Our contact Melini has taken us to some crazy fabulous places for our dinners. And I gotta admit something to ya, we have been pretty much treated like Royalty at these places. She picks these places that there is no way we would have been able to find on our own, and since most of the people do not speak English, she orders our food ahead of time and it is usually there right when we arrive at the restaurant. Now, I know you are just DYING to hear about my cooking experience, but before I get to that, I gotta tell you about dinner on Friday night.
Melini takes us to this restaurant on the river. But where we ate was actually on a boat. (I'm on a boat, Everybody look at me cuz I'm sailing on a boat!) Sorry, little Lonely Island reference there...moving on... Not only was our dinner ordered and ready for us as we got on the boat, but we rode across the river, it was dinner by candle light, and as if the evening couldnt get any better, fireworks went off in the background about halfway through dinner. It was unreal. We also took our first ride in a tuk tuk, which are these little three wheel taxi things that are actually scary to ride in (and by scary I mean fun!) but they are crazy cheap. We have since rode in the tuks tuks quite a few times to get from place to place.
And now....the moment you have all been waiting for.....Becky in the kitchen! What!? Sadly, nothing really too exciting about this one, but Melini got us into a Thai cooking class for the night. We all cut up and made our own dinners, and we all pretty much rocked it. And everybody left with all their fingers, no burns, (and we were using woks, and those things are scary!) and no food poisoning! So for 12 people at a cooking class, you could say that was a success.
We had a set list to choose from as far as dishes went, and I made veggie pad thai, a green curry, coconut milk soup, and sticky rice and mango for dessert. (Which, btw, is my new favorite thing ever). Who knew cooking could be fun?! But, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that our instructor was standing over us every step of the way. And, all the shopping was done for us, so that made it a lot easier.
We chopped up our own veggies and/or meat and made our dishes, got to eat them and even got a Thai cookbook as a souvenier. I have big plans to use that when I get home, but I may just end up ordering from Thai restaurants as per usual...
Thanks to Melini not only have we had amazing food at amazing restaurants, with unreal ambiance, but we also got a chance to cook our own stuff. Our Cultural experiences in Thailand have been awesome.