Hole in the Wall eateries

Often, our favorite food places are literally hole-in-the-wall eateries. Three years ago on our first visit to Chiang Mai, we found a little drink cart that sold the best and cheapest Thai iced tea (25 baht). They also serve delicious and inexpensive Thai food - we frequently ate their pad thai (30 baht) and curries.

This trip, we had forgotten exactly where the place was. We "re-discovered" it, just down the block from a place called Cafe 29 (also pretty good, but a little more than hole-in-the-wall prices). Lo and behold, our little hole-in-the-wall (I don't think it even has a business name, I'll now refer to it as CMHW) was exactly the same as three years ago. We started chatting with an English bloke sitting out front, named Stephen, who had been living in Chiang Mai for 2 years. A very nice guy, and he gave us some pointers on things to do in the area. 

Since our re-discovery of CMHW, we've trekked down there from our guesthouse numerous times for cheap pad thai and iced tea. The prices haven't changed in three years, either. If you are in Chiang Mai and want to try it, it's next to Chada Guesthouse on Ratchamanka Rd Soi 3.
Here's the map: https://goo.gl/maps/njEMcPYaVmK2

Our second hole-in-the-wall place

Later in our stay in Chiang Mai, we found another hole-in-the-wall, which also had great food. They were a little "fancier" as far as decor goes, but the food was still wonderful and portions were plentiful. The name of the place is in Thai, but they're down the street from SAMANITr coffee on Ratvithi 2 Alley.
Map: https://goo.gl/maps/DjVwXvDs3j32

Tips on finding your own favorite hole-in-the-walls: look for menu "books" that are a bit worn around the edges, not fancy, and then look to see how many people are there. CMHW is very popular with local Thais, and expats in the know. =)

Iced coffee at hole-in-the-wall #2

#2, cashews & veggie stir fry w/ chicken

SAMANITr, a coffee stand with 3 benches,
down the street from #2

Food in Khao Lak

Dev's favorite: pad thai

 After our liveaboard scuba trip from Khao Lak, we spent a couple days in the town recovering from diving. It's quite an exhaustive activity, especially when you aren't used to diving four times a day, three days in a row. We both got ear infections, and I got a minor cough, so we took a couple days to just relax and get well.

We went back to Walker's Inn and stayed there, and we ate there as well. Compared to the rest of town, they have great prices and great tasty meals. In Thailand and most of southeast Asia, you need to be careful about the cleanliness and sanitation of the meals you eat. Eat somewhere where the food isn't warm enough (temperature wise), or the sanitation isn't very good, and you could end up with a nasty case of traveler's diarrhea. If the place looks sketch, it just isn't worth the risk.

Chicken with cashew nut

Our favorite dishes at Walker's included:

• Pad thai: Devlin's favorite
• Chicken with cashew nut
• Thom Kha Gai - creamy coconut soup with chicken, and they served it piping hot

A great place to stay and eat, all on a backpacker's budget!

Scuba Diving Liveaboard Food

Pad Thai and other nummy things

We lived the high life while we were on our liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands. Our dive company, the Similan Diving Safaris, had two wonderful cooks on board, and we ate fantastic Thai food for lunch and dinner for four days.

Our first dinner of the trip was pad thai, either shrimp or chicken; a wonderful dumpling soup; and fried rice.

Fish with tomatoes and pineapple, sweet & sour sauce

The next day for a snack, they served us these scrumptious chips with a sweet-spicy Thai chili dip. Yum!

Fried chips with a little pork filling; thai chili dipping sauce;
fresh papaya slices

Ishigaki Hidden Gems

Daimo Restaurant in Ishigaki Town

Our guest house recommended two places to eat in Ishigaki town. We asked for a ramen shop when we returned from Yonaguni,  and the owner lady sent us to a little restaurant called Daimo (die-moh), one block away.
It was so good,  we ate there every evening,  4 days in a row. We tried their pork ramen, miso ramen,  pork & vegetable ramen, as well as gyoza (gyoh-za) or potstickers as we call them.
We also learned what "cha-han" means on a menu - delicious fried rice. There were even more things I would have loved to try.
Daimo is a tiny hole in the wall, but every night it filled up with locals. I don't think any other tourists, Japanese included, ever found it.
Another gem was a small Indian curry place, about 10 blocks from our guest house.  Also fantastic food - lovely large naan bread and butter chicken.  Yum!

Watching the chefs at Daimo

Pork Ramen

Miso pork ramen

Vegetable & (guess what) pork ramen

Indian restaurant in Ishigaki

Look at the size of that naan bread!

Dinner #2 at Yonaguni Dive Shop

The Yonaguni Dive Shop dinner blew us away again tonight. They really pulled out all the stops! We were all really tired from three dives during the day, and there was so much good food we were all falling asleep over our plates.

Halibut-esque fish with a creamy onion, ginger, peppers sauce was the main course, with a salad on the side. Wow was it good.

Additional side dishes included: tempura (my favorite!), homemade (somewhere on the island) tofu with bonito fish flakes & ginger, miso soup, and pasta salad.

Fantastic!! Really looking forward to tomorrow night, too. :D

Creamy chicken with salad

Pasta salad & Tofu salad

Miso soup & Tempura

Visiting with another guest scuba diver - too hungry, must eat!

Dinner at Yonaguni Dive Shop

Our new home-away-from-home is Yonaguni Dive Shop (YDS) on Yonaguni Island, the most western-point in Japan (and a hop skip and a jump to Taiwan). YDS has a nice guest house attached to the dive shop, so you can dive, sleep, eat, and collapse in the same location. Prices include breakfast and dinner, while lunch is included if you go on a dive.

Dinner last night was great. I was so tired, and it was super tasty and just what the doctor ordered. The main plate was ginger chicken with a great sauce. The other dishes included a cucumber & corn salad, sweet potato chips (very small - the dark purple things), bean sprout & tuna salad, miso soup, and of course, rice. 

The bottle to the right of Devlin in the picture is Aomori (ah-oh-more-ee), an Okinawa rice vodka. It's quite tasty on its own, and the tradition is to put a couple big chunks of ice in your glass, and pour the Aomori over it. Joe likes to drink it mixed with orange juice or grapefruit juice, which makes it dangerously easy to drink. I only had a bit last night, but it's really cheap here compared to anything else - the bottle in the picture was about $5.50!

I'm looking forward to our lunch after this morning's dive, and then to dinner tonight... yum!

Cucumber salad & Sweet potato chips

Ginger chicken & salad

Awesome Noodle Bowls

One of my absolute favorite things to eat in Japan are the noodle bowls. Udon,  ramen, soba, and more...All fantastic and tasty. 

We had udon in Osaka airport. I had Niku Udon (nee-coo) which  literally just means meat, no animal specified... In this case beef, I think... :)

Devlin had Curry Udon, basically same as mine but with a lovely sweet curry added to it.
We had soba yesterday - spare rib soba. Quite tasty too. :D

Udon in Osaka airport

Spare rib soba