Trying SPICY THAI HOTPOT & Morning Market Street Food in Khon Kaen Thailand

We're taking a short trip back here in Bangkok on our way to our next city, but we're stopping by an ancient market called Hua Tha Khe. And this is a market that's been around for over a hundred years, it's right by a river. And this thing almost kind of disappeared about a decade ago because it's just kind of dying off because all the supermarkets are opening, all the malls. But the people who lived here brought it back. So if you walk around, tons of food vendors, tons of activities actually you can do here. So I'm going to go do something right now, kite making. I'm going to go make a kite. This reminds me of that song, let's go make a kite. I like Mary Poppins. This is Weera, he's been making kites for his whole life. He's the only one in the world that makes kites from dry leaves. Look at this. And this is a leaf from a purple orchid tree. Oh, thank you, kapun ka. So great. Thank you. Live my childhood a little bit. Tom yum is one of my favorite things in the world. It's a little spicy, a little sour. Something as simple as instant noodles and tom yum broth, a little soft boiled egg, some meatballs. It makes you so happy, you know? Second bowl, dry pork noodles. I think dry noodles will always be my favorite. As much as I love soupy noodles, the texture, the chew on these, it's just too great to ignore. I really doubt you can find a bad bowl of noodles in Thailand. It's a pumpkin dessert that's shaped to look like noodles. A little bit of coconut, cane sugar with sesame, coconut milk on top. Oh. If you don't tell me that's pumpkin, I would have just thought they were sesame noodles. Oh yeah. Tastes a little bit of the pumpkin flavor, mainly I taste the coconut milk. But what's really cool is that this texture tastes like al dente noodles. I thought the texture was going to be very soft. Not at all. It's like noodles. I bet you could boil these in a noodle soup. That's really good. Completely unexpected. Ooh, homemade ice cream. Mango, yeah. Thank you. Homemade ice cream with some shrimp sauce on top. That mango ice cream is insane. Huh, interesting. Chewy bits of shrimp. Never had chewy bits of shrimp in my ice cream before. Not too bad actually. It's a little bit savory but more so it just provides some textural difference. For this whole community. It's pretty cool. Right by the canal. People work here. They own shops here. They live here. I'm really glad I came today. Had some dessert, good noodles. Got some kites. I'm going to be flying when I get back to Seattle. This is a little dessert. It kind of looks like an UFO. It's made with cane sugar, eggs, and flour. Oh, this is so good. Wow. It's rice flour so you get that nice chewy mochi texture. The outside is completely crispy. It's sweet, eggy. Lucky I still have some of my ice cream left. Ice cream, half a sweet UFO. Drop it in there. Seriously, you need to come here, get one of these. Get some fresh mango ice cream. Homemade fresh mango ice cream. Put them together. Yeah, you'll be sending your taste buds to another universe. This is great. Before we hit the airport, we're going to stop by the weekend market. JJ Market really quick. It's a huge flea market that has been operating for over 60 years. This place is huge. We're not going to be able to see much of it. Because we only got about 30-40 minutes before we have to get to the airport. But over 20 sections, over 9,000 shops. It's a massive market. So everything from food to clothing, drinks. You can probably buy a leprechaun here if you look hard enough. Next time when I come back to Thailand, I got to spend more time here. Because it smells really good. Woah, roasted coconut. I want one. I love coconut water. Especially icy cold coconut water. I don't know what the roasted really does. Maybe it's a little more aromatic. I can't really tell. Fish balls. There's a long line. It's a whole bunch of chili sauce. So I had to get some. Gotta say that's delicious. That's really good. A little chewy on the outside. A little spongy and fishy inside. No joke. Really, really good. Welcome to Khon Kaen. So this morning I was in Northern Thailand. Now I'm in Northeastern Thailand. This is one of the biggest cities in Northeastern Thailand. Even though this is not one of the most highly visited places in Thailand. It's got a unique culture. Very rich history. And of course, a ton of great food. We're starting off right off the plane. We came to a hot pot restaurant. Thai hot pot for dinner. This is the most popular hot pot restaurant in the city. And they have three major soup bases. Beef. The pork. We got both the beef and the pork. And a clear base. Which I'm assuming is more vegetarian. So meat. There's beef. There's pork. There's a bunch of veggies. Seafood. Not a lot of ingredients. You can actually select different types of beef here. But supposedly, the crown jewel of this place is the dipping sauce. That smells like a Tom Yum soup. Just from looking at this, there's not too many ingredients in this broth. I smell some bay leaves. Some lemongrass. And just a lot of beef. Wow. This may not look it. It is really spicy. You can definitely taste the bay leaves. A little of the lemongrass. It is a ton of spice. Although they're not in big chunks like in a Chinese hot pot. Here it's ground up and very saturated. And this broth, you can see them. They're cooking it in like massive pots. And they cook it fresh every single day. Grab the spoonful of the pork broth. I feel like the spices in both broth is very similar. You get more of the bacon flavor, obviously. I'm really excited about this. I love trying hot pot in different cultures. One of my favorite things. Hot pots, noodles, dumplings. There are different versions of all those all around the world. And I love getting to know them. That spice just definitely went into that meat really quickly. The spices of the broth 100% penetrates through the meat really well. This meat could be cut a little thinner. So it becomes more tender. Let's try this dipping sauce. And of course in Chinese hot pot, there's like 20-30 ingredients. You mix your own dipping sauce. Here to give it to you, saves me a lot of trouble. This is crazy legit dipping sauce. It tastes almost like a concentrated Tom Yum soup base. A little lemongrass, vinegar, soy sauce, tons of chilies, garlic. Basically what you think of when you think of concentrated Thai flavoring, all in this little dish here. Ooh, that got me going. Now I'm ready for more. This is no ordinary spicy. This is not even at a Chinese place where you can be like, tone down the spice please. This is, it just comes like this. So if you don't have a high tolerance, this might be a little difficult for you. But hot pot is one of those food items that I gladly suffer for. This hot pot is really satisfying. It was very rustic. Nothing really too fancy about it. Just a lot of deep rich flavors and chilies. Towards the end of the meal, get some of this. Let it soak up that broth. Nothing like noodles at the end of a hot pot meal. Oh, those are some beefy noodles. That was deeply satisfying. But if you love Thai spices, having it in a hot pot, it's glorious. Now after a meal like this, the only thing you want to do, take a shower and just hibernate. I think I'm gonna do that right now. Definitely got a hot pot tummy. Good night. Hey, good morning. My first and only full day here in Khanh Can. And we're on our way to a local farm. But before that, breakfast at this extremely popular local place that's famous for their sausages with a Thai twist. Gotta have some soup in the morning. This ain't your typical soup though. Pork soup with blood jelly, meatballs, liver, and slices of pork. And some greens, you know. Gotta eat healthy. It's really porky but also extremely light. This broth is really, really clear. This I feel like, if you drink the whole bowl like this, it might be a little too much for you. You definitely need some vinegar and chilies to kind of cut through that fat a bit. And I noticed on this trip, Thai people put sugar in a lot of things. So in the utility tray, you're always gonna find like a little thing of sugar in case you need more sugar. Also, white pepper. Just like the magic ingredient when it comes to soups. Let me tell you, adding a little sugar in your soup, it does the wonders. About to eat a pig intestine. If this thing is not cleaned well, it's gonna be a funky. Not bad. Ooh, a little funk. Oh, that meatball is so good. I wish I had a bowl of noodles with nothing but this meatball. It's like the softest, most flavorful pork that just breaks apart upon the first chew. Our other food items have arrived. Fried egg with a couple different types of sausage on top. A whole plate of Thai sausage. Vietnamese-style pork sausage. This is bloody amazing. This sausage is fried on the outside. Sesame and cumin inside the sausage. Oh, that. That is a good sausage. This one kind of tastes like a lap cheong. The texture is that of a thicker pepperoni. Bit sweet, really smoky. And then we have all these little buns here with the two types of sausage in here as well. That's for sure freshly baked bread. And we also got these steamed noodles with pork and chive inside. Trying to not break them, but it's so hard because they're so delicate. That is some of the softest steamed noodles I've ever had in my life. You can see how soft and delicate the skin is. I mean, I couldn't even pick one of these things up without damaging it. This breakfast is so fun because not only is it delicious, you can taste the influence of all the cultures and countries surrounding this region. The soup is more Thai. Egg, sausage, bread is more Vietnamese. Steamed noodles, dumplings, and pork more Chinese. Throwing a croissant in a bowl of cereal? This would be like the UN of breakfasts. That was a good breakfast. Now on our way to a sustainable local farm. This is Phu. It means crab. Yes, in Thai. And you own this farm. Yes, it's like a home garden. Okay. So we plant everything. So people are coming here, they're literally eating whatever you're planting. Yes. And you're cooking. Yes. That's what I'm about to be doing. We're picking our own herbs for our meal today. We got some of those oregano smelling herbs for some tea. Ooh, fresh watercress. This stuff is great for hot pot. And this is what a butterfly pea flower looks like. Basil. Yeah. Ooh, it smells great. It's good for Massaman curry. This is Indian olive tree. We eat with, you know, the salad, spicy salad. Fresh guava. Fresh papaya. That's what we're going to use today. Oh, thank you. Fresh banana off a tree. That's good. That's sweet. Is this not one of the most beautiful drinks you've ever seen? Drink made with butterfly pea. Whenever you see a purple drink in Thailand, it's usually made from these butterfly pea flowers. It's got this nice, tangy, fruity flavor to it. All right, we've got a feast in front of us. Should we start? Yeah. Let's try some of this papaya salad. So this is the one with the anchovies. Yeah, Yishan style. Yishan style. It's the freshest papaya salad I've ever had. That crunch is unlike anything I've had in restaurants. That is some really spicy chilies. I mean, I appreciate that. Thank you. That is some good chilies. Normally we eat sticky rice with chicken and also eat papaya salad all together. All right. This is the crispy chicken wing. This is nicely fried. The top secret recipe. Oh my god. This is so crispy. So bite of this. You like it? Oh, I love it. Bite of that. Yeah, and eat with the papaya salad. Eat with the papaya salad. We don't try Yishan style, just like this. Oh, dip it in the papaya salad. This is traditional way. That makes the rice better. Even more fragrant. What's the little flower? Butterfly. Oh, wait. This is also butterfly? So there's white and purple. And we put some curry with some fish ball. Eat with egg as well. All together. Yeah. You might try. Did you make the fish cake? No. That's good fish cake. We could make some. That's really good. The grilled chicken. That's been grilling for like an hour. I'm gonna take a wing. And I'm gonna take a drumstick. That's some smoky chicken. The taste different. The marinade is great. Is this the chicken I was trying to run away? This chicken got out. All the rest are in there. Is this the chicken? No? I didn't know this is the punishment for trying to break out. It's like you get grilled right away. No, because we give them freedom. Oh, freedom. They let out on purpose. No, no. I've been eyeing that soup for a while. So this is fresh catfish from your farm. Yeah. Oh, it's so interesting. Is this what I tasted when we were walking? It's a little bitter. It's got a nice crunch. The soup in general is spicy. I really love this soup. Okay, this is the other fish that we have. What kind of fish is this? This is tilapia. We eat with chili paste. Nice. And some vegetables. This is amazing. It's so sweet and floral. This is a vegetable? Like a flower. Wow. That crunch is amazing too. How about the chili paste? Oh, I love the crunch of it. And it's got a little bit of sweetness. I think that's natural from the onions. And it is spicy. Any type of meat, this will be great for. That's a pretty looking salad. It's like I'm about to eat a flower garden. I love that dressing. Sesame. Sesame dressing. It's like Japanese style. That dressing is great. Thank you. That's the crispiest watercress. And the freshest salad. I don't usually appreciate salad. No. Yeah, because you are a meat lover. Meatitarian, yeah. But this is a great salad. Like I should really like this. Oh wait, we got dessert? Yeah. Oh my god. So what is this, coconut milk? Coconut milk. Coconut milk with mochi. Similar to. Rice ball. Yeah, rice ball. Yes, rice ball, coconut milk. Yeah. It's cold. Oh wow. Sesame paste inside. Creamy, sweet, little salty coconut milk. This is a very satisfying last course. Thank you so much for having me today. Getting all these fresh produce and eating all this deliciously cooked chicken. And we're still feasting. I'm just trying all the stuff. And we still got a lot of stuff on the table. So we're going to keep eating. But thanks again for having me. Thank you for coming. Welcome to dinner. This is quite a retreat. This place, the cooking is actually from the recipe of Grandma Somsee who brought her recipes from Eastern Thailand to here over 60 years ago. And it's been passed down ever since. So tonight's going to be a taste of Eastern Thai food. This is Chef Noi. She's responsible for all this. Thank you. I'm so excited about this. Seven courses. Everything I love and land and see is in front of me. First course, we have rice cracker on top with chili sauce and fried pig skin. Two different types of crunch. One from the rice cracker, one from the crackling on top. And the chili sauce is not spicy at all. It's more smoky. Next, shredded coconut with little bits of orange, pork inside. That's like the most intensely roasted coconut flavor I've ever had. Pork stir fry with garlic sitting on top of a, I can only describe as like an orange floaty. Wow. And there's so many like just pow, pow, pow strong flavors in that. Sweet orange. These are little bits of nicely cooked pork. You get that great garlic aroma. This one is intense. Crab with pork stuffed inside a crab shell. Oh, this is the greatest thing. Tons of crab meat and pork. I didn't know crab and pork went so well together. You get the slight sweetness from the crab and that fattiness from the pork. Dip that in a little bit of the sweet sauce. Eat it with a spicy chili. This is basically everything I love in a crab shell. Spicy pad thai with some banana flowers, some chives. Look at that beautiful orange glow. Pad thai is one of my favorite things. And this one is so amazing. I never had crab inside pad thai. Beef stir fry with Thai curry. This one is sticky fish. Not stinky fish, sticky fish. Braised pork, cooked three hours. Look at this thing. You can spread this over toast. And finally, fried salted fish with onions, chilies, lime. And this you can just mix into like a salad. One bowl of rice will definitely not be enough for all these amazing dishes. Oh, that beef. That beef is so soft. Aromatic, sweet, coconut flavor. Sticky fish, I never had before. It's a very meaty fish, it's not very flaky. So it almost tastes like really tender pieces of pork. Oh, your heart will melt as fast as this pork melts on your tongue. I love the salted fish salad. It's kind of like eating a salty fish jerky. This is delicious. And you really don't want to waste any of the sauce. So my suggestion, get some extra rice. And finally is a vegetable platter. And it comes with this dipping sauce of eggs and crab. Alright, that is a great dipping sauce. Oh, that dipping sauce will work on anything. Vegetables, rice, noodles. I mean, it might be a small little cup of dipping sauce. But this thing has a ton, ton of flavor in here. This, I will buy in a jar. I will buy in a can. I will buy it in a bag. If they put it in my hands, I'll lick it off my hands that way. This is amazing. I'll probably even eat broccoli if it's dipped in this for dessert. Salted egg rice balls in coconut milk. These look like, like fruity pebbles. The orange ones are actually salted egg pebbles. So some bites you get a nice chewy rice ball. Some bites you get a crumbly salted egg. All swimming around in this warm coconut milk. This is so genius. A little salty, a little sweet. Lots of different texture. What a sweet ending to an amazing food day. Like seriously, hot pot, great breakfast of sausage and soup. Went to a farm and then here at grandma's house to wrap everything up. As always guys, all the places I went to listed down below for you. I thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again, see you later.