A lot of the holiday revolved around food. I love food. My OH loves food. And given the 2 months spent on weight watchers prior to the holiday, we both totally deserved lots of the food.

I was excited about experiencing Thai food that didn’t come from my local Thai Square.  I was excited about the noodles, the fresh seafood, the curries and I was excited about washing it all down with cheap cheap beer.

We went straight out on our first night, ordered a jug of Chang beer and perused the menu. It was so hard to choose! So we decided to get a few dishes between us and share – spring rolls, grilled pork, red curry chicken and a classic shrimp pad Thai. Yum! I’m not a big meat eater and even the pork was outside my comfort zone of chicken but it was all delicious. The pork came with a spicy lime dip that was simply to die for.

The following night we had decided to celebrate OH’s recent exam success and the fact he was now a fully qualified accountant. We’d done some research before we left and found a restaurant right on the river that had a reputation for seafood and luckily seemed to be right by out hotel. We trekked over the water and down a seemingly empty backstreet, at all times convinced we were going the wrong way.

Eventually we came to some sort of restaurant at the end of the street and after some investigation it turned out to be the one in question. Although the name on the building was confusingly something completely different.

I knew it was going to be a good meal when i saw lots of tanks with cute little (huge) praying mantis shrimp stumbling around.

We settled in and faced our now ritualistic dilemma about what to have. So again, we decided to order half the menu and stuff ourselves silly.

We started with scallops with cashew nuts which were quite simply the best scallops I’ve ever had. It was divine. We moved onto grilled salt and chilli prawns. Deliciously tender.

Next was our slight gamble of mud crab… Which was literally unbelievable. Huge, with masses of meat in the claws, well cooked and I was particularly pleased to see the return of the spicy lime dip we’d  had the night before.  The colour of the crab was a vibrant pink, with lots of garlic and chilli seasoning, almost forming a savoury crumble over the crab.  Unfortunately I only remembered to take a photo after we’d removed most of the shell and it had been taken away!

Happy, relaxed and sated, my eyes almost popped out when our final dish turned up – charcoal cooked salted sea bass. It was huge, insanely fresh and cooked to perfection.

We were, as my dad would say, full as an egg. Relaxing and enjoying the view (I haven’t even got round to describing the view yet!) we sat, truly content.

The restaurant was large, and very busy. Particularly with local. Right on the river and next to Bangkok’s largest bridge, the lights twinkled off the water and the cool breeze made the atmosphere comfortable and calm.

We got the bill… £20 for all that, plus a steady supply of beer all night too.

I was in love with the holiday already.

A few weeks later, on our return to Bangkok before flying on to Mumbai, I’d have the satisfaction of having a pad thai from one of the street vendors – 70p and it was delicious. Can’t complain!

CatDog Xx