Friday fervour

To balance last week’s Friday Fury I’m raving about ‘Sunshine Kitchen.’ I went off to do some 'research' about ten days ago so that I could blog about them. However I forgot to take a picture; I was half way through scoffing my food before I remembered and then I wasn’t prepared to stop.

Sunshine Kitchen – okay, it’s not a great name – but OMG, the food… the food more than makes up for it. They describe the food as ‘quality, healthy, fresh and tasty’ but the reason I love it is because it’s proper vegetarian food. They do serve meat and fish – separately obviously – but their use of grains, pulses and veggies make this among the best vegetarian food I’ve ever eaten.

For anyone in Bangkok, you can find them downstairs in the vegetable market part of Gourmet in Siam Paragon. You can take away or eat in at a no frills high stool and bench arrangement. They’re total foodies. When you arrive to look at the food, the first thing they do is to get a pot of spoons and let you try stuff.

It’s been a mystery to me why I hadn’t found excellent veggie restaurants in Bangkok. There’s a branch of Buddhism that is vegetarian and think of all those studenty type backpackers that come to Thailand. Is it presumptuous of me to think that they’ll be a higher than average number of veggies among them?

And no, I’m not being paid to say this; I just feel fervour for the grub. I’m a frustrated vegetarian. I grew up among foodies but they were confirmed meat eaters. My sister became vegetarian in her teens and my parents declared it a stage she’d grow out of: 25 years later my Dad’s still calling it a phase. Sod’s law would have it that I married a meat eater too but not only that, but he’s nearly phobic about vegetable, grains and pulses.

This plate of food cost 200 Baht (currently about £3.60)

Elephants on Elephant Island

I meant to blog about the holiday we had with Husband's sister and her family. We went to Koh Chang which we've been to lots of times: it's where the Skyros holiday was. It's the second largest island after Phuket but is considerably less developed.

Before they came SiL had requested elephant rides because Nephew (aged 7) is obsessed by them; 'Ellie' is his security toy. That was easy given our booking on Koh Chang. I'd gone with the Skyros crowd to one of the nicest elephant camps I've ever been to and frankly, I don't tire of elephants; spending time with them, riding on them. They are the most delightful creatures.

What really blew me away though is that Nephew had never seen one in the flesh. I cannot tell you what a privilege it was to share his first elephant experience.