Familiar foods with a new twist:

Fresh fruit – Many tropical fruits that we enjoyed eating fresh: mango, papaya, pineapple, watermelon, banana, coconut, kiwi, and pomello. Most of bananas are small (about 3 or 4 inches long) and we saw several varieties in the store.

Fruit shakes – These consist of ice, fruit (pieces and/or juice,) and sometimes a bit of milk whizzed together. Flavors we’ve tried: coconut, mango, banana, orange, lemon, watermelon and pineapple. Plus combinations of these fruits –mixture of lemon and pineapple is especially good. We quickly learned that a fruit shake does not include ice cream, but it still very refreshing on a hot day.

Fried bananas – We tried two different versions of this.  The first was crisp-fried banana pieces on skewer with sweet syrup for dipping. And the other variation was banana slices dipped in batter and then deep fried with no sauce.

Coconut ice cream with fresh coconut curls served in a coconut – This tasted and looked great!

Fresh coconut as an ingredient in green curry soup – It took us a while to figure out what the crisp, white, crinkled French-fry was in our curry soup. Our “aha” moment happened in the produce section of a grocery store where we could buy a package of them.

Papaya salad – Typical ingredients included grated papaya with carrots, nuts, and spicy dressing.

Mango or banana pancakes with orange or chocolate syrup – This turned out to be one of our favorite breakfasts in Chiang Mai.  Nature’s Way Restaurant topped the pancakes with a variety of colorful fresh fruit pieces and even created face designs with fruit for Ethan and Ethan. We are definitely going to make these types of pancakes when we get home.

Dried pomello, pineapple, apricots, strawberries, jackfruit, and kiwi – Women from the hill tribes in northern Thailand sell all types of dried fruit  at tourist markets along the roadside.

Eggs – Most grocery stores and street markets sell brown eggs instead of white and the shells are not washed well. A couple of street markets even sold pink eggs, much to Eryn’s delight!

Mushrooms – The Thai people love mushrooms and we saw and ate so many new varieties.  One common type is large and frilly (looks like brown lettuce) and in Bangkok we often ate mushrooms with long skinny stems and very small caps.