we were able to wait it out as it was a brief rain. The construction workers really did not have much of a delay – five minutes, maybe. I don't know if I have mentioned the construction going on. It is right outside of our apartment complex. They are rebuilding the main road in front, seems to be for drainage. Bangkok is notorious for flooding during rainy season. Anyway, this construction adds steps to our getting around, but it probably has cut back on traffic around us.

We get out to the main road and walk a bit to a bus stop. The bus we want showed up and we boarded, taking this bus for 9.4 miles – 45 minutes. We exited the bus and were looking for the second bus to get us in the proximity of our destination. It was running late, so we decided to finish walking the last part – around a mile and a half. We found were the first place was supposed to be generally. It is a food cart, so the owner could set up anywhere along this area. We could not find it.

So we moved on to our second option. This one is a food stall along with a strip of other food stalls. It is called, Lakkhana Grilled, I think. Anyway, we were welcomed by the owner and his wife. The lady came over to take our order. We pointed at the big picture banner that makes up the back “wall” of the stall. We had one order of grilled, crispy chicken; and one order of grilled, caramelized pork neck/cheek. Neither meat is battered nor fried; rather they are marinated. We also ordered sticky rice to go with it. They have a self serve bowl of leafy greens, I went and picked a small bit of most of them. Our orders then came, each meat with a little bowl of a 'killer' – chili and tamarind paste-like mix. ('Killer' as in spicy and did not require much to get the flavor.) Both of the meats were juicy and tender. The chicken (a thigh and leg) had a nice, crispy skin with the meat being so moist – almost melted in your mouth, with out chewing! The pork was succulent with the outside grilled to achieve some caramelizing! Both were, actually, exceptional!! We finished and ordered another pork dish we thought, but got chicken, which was just fine! The whole lunch costs us 170 Baht ($4.75)!!

We left satisfied, not overly full, but very, very happy. Now we backtracked and Jeff found a different bus route that we caught. It was a longer ride, but less miles 9 miles. The traffic is just more and congested. We were on this bus for almost 1.5 hours! Anyway, it's a neat to see the city skyline and people watch – outside and in the bus. This bus was very chilly and we almost got out early to warm up!🤣So fickle!!

We were heading back to our place, and we stopped at a bakery and picked out some interesting bread for supper maybe. Then we saw the local food guy we had stopped at before… well, we picked up some spring rolls for dinner and noticed the soup. It was Tom Kha Gai! This is our favorite Thai soup. We got started on this soup from one of our B-I-Ls that spent a year in Thailand during College. It has chicken, mushrooms, lemongrass, (plus other stuff) and is a coconut milk base. Can't wait to have it for supper! Also I saw a local haircut place or salon. I stopped in to set up an appointment for tomorrow. The lady did not seem to speak English, so she called her adult daughter and we got it worked out. I am ready for a shorter 'do'… we'll see. Finally, we arrived back at our place, traded our clothes for our swimsuits and hit the pool. We most assuredly are pool people now.

Refreshed and exercised we head back to our back to our apartment and showered. Deciding it was time for supper, we reheated the soup and nuked the spring rolls. The soup was top notch!! We will definitely get it again if he has it again! The spring rolls were okay, but nice with the side of sauce he gave.

I caught up this blog as Jeff read and then edited. Great foodie fun today!