Will eat for love

As boring as it may sound, I spent my my 31st birthday with my parents :) No getting drunk, no running away, no mad hats and kissing girls. Just eating lots with my beloved parents and family :) It sounds weird, but my family are feeders.

We talk about food when we wake up, we talk about food one meal ahead, we eat between meals, and we talk about food before we sleep. My fondest childhood memories are of eating hawker food late at night with my Mum, Dad and brothers. My Mum helping me to squat and pee in a monsoon drain after supper (ssssh, don't tell my future employers that I can do the oriental squat!).

Instead of the Maccas scale to judge the standard of living in different countries, we have the crab scale.

Chilli crabs in Singapore:


Chilli and curry crabs in Thailand (sorry, forgot to take a pic!)

Salty egg (Haam Daan) crabs in Cambodia -

Which country had the best value crab meal?

WEEEELL....
Biggest crab ever, goes to Singapore Chilli Crabs.
Err, with crabs from Sri Lanka. HUUUUGEN:

Best value for money, Thai crabs. Cheap as chips! 2 mud crabs for next to nothing in Baht (again, sorry no pix).

Tastiest crab goes to CAAAMBODIA :) Which surprisingly has a lot of really good seafood. For exorbitant US prices. More on that later.

Here's what my Dad told me on the last day of our holiday together - "What do you want to eat? CRAB. PRAWNS. Because I know you're not going to have the same in Rondon! You will never find this in Rondon!"

My Dad was right. Best. Birthday. Ever.

(Followed very closely by the time the dFs, B, He Who Shall Not Be Named and I went mental for a week :) )

Here are the other foodie pix from Singapore (where a brilliant laksa cost me less than 2 squids) and Cambodia.

THAT laksa:

Char Kway Teow:

Teow Chew Braised Duck:

Kway-Something-Something, it came with the Braised Duck:

Tofu, simple and honest :)

Foodcourt Rojak and dang it was good:

Durian, the KING of fruit.
Smells like a public toilet, tastes like heaven...
(to be honest, I loooooves the smell)

My birthday dinner of Steamboat with every luxurious seafood available:

(there's abalone in there)

The best fish head curry on banana leaf in Singapore:

The pippies (la la) I haven't had for years because it's not sold in Rondon:

The boat noodles I had by the side of the floating markets:

The riskiest thing I did in BKK...
Eat fly-infested noodles (before I found the more hygienic noodles above)
THE DAY BEFORE T&D's wedding:

Nom nom nom... The Cambodian grouper:

The mangosteens. HELL the fruit in general:


So yeah, I took more pix of food than anything else ;P
(THANK YOU LI,
ESPECIALLY FOR LETTING ME EAT DURIAN
IN YOUR APARTMENT
*grin* *MUAH* )