Day 25 Vegetarian Thai Food: Coffee, Fried Rice, Eggplant Chili Sauce

Breakfast
Believe it or not, after eating yesterday’s mass quantity of vegetation, I woke up still full. I just ate a banana and drank my daily cup of black coffee.
Lunch
I rarely eat simple fried rice, but for some reason when lunch rolled around, I just simply felt like eating it. Ordered this khao pad pak ruam – vegetable fried rice (you’ll also need to say mai sai neua – because vegetarian fried rice is a pretty foreign concept in Thailand).

Makua yao prik pao (stir fried eggplant)

Pad yord mala (stir fried bitter melon leaves)

Leeks and Tofu
Dinner
For dinner I went to eat at Lan Khao Tom Hua Pla in Talat Phlu, one of my all-time favorite restaurants. Normally I go to eat their pla khapung neung manao (steamed lime fish), but today I ordered all vegetarian.
Luckily, they don’t just know how to cook seafood, they know vegetables too.
The dish that trumped them all was the makua yao prik pao, eggplant cooked in chili sauce with sweet basil. The eggplant was cooked to that glorious mushy melt in your mouth texture and soaked up the wonderful roasted chili sauce. It was absolutely incredible.
The pad yord mala (stir fried bitter melon leaves) are always a winner.
The last dish was something new to me and I’m not even sure of the name in Thai. The vegetable was what is called a leek in English stir fried up with fried tofu. It was another award deserving dish.
Matthew
6 years ago
Hey Mark!
I am a big fan of yours. I love watching your videos and trying your recipes. I also love eggplants! But unfortunately on your website you don’t have any recipes with eggplants in it. I was wondering if you had a recipe for the MAKUA YAO PRIK PAO (STIR FRIED EGGPLANT)? I searched on the web but i couldn’t find anything that tasted great or looked like your pic above. Would be very grateful if you had anything for me.
Much love.
Jack
12 years ago
Hey Mark….As you are going veggie this Month. You could try Indian vegetarian food as well. Indian veg. have 100’s of different varieties of veg food much similar to Thai food in spiciness and content. I think Bangkok has lots of Indian restaurants. Greg from Bangkokpodcast.com has recommended Gaggan restaurant and he liked the food there. You could read his experience with Indian food at Gaggan in his blog gregtodiffer
http://gregtodiffer.com/home/2011/2/16/indian-gastronomy-explosion.html
Good Luck
Mark Wiens
12 years ago
Thanks Jack!
Yah, I’ve had a couple of Indian vegetarian restaurants since taking on the challenge. There are so many pure veg Indian restaurants in Bangkok, all over town! I would love to go to Gaggan sometime, hopefully I can take my girlfriend there sometime!
Thanks for dropping in!