I just got back from a very quick and very indulgent hop to Bangkok. I actually did nothing but eat, relax and shop ( window shopping really does relax me and make me happy, a remnant from my days in film production where all I did was shop for props, accessories, costumes every week – most fun job ever).

We had a lovely apartment on the 39th floor of the Emporium suites by Chatrium, with a view of Sukhumvit and the metro line. At night this view changed into a stunning skyline, all glittering and bright like Bangkok herself. I would stare out of the large glass windows for hours. Especially when there were thunderstorms.

As soon as I arrived, #lovethisman dragged me acoss to the Food Court on the 4th floor of the Emporium Mall, which is attached to the hotel. It was just perfect. You glide down from your room in the high speed elevator, walk across the elegant lobby into the mall and voila, you are in wonderland.

The mall itself is like any other in Bangkok, but it soon became my favourite. Filled with designer labels and chic boutiques, an excellent gourmet food market, local gourmet delicacies and a huge department store. Emporium Mall is still smaller and more intimate and very newly renovated. It isn’t crawling with people and this makes it stand apart from the more popular Central, MBK and Siam Paragon malls.

But let me go back to the 4th floor which soon became my second home.

There is a very good food court here. One section only has different restaurants specialising in fresh sea food, live kitchen counters, cuisine from across the world, ice creams, thai sausage and more.

But #lovethisman led me by the hand to the food court section that has local hawker-style stalls. You buy a swipe card preloaded with how much you want to spend and then order at different stalls. You grab one of the tables in the large, common seating area. It is self service.

The mind boggles. There were so much local street food to taste! Pork, chicken, duck, sea food, fish. There was sushi, Thai, Indian, Malay.

I stopped at the Dragon X stall, and gleefully selected #12: it was like a Singapore Chicken Rice but with crispy and roasted duck and pork.

One stall only sold chicken feet, deep fried in fat and beautifully caramelised a dark brown. There was more chicken and lots of roast duck.

We were very excited with the sea food stall that had fresh, gleaming oysters, mussels and clams. We ordered the oyster omlette. I had never eaten one before this and was curious to try fresh eggs and sea food.

I was overjoyed to find my favourite local dessert at a large drinks and dessert stall. I still don’t know what it’s called, but it’s basically shaved ice made into a large snowball and dunked in a syrup of your choice and loaded with local toppings. The memory of this pandanus flavoured dessert evokes my first trip to Bangkok as a nine year old. More about that in another post, because I could sing paens incessantly.

Our food came swiftly, and we loaded our plastic plates into plastic trays. We armed ourselves with various garnishes from the caddy: dark soy, chilli soy, chilly soy with fish sauce, chilly powder, sugar and more. There were chopsticks and soup spoons and forks and knives.

The oyster omlette was quite a revelation. Soft, pillowy omlette bursting with plump, fresh oysters. This was topped with crisp bean sprouts, crushed peanuts and chilli powder. The combination of textures, the tender oysters encased in a pillow of eggs, was almost comfort food but for the crunch and the fire of the garnish. This is really something I want to try out at home.

#lovethisman chose a masala crab curry with noodles. Which neither of us really liked after the oysters.

But my #12 was really good. It was simplicity itself. A glob of local rice, a bowl of chicken stock flavoured only with ginger and spring onion , some stir fried Pak choy, cucumbers for crunch and slices of roast duck, roast pork, crispy duck and crispy pork. I combined them together with a lot of the sauces. I love the flavours, so distinctive from Chinese sauces. There was pickled ginger as well. One taste of this rice and my tongue tingled alive, absorbing some of the most evocative flavours I have known: the sweet, the salty, the fiery, the umami, together with the soft rice and fragrant meat. It took me back to my favourite Chicken Rice in Singapore and instantly made me miss Anthony Bourdain, in whose mighty footsteps we followed to his favourite chicken-rice hawker at Maxwell Food Centre.

There is just something perfect about Thai flavours, so uniquely different from Chinese, Japanese and Malaysian flavours. The aromas of lemongrass and galangal and Kaffir lime and chilly with my beloved pandanus are so exotic and relaxing and electrifying all at once !!

More on Thai food soon!!