- Good morning.
I hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens.
I'm in Koh Kood, which is one of the most
well-preserved, gorgeous, and pristine
islands in Thailand.
You'll find amazing jungle here and beaches,
delicious seafood.
And today is gonna be an unforgettable day.
We're gonna go around the island.
We're gonna stop at some of the most
beautiful places on the island.
And this is gonna be a tour of Koh Kood and I am gonna
share it all with you in this video, right now.
(upbeat tropical music)
This is day eight and this is the final day of our
Eastern provinces of Thailand food and travel tour.
It's been an amazing trip and I'll have
the links and the entire playlist below,
so you can watch all the videos.
In order to get to Koh Kood,
yesterday actually we came from Koh Chang.
But we drove our car to Koh Chang, so we had to
take the ferry back to the mainland.
Then we drove to a place called Lan Sak, which is the pier
at the end of the peninsula to catch a ferry.
We took a ferry.
It's called Boonsiri, which is a speed ferry service.
But a pretty big boat, so it's not rough water.
And that's about an hour and fifteen minutes
to get to Koh Kood island.
And then, from there you jump into the back of a
rute songthaew, which is a truck transportation
and they drop you off at your hotel that you're staying at.
Right now, we're gonna quickly have breakfast at the hotel
and then a driver will come to meet us
and we're gonna start cruisin' around the island.
This is gonna be an unforgettable day.
This is a gorgeous island.
(upbeat tropical music)
Mmmm.
They have seriously good pineapple in Trat.
(upbeat tropical music)
Part of the reason why Koh Kood is
so nice, and so calm, and so peaceful
is because you can't, whoa.
(laughing)
You can't drive your own car to the island.
They don't have a ferry to bring your car in.
And they have rute songthaews,
which are back of the truck pickups
that you can rent for the day.
So, we rented one for the day.
We're gonna go around.
Looking a little rainy, but you know this is an island
so things can change drastically very quickly.
(upbeat tropical music)
(speaking Thai and pots clanging)
(laughing and speaking Thai)
I've read some figures that say Koh Kood has a local
population of somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people.
And so, there's not a huge
need for demand for local restaurants.
So, we asked our driver to just bring us to a place
that he eats for breakfast, a local place.
This is about as local as you could get in Koh Kood.
They have a number of different curries.
It's mostly kao king, but they also have betheow,
they also have noodles here.
They have a couple of interesting dishes,
including a mushroom curry that we're gonna try.
But, this is a cool little spot.
I'll begin with the (speaking in Thai),
which is a free-range chicken.
There's some blood jelly in here as well.
The chicken, some pea eggplants,
some I think that could be, oh yeah these are definitely
one of the most common ingredients in Trat,
especially with curries, is mngkud sabpard.
Which is the pineapple crown.
I think that's what they're using in there, too.
Mmmm, mmmm.
That is awesome.
You know what's unique about that?
I can taste more of a dry spice blend in there.
It tastes like cumin, which is coming in really nicely.
Along with those herbs, along with the kaffir lime leaves,
along with the Mngkud sabpard, which is the pineapple crown.
It's a little bit spicy.
It's really, really nicely flavored.
(upbeat tropical music)
That's an excellent curry.
By far, the most interesting dish to me
that they had up front there is called (speaking Thai).
This is a type of mushroom curry that
I haven't heard of before.
I think it's some type of a wild
mushroom from the forest here.
And look how thick that coconut milk is.
That's like melted butter.
(upbeat tropical music)
Whoa.
Mmmm.
Oh, oh that's an insane mushroom.
Okay, first let me start with the coconut cream.
That's outrageously thick, and creamy, and rich.
It has a natural coconut sweetness to it
with a little chili in there
and then you get to that mushroom.
That mushroom has this like, unbelievably slimy yet soft,
very soft dissolve in your mouth texture.
And that follows with a bitterness,
a really nice bitterness that sort of
overwhelms your mouth.
I love bitterness.
That is sensational, mmmm.
You know what the texture of those mushrooms is like?
It's almost like the texture of an oyster.
Did you taste it?
- Yeah.
You like it?
- It's good, but cold.
- Cold. bitter, huh?
I was just asking them where those mushrooms come from
and conveniently located right there,
they said they come from they grow somehow on this tree.
(speaking Thai)
After the leaves drop to the ground naturally,
especially with rain, right?
During like rain, they'll drop to the ground and then
the mushrooms will grow out of the ground from that leaf.
Something like that.
Very cool mushroom.
Very amazing, bitter taste to go with that coconut cream.
I love it.
They don't exactly have a restaurant name.
I think they just use the owner's name,
but it's called Saleun.
This is the front here.
You'll see some green tarps hanging out front.
What a great little restaurant and
yeah, we got lucky with that mushroom curry.
That is the type of dish that I gets me pumped,
that gets me excited.
That was so good.
A new flavor; a new mushroom to me.
Just right off the tree, right there.
Oh man, that was delicious.
Okay, we're movin' on.
And by the way, huge thank you
to our driver for bringing us here.
(upbeat tropical music)
This is the type of jungle that you can imagine
yourself swinging from tree to tree on a vine.
Well, I like to imagine that.
That would be a lot of fun.
We're on our way to some really old, big trees.
(upbeat tropical music)
The first tree is called Makayuk.
It's huge; it means a huge Makka tree.
Okay, yeah this is definitely a gigantic tree
that just looks like it reaches to the sky.
And the base of the tree is also quite gigantic, wow.
And then, it kinda like V's off midway up the tree.
(upbeat tropical music)
Then, just a short distance away is another tree
called bonsai, which is a Banyan tree.
(upbeat tropical music)
It's so eerie and so,
so mystical.
Both of the trees, extremely gorgeous.
And what a pristine jungle.
(upbeat music)
Next up we're on our way to Klong Chao waterfall,
which is one of the most well-known waterfalls.
(rushing water)
It does require a little bit of rock-hopping
to get to the main waterfall.
(upbeat music)
Oh yeah, that water is perfectly refreshing.
It's so quiet, it's so peaceful,
it's beautiful, it's lush.
Ah, this is fantastic.
(rushing water)
It's raining now, but that was
that waterfall is definitely worth a visit,
definitely worth a swim.
I'm refreshed.
That was a lot of fun.
(laughing)
That was great.
Okay, we're on our way.
Oh man, the camera is like soaking right now.
(upbeat tropical music)
We're driving next to a place called Khao Reua Rub.
I'm not exactly sure what it is, we'll find out.
(upbeat tropical music)
So at the top it's actually a shrine and it's a
like a naval shrine, I believe.
(upbeat tropical music)
(sighs)
Next, we're driving to another beach.
It's called Bang Bao.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
Oh man, this is one of the beaches
I wanted to visit in Koh Kood.
This is, it's a paradise beach, wow.
There's some docks going out to fishing boats.
The water is crystal clear, the palm trees.
This is an impressively beautiful beach.
I'm just gonna take a walk out to the end of this dock
to see the boats,
to see the clear water out there
and then we have to take a swim here.
There's no way you can not.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(water splashing)
And from here, we're gonna go to the fishing village.
We're gonna hopefully find some amazing seafood.
And that's also gonna, eh it looks incredible.
That's one of the things I wanted to do most here.
But, this is the type of beach.
I mean, you could just sit in this water
all day long and not go anywhere.
Oh this is just, this is fabulous; this is so good.
(laughing)
He doesn't wanna go; he just wants to stay here all day.
(water splashing)
Part of what makes that beach so spectacular
is that it's so quiet, so peaceful.
(upbeat tropical music)
We just got dropped off at Ao Yai,
which is a traditional fishing village.
It's on the West Coast of Koh Kood
and also on the South side.
We're gonna walk around for a little bit
and then we're gonna eat some seafood.
(upbeat tropical music)
It's actually quite a decently large village.
All on stilts, a fishing village.
You just keep walking back and
there are houses, there are little restaurants.
But, most of this community is all fishing.
Wow, look at that school of fish.
(engine running)
(speaking in Thai)
(speaking in Thai)
They have a number of different seafood restaurants.
We've chosen one that's called Chonthicha.
You can choose your own seafood.
They have some tanks going with different shellfish
and a variety of things.
And they have these giant nets just filled with fish.
I ordered a couple of unique things
that I've never tried before.
(water splashing)
(upbeat tropical music)
(fish flapping)
We also ordered some kind of,
it's some type of a Slipper lobster.
It's just straight sea-to-table dining.
They have herbs growing here.
The ocean breeze is in your face and I'm hungry.
A couple of the dishes have just arrived and still waiting
on a couple of the dishes, but let's start.
This one is (speaking in Thai).
It's squid fried with a garlic sauce.
Look at that rich sauce.
And look at how they've cut up the squid
into like, it looks like a pineapple.
My bench is a little bit high for this table,
so I'm sittin' way up here.
I gotta lean over.
Mmmm.
Oh, that's awesome.
Mmmm, you got the garlic sauce and black pepper in there.
It's a little bit sweet; nice and salty.
And then like the texture of the squid is like,
it's like... bouncy
and almost like jelly-ish and really tender.
Next dish is called (speaking in Thai).
This is a type of curry, you can see.
What you have to admire is just how thick
and curdled that coconut milk is.
Paired with, what I believe is the (speaking in Thai),
which is the shrimp automoly head oil.
(upbeat tropical music)
Mmmm, but you've got really rich coconut milk in there.
You can taste that oil of the shrimp.
It looks really orange and red, but it doesn't
actually it's not spicy.
In Thai, it's called (speaking in Thai).
Is rambutan, the fruit.
The hairy, spiky rambutan little fruit.
And so you can see, the shell
does sort of look like that, too.
And I just looked it up in English.
It's some type of a rock shell mollusk.
Oh, another name for it is a Murex,
which is a genus of medium to large sized
predatory tropical sea snails.
It's served as sashimi; it's served raw.
But, they might just quickly flash-blanch it.
They have sliced it quite thin.
Before using any of the sauce,
we gotta take a bite of just the straight.
Mmmm.
Oh, that has an amazing like crispness to it.
Whoa, and also quite a nice natural sweetness as well.
Actually guys, you keep on chewing it almost has
a nutty taste to it, too plus it's sweet.
Okay, we got to dip in the (speaking Thai) next.
Oh, with that sauce.
Oh, what an enhancement.
That sauce.
Again, I think (speaking Thai) they used salt
maybe instead of fish sauce, but you can taste
the pungent chillies and garlic in there.
It's just balanced by a hint of sweetness and spicy.
It's delicious.
Dip into the soy sauce.
Mmmm, oh that's a dish.
I must've got a different piece of the shell
from a different side or something
'cause that's more tender without that crunch.
Totally different texture.
Next up, for the type of Slipper lobster.
`Which, in Thai are called (speaking in Thai).
And these are deep fried with garlic sauce as well.
They kind of have a little bit of an alien appearance
with like an armored shell around them.
And I think, what you can do.
oh, they sorta like cut them in half.
Oh, so you open it.
But, that's like an extremely hard shell.
And I think you take off the head.
You've got this tail, which is like a mini lobster tail.
Wow, that's quite an intense shell.
Oh there we go, yes.
Okay, I got it all out in one bite.
(upbeat tropical music)
Insanely delicious, mmmm.
It tastes like lobster.
Has a little more of an earthy tone to it, though.
Last dish we got is called Hoy Pawk.
Which is, they look like giant clams.
But, I didn't know they were gonna de-shell them
or that they shelled them first.
These are, that's a whole an entire spoonful.
And then, I ended up with some
kind of a curry paste and basil.
(upbeat tropical music)
Whoa.
That's kinda on the chewy side.
It does, it tastes like a clam.
Like a giant clam.
And then, that's in a kind of a nutty chili sauce.
As we're eating it started raining, drizzling.
But, still the atmosphere is spectacular.
(upbeat tropical music)
This one is just a little guy, but I know it would be
incredible with that seafood sauce on it.
Oh yeah, what a natural scoop.
(upbeat tropical music)
Those Slipper lobsters are incredible.
It's really, really flavorful, really sweet.
I love the texture and with that sauce.
(upbeat tropical music)
That is incredibly delicious.
And really, there are like at least three different sections
that have totally different textures and sweetnesses.
That piece that I just had, that might be from like
the center or something 'cause
it's the sweetest and the softest.
It's really tender.
Finished with that seafood meal, and I have to tell you
one of my, like indicators of
kinda iffy food, is when they put
an orchid next to your plate of food.
I mean, that's of course just a general statement
but, it's kinda true that they kinda tone down
the flavors when they do that type of thing.
But, they did that at this restaurant and actually
it was quite good; the food was excellent.
The seafood is no doubt, extraordinarily fresh.
And I'm excited because they had a few different things.
Unique things that I've never had,
like that, that predatory
rock shell
Morex.
(upbeat tropical music)
(upbeat tropical music)
We made it back to Kung Pao,
back to the beach where we started off this morning.
What a fantastic day.
Oh, let me sit up a little bit.
It turned out to be a perfect day.
We got a little bit of rain, but that's okay.
We got a little bit of sunshine.
We had some cloudy weather.
But...
Koh Kood is truly a paradise island.
I mean the combination of beaches, waterfalls,
thick lush jungle,
seafood,
crystal clear beaches.
I probably already said that once.
But, it's really a gorgeous island.
It's also nice because it's quiet, it's laid-back.
And to be honest, there's not a lot of food options.
Most people actually just come to this island,
they stay at their resort or their hotel,
they eat the food at their hotel and
maybe go out to do a little site-seeing.
But, this is the type of island that you can come
to sit and do nothing.
And that not only brings us to the end
of this video about Koh Kood island,
but this also brings us to the end of this entire series.
And if you haven't watched the entire series of this
Eastern region of Thailand food and travel tour,
there are a total of eight videos.
I'll leave all the links in the description box below,
but you can check out and watch the entire playlist.
It's been the entire Eastern region of Thailand
is a region that
for me, I think the food is not
is very under-represented.
Even in Bangkok, you won't find
that much Eastern type Thai food.
And so, it's been a learning experience.
Some incredibly delicious food.
The seafood stands out.
Some of the best seafood I've had in Thailand.
The people are great.
We've been to villages.
We started off in Chanthaburi,
we came to Trat, we went to Koh Chang,
and then finally ending in Koh Kood.
And it's been an extremely memorable trip.
I just wanna say a huge thank you for watching this video,
for watching this entire series of videos.
And I wanna personally invite you.
If you're not already subscribed,
make sure you click subscribe now
and also click the little bell icon
so that you get notified of the next video that I publish.
Thanks again for watching.
Goodbye from Koh Kood
and I will see you on the next video.
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