How to Kill Yourself Buying Groceries in Thailand

One of the hazards about living in Thailand is that, everything is in Thai. So turning off the wrong road flying off the cliff because the “danger - you are going to fly off the cliff” sign is written in Thai is just one of the many situations we foreigners may encounter.


I deliberately placed a bottle of salt among the multipurpose cleaners. As the picture above shows, if it was the other way round that I did put the multipurpose cleaner among the bottles of salt, some poor old farang with bad eyesight could have been sprinkling the corrosive agent into his baking pizza at home and wondering why his pizza sizzles like never before. I had once used the floor cleaner to wash my dishes because both detergent and floor cleaner looks so darn similar, with the almost identical red packaging and all the Thai words sprawled over. The detergent liquid was red, the floor cleaner liquid was red and both smelled of strawberry. English is not necessary and even if it is, the words are placed discreetly in small fonts. These are pure examples of the Hokkien saying “have mustache, blindly recognize as father”.

When at Tops, I see expired farang products everyday. Instant mashed potatoes, not every Thai will consume. Apple chips and such, all left to rot on the shelves and no staff bother to check on them since they are all English. I pointed out that a package had expired… EXP: FEB 14 2008. The staff told me.. E-X-P printed on the package was the packaging date, F-E-B is January in Thai….. WTF!!! I had to correct her and she then removed all the goods from the shelf, probably recycling them into the yellow pails we buy as offerings to the monks since Thai monks are unlikely to read English.


Non Stop Banana? Till this day I am wondering what genetic mutation causes a banana to be un-stoppable.


Worker Ants…. Wow.. didn’t know ants has an effect on air quality in Bangkok.


In a world where translations are never done correctly and where the talking bird speaks Thai, you really need to learn to read, really need to learn to write. Speaking their gentle language is just the first of obstacles.

Green Soup E-San, DON’T

In Sattahip, we had meals by the road side, breakfast by the sea, lunch in deep parts of the naval base with scenic views, coffee by the beach and drinks everywhere else. There, the scary food stories began.

First…. I took a piece of that fragrant fried fish that we waited for half an hour. Gobbled it down and what remained on my plate was a leg. My mouth paused. My brain paused.


I looked to my Thai friend and asked…. WTF is this, eyes wide open. He said, its delicious, dot worry, its just parts of fried cricket leftover in the wok frying our fish. True enough, my other colleague found one lone cricket hidden among the fried garlic garnish, whisked that into his mouth and chomped it down deliciously. Ok… so that was not so weird.

Next, that green soup of E-San. Don’t drink it. In fact, don’t drink anything that you know are pieces of cow floating in what looks deliciously like the green mutton soup of the Singapore Malay stalls.

When the dish came to me in the Som-Tam stall (North-East Papaya Salad Food), I was overwhelmed with delight to think that there was finally a mutton soup equivalent in Thailand. I was happy. The meat was ok, real steak, gingerly. One spoonful of the soup was next, firely gingerly taste that eventually left a huge cloud of bitterness in the mouth. I thought it was herbal, like certain Chinese delicacies. So, it was not Malay Mutton Soup.

In my best Thai I asked, in my best deciphering I understood:
“So what’s this?”
“Its soup of the final intestines of a cow.”
“Final? Near the backside?”
“Yes, it is special E-San dish.”
“Final? Where the shit is?”
“Yes, but may not be shit yet, final part of intestine, where food 90% turns shit, but have no chance to turn into 100% real shit because cow got slaughtered.”

Holy cow…. I ate cow shit!!!!!!!

Thai Fried Quail Eggs

And here’s something we don’t see in Singapore’s parsa-malam. Delicious fried quail eggs sprinkled with fish sauce and pepper.

Singaporean’s one Bigger n Longer

Saw food stall outside selling Thai version of you-char-kuay and hum-chim-peng. All small small ones… very cute.


And the above is the Singapore’s version.

The Coconuts of Samui

Coconuts… we just love them. Nice and sweet the fluid, cool and white the meat. Especially after sizzling your skin in the sun, one good cold coconut taste like the fruits sowed from heaven. So… we went coconut hunting. Here there everywhere, drive around for long. No coconuts! I could see coconuts for miles, stretching into the hills. Even in the distance high hill tops, you could see the distinguishable shape of the pointy leaves but no one sells coconuts!


“Coconuts are rare” on Samui but we eventually found them. Talked to the locals and asked why no coconuts. The natives of the islands said that only crazy tourist and foreigners like me will BUY a coconut. It is all over the darn place so why should they sell. They could just pick one up from the floor… Free coconuts. We are nuts to buy them.

Samui Photos

Business Lunch

Eat prawns eat prawns with my customers….

Life snake head fish has stick poked right through em. Then salted heavily and BBQ instantly.

Otak, Thai version.

Deep fried God knows what fish....

Ohhh yeah... come to papa.... BBQ live.

SGD$ 6 per kilo!!!!

Now... u see why my horizontal waist expansion seems to go on forever since i came to Thailand?

Finding the Elusive Singapore Food

I have no idea where this is. All I know is that it is in Nonthaburi near to my other office. The Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee… awesome. The Laksa… served in the clay pot, awesome. The Satay… fooking expensive, can try for once, then feel your pocket burn, then can skip for rest of life. I found you, oh Singapore food in Thailand.

TESCO Thailand wants to Kill Farangs

A lone foreigner in Thailand has bought a pack of sausages from one of the country’s big giant supermarkets and almost suffered serious health complications due to ingestion of non-edible contents. Unlike sausages elsewhere in the world, Thailand seems to be the only place where sausages are wrapped in plastic, instead of an edible film of material.

The pack of sausages from TESCO does not have any writings in English, other then the word TESCO of course. There is no warning on the package to inform the consumer that plastic is used as the skin, and should be removed before eaten or fried. In Thailand, it is common knowledge that sausages of inferior grade are of this nature, but how was the foreigner suppose to know when everything is in Thai? This is again what exhibits so clearly that Thailand only loves the money of farangs and not really welcome farangs to make this country their home. The foreigner then fried the sausages, melting the plastic, not realizing the strange smell is not from the cooking of special odd Thai spices. It was odd when the foreigner hears the sausages wheezing in the frying pan and he did not know sausages were not suppose to make funny noises like dying of pain when being cooked. It was not until he bit into the sausage that he noticed the skin does not break and the contents “oozed” out from an opening in the plastic.

When Mr Lim, the owner of this blog, was interviewed after throwing all the TESCO sausages in the bin, he said “TESCO go KNNBCCB! Kan puar tulan. TESCO haw gao kan. Kaninambreh…. Ai wa si ah? Chee Bye.”

Coconut Milk Chicken.

Was at some place after work, and having a good chat with some Thai friends. We talked about food. He brought out the topic of this very interesting dish – Coconut Milk Chicken.

1. Dig hole in ground.
2. Catch chicken.
3. Put chicken in hole.
4. Leave only chicken head above ground and bury the rest of the poor struggling creature.
5. Feed chicken nothing but coconut milk.
6. Continue feeding for up to a week.
7. Take chicken out of ground.
8. Chicken feathers will all naturally fall off. Chicken will be naked and would have acquired a ghostly white color. Chicken will be unable to run nor walk nor stand.
9. Kill chicken and cook. Very delicious.