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Crispy Noodles in a Thick Vegetable Gravy (rat naa mee grob)
หมี่กรอบราดหน้า

For our Thai lunch today, we decided to have individual meals for each person. Normally we will buy various dishes and then share. All of these meals in this series of the Friday Thai Lunch were bought on the street in Thailand and then brought home to photograph and eat. The first two are one of my favourites and can be bought almost everywhere. In Thai it is called "rat naa". In English you could call it Noodles in a Thick Vegetable Gravy.

Wide Noodles in a Thick Vegetable Gravy (rat naa sen yai)
เส้นใหญ่ราดหน้า

These two dishes both have the same ingredients of pork and Chinese broccoli. However, you can choose what type of noodles you like to have. These are two of my favourites for "rat naa". The top dish has "mee grob" which is a crispy version of the egg noodle, and the one above has "sen yai" which is the wide noodle. You can also choose "sen mee" which is a thin noddle which I don't like so much. I usually alternate between "sen ya" and "mee grob". The gravy is made thick by adding corn flour to the stock. These dishes only cost 25 baht each. Actually, there is more gravy to pour on top but I kept some back so that you could see the ingredients better! This is very good value for money

Egg Noodles in Tom Yum Soup (baa mee tom yum)
บะหมี่ต้มยำ

Around the corner we have a noodle stall where you can order quite a few different versions of noodles that either come dry or in a soup. The price is the same so I usually always ask for the soup too! Again you can choose from a variety of different sized noodles. If you don't know the Thai then you can always point to what ingredients you want! The choice is usually, "sen yai", "sen mee", "sen lek" and "ba mee". My all time favourite is the last one which is called egg noodle in English. It is yellow in colour whereas the others are white. At this stall, I usually alternate between "ba mee kieo nam" (egg noodle soup with wonton) or "baa mee tom yum". The above is the latter version which I love. It is virtually the same but has Chinese morning glory instead and she also adds ground roasted peanuts and a spoonful of nam prik pao (otherwise known as chili jam). She never makes it spicer enough for me so when I get home I always add another spoonful of chili jam and then the dried chilis as well.

Wonton Soup with Red Pork (kieo nam moo daeng)
เกี๊ยวน้ำหมูแดง

This is the second version with the wontons. These are pork wrapped in a pastry. However, the ingredients can vary. She also added pak choy vegetable and red pork. I like this one with egg noodles. However, this person didn't want any noodles so the noodle vendor added more wontons instead. The soup is always clear and it is up to you about adding the four flavours. These come in packets and include: chillies in fish sauce, chillies in rice vinegar, sugar and chili powder. I usually add them all though not so much of the sugar. I am not as sweet toothed as the Thais seem to be. Both of these dishes cost only 25 baht each.

Khao Tom Mad
ข้าวต้มมัด

Our dessert today is also one of my favourites. It is called "khao tom mad". It is basically a mixture of sticky rice with coconut cream and sugar. It also has a ripe banana in the middle and you can also see some black eye peas in this picture. It is wrapped in banana leaves and then left to steam for two hours. These cost only 6 baht each. So, our meal for four people was about US$4 today which wasn't bad!

Come back next Friday to paknam.com to see what we are eating in the Paknam Web offices.