- Good morning, everyone, it's Mark Wiens,
I'm in Nakhon Si Thammarat in the South of Thailand.
And today, I'm gonna take you on a
special little day trip with Ying and Micah,
and we are going,
it's about 60 kilometers away to a place called Hua Sai.
(upbeat reggae music)
And what's special about this place is that
it's where Ying was born.
And I haven't ever been there before
and I think it's been many, many years
since Ying has been there.
She was born there and then her family moved to other places
especially most of her family moved to Krubi.
We are in Nakhon Si Thammarat the town right now.
And Hua Sai is along the ocean.
It's about 65 kilometers from here,
so we are on our way now.
Good morning, Micah!
(upbeat reggae music)
(speaking in foreign language)
We made it to Hua Sai!
And I didn't tell you this earlier this morning,
because Ying and I weren't sure if this place
was gonna be open or if it even existed anymore!
But I am
so outrageously excited because we made it here
and we drove straight here
and they are open and they are still running.
This is a grilled chicken place that Ying remembers
from her childhood.
And Ying tells me stories that they used to drive from Krubi
which is maybe three or four hours drive away.
And they used to drive straight here to come back
and they would even like stop anywhere in town
to visit relatives or anything,
but they'd come straight to get grilled chicken here.
And this the type of special southern Thai grilled chicken
called gai galae.
They're on the third generation now who is running the shop.
So they've been here 50 years or so.
Or longer, Ying?
And she remembers your family? - Yeah.
- She remembers Ying's family.
(speaks in foreign language)
The barbecued chicken here is one of a kind.
And each skewer goes through an intense cooking process
that's amazing to watch.
Their special barbecue sauce is made from a combination
of pure coconut cream, curry paste which includes
dry fragrant chilies, peanuts and palm sugar.
The chicken itself is first loaded onto the bamboo skewers
and grilled without any seasoning.
After the initial grilling process,
the chicken skewers are bathed
in the glorious coconut cream barbecue sauce
and slow grilled until the coconut cream starts to clot
and dry onto the chicken.
The chicken is then left to rest
before it's smothered in another coat
of thick barbecue sauce.
Again, it grills,
the coconut cream starts to caramelize,
and then it's taken off the grill,
and left to rest and dry again.
Finally, the chicken undergoes one more
full barbecue sauce immersion,
and one more trip to the grill
before it's ready to be served.
It's safe to say they do not skimp
on the barbecue sauce here.
And you'll know that as soon as you see them cooking,
and when you take your first bite.
(speaks in foreign language)
Okay and she just handed me one,
my first skewer right off the grill.
Oh wow, that smells like a fresh coconut!
And you can smell the red chilies in there.
And look, you have to just,
to really appreciate this chicken,
you gotta get a really close up look at this.
It's really heavy because that is heavier
than the amount of,
much heavier than the amount of chicken on there
because of the barbecue sauce and the coconut milk
that just caked on there,
and just coated on there and caramelized on there
by that slow grilling process.
I haven't even had my first bite
and I'm having a little bit of an emotional breakdown
right now!
Oh, wow! (laughs)
That is unbelievable!
Their sauce is so thick
and so rich!
It's like the consistency of peanut butter.
But you can taste that it's just
fully coconut cream.
And then the chicken remains really juicy on the inside.
And then you can taste those dried chilies in there.
You can taste the little bit of peanutey taste,
and then you can also taste a lot of garlic in there.
That just might be the best single bite
of barbecue sauced chicken that I've ever had in my life!
And I'm not saying that lightly!
That is absurd, actually, how good it is.
Be careful of the wire at the end,
you don't wanna bite into that!
And normally you could untwist the wire
and then take it out of the skewer but I just,
I don't have time for that right now!
That is life changing.
That's unbelievable!
Micah was sleeping at first,
but Micah has
woken up for the occasion now.
But I just,
I just licked my first,
my first piece of gai galae Hua Sai,
grilled chicken.
I licked the skewers!
That was
a life changing grilled chicken experience.
It's so good!
But it is extremely rich!
That amount of coconut,
I don't even know how much condensed coconut milk
I just ate.
But that is a lot per skewer because it is literally,
it could be like,
in some parts it was literally like a centimeter thick
with that coconut milk just caked up on that chicken.
But there is nothing as great
as a successful food pilgrimage.
And they are a very, very friendly family.
We got six more skewers to go,
and we're gonna drive to the beach now
and eat them all.
But,
oh, this is
the type of food memory and food experience
that I will never forget.
And what's also very cool is that
they remember Ying's family, especially Ying's father.
Ying said they used to go there and order
like 50 skewers
at a time!
The beach here is not extremely nice,
but it is really, really nice and quiet.
Just a few people are out here,
a few fishermen.
And it's just so peaceful.
Oh, and I'm so happy.
Ying and I failed to bring a mat to sit at the beach,
so we just decided to back the car in,
opened up the trunk,
and sit in here in the shade enjoying the breeze.
Oh hi, Micah!
(upbeat reggae music)
One thing that Ying just pointed out to me
is that you can tell it's all coconut milk
because none of it sticks to the bag!
Look the bag is clean.
Sometimes, if you eat this type of chicken,
they add
flour to the barbecue sauce,
and then you can tell because it kinda clumps up on the bag
and it sticks to the bag.
Oh, it just has this amazing, garlicky, garlicky coconut,
coconut field smell to it!
Alright.
Okay, I got all barbecue sauce in that bite!
And that's not a bad thing!
I didn't get any chicken in that bite!
And that's not a bad thing!
Micah!
(baby coos)
This is just on the next level.
I don't know if I've ever tasted such thick,
condensed coconut milk in anything.
Ever.
(upbeat reggae music)
Hua Sai is a very small, little town,
so there's not a lot going on there,
so we decided to take a drive back.
We're driving, heading back towards Nakhon Si Thammarat,
and we're gonna hopefully find a restaurant
somewhere on the side of the road
for another bite to eat for lunch.
(upbeat reggae music)
We didn't really have any plans of where to eat.
The chicken was the only plan that we had,
so we just drove down the highway.
And this is a restaurant.
They have food here, they have a convenience store,
they have a gas station.
They have it all right on this little home property.
And I just love this style
of countryside eating in Thailand.
Ying and I have our own little private cabana.
Micah
is fast asleep.
Eating at little countryside restaurants like this
where the mother or the family
just prepares the food right in their house
and just serves it right outside the house,
is one of the joys of being in the countryside of Thailand
or being in Thailand.
I love eating at little places like this.
I'm gonna begin with the gaeng som,
which is the sour southern Thai curry.
And there's fish,
there are bamboo shoots in here,
and it's orange from turmeric
and lots of chilies in there.
I'll put this onto my rice.
Very sour,
and
it's not spicy on my first bite,
but it's that type
of curry that you know the heat will build
as you keep on eating it.
Next up is gaeng khua kraduk moo,
which is pork curry, southern curry.
Navigate the bone structure of this.
Actually, I'm gonna have to just eat that.
Let me add a little bit more of that sauce, though.
Oh yeah, that looks wonderful!
Mm, mm!
You can taste a lot of black pepper in there,
you can taste the chilies.
It's fragrant, also with dried chilies.
And then you gotta just pick up these bones and
there's no way to eat them with a spoon.
Oh, that was a good chunk of meat right there!
And next up, this is gaeng tai pla.
One of the absolute best of all.
I love how there's an entire,
I think this is an eggplant.
It almost looks like a lime,
but like an entire, wrinkly eggplant in here.
And there's fish,
and if you look at the broth,
you can see how many chilies are in here.
It just looks filled with chilies.
I'll take some of that fish.
That's good!
Oh, that's wonderful!
Oh, yeah.
That has a kick to it.
That is definitely the Nakhon Si Thammarat flavor
that you want when you're in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The dishes are not sweet whatsoever.
Just spicy and salty is the flavor
that is common in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Even at just restaurants like this,
you're always served a plate of raw vegetables
which is one of the best.
I don't know if I've ever eaten these leaves before.
These are transparent, neon green.
Oh, wow!
That is so sour, but these are not--
a lot of the random leaves that you eat are very chalky.
But these aren't chalky at all.
It's like chewing on a lime peel
but much softer.
Oh, that's a really good random leaf!
And then finally last dish is just some kind of a,
a pork soup.
(upbeat reggae music)
Oh, that is nice and sour
and has a porky, bone flavored broth to it.
Ying and I just finished with that meal.
That was amazingly good
and what I love so much is that
this is no planning,
we're just driving down the road,
we stopped at a restaurant,
rice and curry southern Thai restaurant,
just cooking out of their home.
It's home-cooked food,
and it's just absolutely delicious!
We're gonna just head back to
the Nakhon Si Thammarat city from here
so I'm gonna end the video now.
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Goodbye, hope you have a fantastic day
and I will see you on the next video!