InterContinental Phuket Resort

This luxury 5-Star hotel is located on the pristine white sandy Kamala beach with jungle-covered hills backdrop.  They have a few different room types to private pool villas.  The place is massive, luckily, they provide buggy car services to take you around within the resort.  They have two huge swimming pools that are accessible for all hotel guests and one adult only pool.  Also, nice and friendly staffs looking after their kids club too.  There are fitness centre and tennis court to accommodate sporty guests as well.  Last but not least, the food in this hotel is so delightful, will go in more details about this in my next post.  So for now, Octie appetie all.... 

Private pool villa

Room with pool access

Infinity pool by the beach

Very spacious kids club

Welcome snack - dried coconut flakes

InterContinental Phuket Resort

Kamala Beach, Phuket

Stay tuned for the next blog still in Phuket:

Dinner At InterContinental Phuket Resort

Mr Meng Chongqing Gourmet, Haymarket

 
Mala is like Asian peppercorns or Sichuan peppercorns to be exact where it will give you some numbing after-taste on your tongue.  The precise origins of mala in dishes are unclear.  However, Chongqing cuisine has a strong characteristic of Sichuan cuisine featuring mala in many of their dishes especially in hotpot menus.

Chongqing spicy noodle with stewed beef $15.80

Here in Mr Meng restaurant, you can find great ranges of noodles dishes that highlighting mala.  They also serve other menus to suit kids or other people palates who might not into spicy mala thingy.  Their noodle is cooked to al dente.  The soup is rich and piquant.  However, finishing the whole bowl of noodle on my own, there're too much mala to handle.  So, we ordered a couple of their dessert to cool down my burning tongue.

Chongqing spicy noodle with pork mince and corn $14.80

Clear noodle soup with stewed beef and tomato $15.50

To be honest, this clear noodle soup with fresh tomato were more like my cup of tea.  We ordered this for the kids.  But it tasted very light and refreshing.  Maybe I'll go with this dish next time.

Deep fried crispy pork $9.80

Deep fried brown sugar rice cake $7.80

We were contemplating between this rice cake or sesame balls at first.  But the waiter recommended this rice cake, so we went along with it.  It was really good actually, lucky we trusted him.  The rice cakes were having this nice crispy skin on the outside and still soft inside.  Dipped into melted brown sugar, they went well together and not so sweet at all.  Though, be careful of the piping hot from the inner rice cake.  

Ice jelly with brown syrup $5.50

This jelly dish didn't look appetising to me at all but to be honest I can't stop eating them.  It soothed my mouth from lingering mala taste.  I don't understand how come this simple dish can be so good, it was only a clear jelly served with brown sugar, peanuts and something like haw flakes. 

Mr Meng Chongqing Gourmet

Market City, Level 3, Hay Street, Haymarket

Open: 11:30-20:30 (Fri, Sat, and Sun close at 21:00) Tue closed

Savannakhet and Xeno, Laos

Book a day trip to Savannakhet from your hotel reception or otherwise, if you go near the border custom, there are normally taxis lining up there that ready to take you for a day trip to Laos.  However, beware of crooks who are most likely to charge expensive price to foreigners.  Very good bargaining skill is highly needed here, even for local Thai tourists as well.  My recommendation is to ask your hotel reception to book a tour for you just for a piece of mind. 

Savannakhet is a small yet very quiet city with not so many things to explore.  However, just visiting this ancient That Ing Hang stupa, the most sacred worship place or Vat Xaiyaphoum, the oldest Buddhist temple here, definitely made a good day trip.  

Pha That Ing Hang

There are restaurants and cafes that pretty decent around Savannakhet.  But we made an effort to go to Xeno, neighbourhood city, less than an hour drive from Savannakhet.  This place is very popular with their grilled chicken.  You literally can find a vendor after vendor along the 13 road that sell grilled chickens.  We drove pass the shops twice before we decide on which vendor to go to.  We landed in one of seems to be the cleanest and freshest looking chicken shop. 

They use organic chickens here, so the meat rather thin and a little tough but the flavours were good.  I personally love their jeow bong or chili paste.  More like sweet and savory with a tiny hint of spiciness.  Having these chickens and spicy papaya salad pairing with hot sticky rice, it made one great meal. 

Phasouk Cafe 1966

Before heading back to our hotel in Thailand, we made a quick stop at this vintage cafe located in the corner of Khantabouli and Latsakhanai street.  According to reviews I've read, they seem to serve good coffee drinks.  However, it was late in the afternoon and the weather was extremely hot, so I wasn't feeling like coffee at that time.  Ended up with chocolate frappuccino and blueberry yogurt smoothie.  With old brick walls, some paints were even come off and those ancient furnitures add to the timeless atmosphere of the cafe.  It is also made a great photo background. 

Phasouk Cafe 1966

In the corner of Khantabouli and Latsakhanai street

3 Days 2 Nights in Mukdahan, Thailand (Part 2)

Previously:

3 Days 2 Nights in Mukdahan, Thailand (Part 1)

For breakfast, we headed to this local beloved shop which is selling one good khao jee pate, Lao style bread that is similar to banh mi.  It’s a long bread roll filled with meats and vegies.  In here, she first heated up the baguette on a griller over charcoal to get a nice crusty skin then smeared inside with pate and she put some Vietnamese ham and sausage slices as well as some fresh vegetables on top of the pate.  It was a really good bread roll salad as good as what I can get from back home.  They also do have khanom pak mor or the dumpling like we had last night from Ratri night market.  The shop is located on the si yaek or 4 intersections near talad mhoo.

Vietnamese snack, crispy cracker with dried bananas (I don't know the name)

We spent the day visiting a few temples and church around the area.  This giant blue colored Naga (dragon) statue is in Wat Roi Phra Phuttabat Phu Manorom in Pong Kham.  In Mukdahan as well as areas around Northeastern Thailand along the Mekong river, people here pray to Phaya Nak or Naga or some sort of dragon that believed to be living in the water here in Mekong river.  Therefore, you will find a lot of temples that house Naga statue. 

White Naga at the Phaya Si Phuchong Mukda Nakkharat Naga in Pong Kham, Mukdahan

Our Lady of the Martyrs of Thailand Shrine

The signature dish around this area is this Kaeng Kabao suckling pig from Sirichai, a restaurant by Mekong riverbank.  Having these succulent porks with some spicy and sour tom yum soup and you will feel like in heaven.  The meat from the suckling pig is quite thin but those crackling skins were totally addictive.