Red Curry with Pork (gaeng pet mooo)
แกงเผ็ดหมู

This is the continuation of my weekly Lunchtime Thai Menu. Every Friday I will be bringing you pictures of what we are eating in the Paknam Web office. My main purpose here, apart from trying to make you feel hungry, is to show what splendid meals you can have on the side of the road. Yes, that is correct, all of the dishes so far have been bought at stalls by the side of the road. Our budget for four people is about 100 baht which works out at about 75 cents each. As you can see, I am very generous when it comes to splashing out on food for the office staff! Last week we came in under budget at only 80 baht for the entire meal which was about $2.40 for four people.

The first dish is one of my all time favourites. I always like to have a coconut based curry in my meals. This one is red curry with pork. You can also choose, beef, chicken or fish. However, I really love with roast duck which is more expensive. This version also has plum tomatoes and pineapple. Unfortunately it is doubtful you will find this one for 20 baht by the side of the road.

Fried Mackerel with Shrimp Paste Sauce (nam prik kapi pla too)
น้ำพริกกะปิปลาทู

This is a favourtie dish of Thai people. I live in a fishing town so it is readily available. The fish is pre-cooked and you just choose which vegetables you want and also the kind of sauce to go with it. Personally I am not too keen on fish and so this is not a favourite. I know plenty of Thai people who will eat just this for a meal.

Tom Yum with Banana Flower and Snake Head Fish
ต้มยำปลาช่อนทอดใส่หัวปลี

This is a variation of the popular tom yum spicy soup. I had Tom Yum with shrimp last night which is my absolute favourite. This is a different recipe. This has a bit of coconut milk though not as much as say tom kha gai. At first I thought the white pieces was shiitake mushrooms that had been sliced up. But this dish uses the banana blossom. In addition there is snake head fish. To be honest I didn't care for it much, but the others liked it.

Fried Mushroom and Pork in Oyster Sauce

ผัดหมูใส่เห็ด 

This is quite a plain and easy dish to make that contains fried pork, button mushrooms and carrot and cooked in oyster sauce. There are so many variations of this dish. Do you like the sun rays affect with the shredded carrot? The staff are really getting into the swing of this food blog. Even though the food is ready made, we take a long time preparing the dishes for display and then photographing before we can even think about sitting down to eat! Good job there isn't much washing up to do at the end!

Omelette
ไข่เจียว

The final one was an extra dish of omelette. For today's menu we actually went over budget as we had one extra guest visiting. So we broke the bank a little and spent a whopping $4.25 for the five of us. But, that is a considerable saving when you compare to how much a similar meal costs in a restaurant. Last night I went with some friends to a restaurant at "Bangsaen 2" by the Gulf of Thailand here in Samut Prakan. There was four of us and with four dishes, fried rice and beer it cost me 890 baht or $26. Obviously I don't want to spend that kind of money too often. And living in Thailand, you really don't need to spend a fortune to eat a King's meal. Just eat by the side of the road for some of the cheapest and most delicious meals in the Kingdom.

Come back next Friday to see what we will eat for our weekly Thai lunch!