Breakfast at the Market, Thai Fruit Carving, and Royal Salads (Day 5)

By Mark Wiens 32 Comments

Talad Wat Raiking (ตลาดวัดไร่ขิง)

Day five on set of the Thai food tv show, and it was one of the best days so far, but it was also very long.

We woke up quite early, about 4 am, and got picked up to drive to Wat Raiking (วัดไร่ขิง), a temple that’s home to a huge sprawling market on Sunday mornings.

Talad Wat Raiking (ตลาดวัดไร่ขิง) market on Sunday morning

The temple sits on the edge of the Tha Jeen River, and across from the river is the sprawling market; Though not nearly as chaotic, it sort of reminded me of Kolkata, India, at the Mullik Ghat flower market.

Thai breakfast — Eating breakfast, market style

On set, the scene was about eating a typical morning market breakfast in Thailand, something I love doing while living in Thailand.

Jok, or Thai rice congee porridge, is one of the most well known breakfast dishes.

I also got to eat a double shot of kai luak, which are soft boiled eggs in a cup, and finally a couple cups of coffee, plus some patongo, or Chinese style salty donuts.

Giant water bugs — Some of the many wonderful things at the market, like giant water bugs

The atmosphere of the early morning at Talad Wat Raiking (ตลาดวัดไร่ขิง) was fantastic, such a fantastic sprawl of food and a nice place to sit for breakfast.

After finishing the shoot at Talad Wat Raiking (ตลาดวัดไร่ขิง), we continued on to Yeesarn (ร้านอาหารยี่สาร), a beautiful restaurant that’s famous for serving royal or traditional Thai cuisine.

The art of Thai fruit carving – khae salak polamai (แกะสลักผลไม้)

But before meeting the owner and eating a selection of royal Thai salads, I first got to have my first lesson carving fruit, known in Thai as khae salak polamai (แกะสลักผลไม้).

Fruit carving in Thai culture is a traditional royal art, often associated with the palace courts cuisine; the carvings are not only just used for decoration, but some of the smaller carvings can also be used to eat – beautiful food!

P’Petchari was an expert, and she taught me to carve a simple leaf from a cucumber (there’s no way I could even come close to carving what she was).

Thai fruit carving at Yeesarn (ร้านอาหารยี่สาร) restaurant

Her leaf was a beautiful perfect leaf; Mine on the other hand, looked like it had been though a number of rough storms, maybe a hurricane.

The next scene was filming with the owner of the restaurant, P’Da, who showed me how to make a number of traditional Thai salads, including yam tua plu (ยำถั่วพลู winged bean salad), yam somo (ยำส้มโอ pomelo salad), yam hua pli (ยำถั่วพลู banana blossom salad), and yam takrai (ยำตะไคร้ lemongrass salad).

The owner was incredibly kind and gracious and it was great to hang out with her.

The food at Yeesarn (ร้านอาหารยี่สาร), we enjoyed a full meal there along with filming, was outstanding.

All the dishes I sampled were incredible, including the full range of special salads she made for us. I will write a full review about the restaurant over on EatingThaiFood.com soon.

yam hua pli (ยำถั่วพลู banana blossom salad) — Yam hua pli (ยำถั่วพลู banana blossom salad)

It was already evening by the time we rolled out of Yeesarn Restaurant, and we headed to the Om Pan Nakhon Chedi (องค์พระปฐมเจดีย์), a famous temple chedi in Nakhon Pathon (นครปฐม).

There’s a famous annual festival that takes place at the temple, but throughout the year, there’s an evening street food market.

We didn’t do too much filming here, but mostly walked around and shot a little bit of the juggling ice cream man (my own video coming soon, very cool) at Ice Cream Loy Fa (ไอศครีมลอยฟ้า).

Thai street food — A famous stall selling sen ya radna (wide rice noodles in sauce)

That was it for the day – another food action packed day, a lot of fun, a lot of delicious food.

Thank you for following along in this series of updates about filming for a Thai food tv show. Day 5 completed the first episode of the show, and we have a few weeks break, to make sure all the production is going according to plan, and to get approved by the commissioner.

During our break, Ying and I took a quick trip to Yangon, Myanmar, and enjoyed a lot of interesting dishes. More updates about Myanmar, and about the show (when it starts up again in a couple weeks), coming soon.

Hope you’re doing well and having a great day.

Thailand's most dangerous temple in Bueng Kan

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