Street Food Christmas @ Hat Yai Central 25 Dec 2019

It is Christmas! Alvin woke up quite early today for being the Santa Claus that distribute Christmas presents for the children!

It was so fun to see both Annabelle and Issac when they discovered they have a package waiting for them to open on top of their bed headboard.

I was busy packing our luggage during both of the children took their bath as we will change hotel today.

Later we brought our dirty laundry to wash at the self-service laundry where near Silom Boutique Hotel.

While waiting for our laundry, we went to the nearby shop to have our breakfast. It is just a few shops away from the self-service laundry.

We passed by the shop these 2 days when we were walking out and exploring. The pork looks delicious too but today we tried another type of noodle.

Yen Ta Foo (เย็นตาโฟ)

If not mistaken, should be called as Yen Ta Fo. It is known as pink noodle in Thailand. I love the noodle soup because one of the best things about a bowl of Yen Ta Fo is the assortment of tasty toppings.

Chunks of pork, fish balls, slices of squid, fried tofu, slices of water morning glory, rectangles of coagulated pig blood, and top with crispy fried wonton.

The taste itself is little bit sour and spicy because the soup have the flavouring ingredients such as fermented soybean paste, chilies, vinegar, fish sauce, and pepper.

We called a clear soup for both Issac and Annabelle, I would not know what is it call then in Thai.

Alvin too ordered one plate of roasted pork. The meat is really soft, tender and juicy. They are selling pork leg rice too but we want to try different dishes at this time.

We had a good meal. We went back to the hotel after our laundry done, then we checked-out and walking towards our next hotel – Asian Hotel which is in the centre of Hat Yai.

We used another route, that it is a passenger overhead bridge that across the railways at the bottom. It is the Hat Yai Railway Station.

After we checked in to the Asian Hotel and took some rest, we came out to the nearby shop around 2.00pm to have our lunch.

We were at Tara Seafood Restaurant which is located at the junction of the main road. There are a few stalls there, namely 阿娇猪脚饭, 肉骨茶，鴨肉粿條 and 鸡饭。

Alvin was having the Khao Kha Moo, he said the taste was so so only as compared to the one we had near Silom Boutique Hotel.

Annabelle, Issac and I were having the duck noodles as we not yet try the duck noodle yet. It is considered delicious as the soup is very savoury.

Khanom Bueng

After our lunch we just walking around the area. We immediately came to a small stall selling this Thai crepe or Khanom Bueang.

These crepes look a bit like tacos. It is a popular form of street food in Thailand. Khanom Bueng’s main ingredients is rice flour.

Usually first topped or filled with coconut cream, followed by sweet or salty toppings such as shredded coconut or strips of fried eggs or egg yolks. What we have here is strips of fried egg yolks. It taste really nice.

Moo Ping

We walked further down the streets, then we came to a roadside stall selling grilled pork skewers or Moo Ping.

Moo Ping can be found in every market and on every street corner in Hat Yai.

It is marinated in pounded coriander roots, peppers and garlics together and is then grilled over a charcoal BBQ. It is really tasty!

Kiwi Yogurt Smoothie

Then we came to a stall selling drinks and had our Kiwi Yogurt Ice Blended for this hot sunny day!

We decided to walk back to our hotel. On our way we passed through the Odeon Shopping Mall, I noticed that there is a narrow alley in between 2 buildings and there is a signage stated “Pahurad Department Store”.

There are 2 restaurants in between the small alley. We walked through the alley and there are shops both sides of the buildings selling fashion clothing, bags and some accessories.

We reached back to hotel around 3.30pm and we called it off for the day as Alvin was very tired due to yesterday outing was too tiring and his legs were aching. A day with street food on Christmas day!

Silom Boutique Hotel Hat Yai 23–24 Dec 2019

Alvin booked this earlier because it is in our planning that we would stayed somewhere at the other side of the Hat Yai Railway Station which is not so crowded with the tourists and close to more local people and local food.

We arrived immediately after we reached Hat Yai and we took a Songtheow came. Initially we book a twin bed room, but after the reception saw that we are actually a family of 4 then he was reluctant to let us check-in to the same type of room we were booking.

Thus, no choice we have to upgrade to the triple room which is a King bed and a Single bed. The room is spacious. The bathroom also looks new. It looks as the hotel just has renovated. The children were happy on the upgrade of coarse with additional cost.

Silom Boutique Hotel is located in the Hat Yai Central area of Hat Yai but it is not so central and it is actually about 2 km from the city centre. For me it is still some distance to reach or access many local points of interest, but it is a convenient location.

We can find eatery shops just across the streets, a self-service laundry, and convenient stores such as 7-Eleven, pharmacy, mobiles accessories shop and the economical affordable Mini Big C for us to buy the necessary. We bought our drinking water for the whole trip there as we purchase half a dozen drinking water at Mini big C.

Silom Boutique Hotel offers impeccable service and all the essential amenities to invigorate travellers. Free Wi-Fi in all rooms, daily housekeeping, 24-hour front desk, Wi-Fi in public areas are just a few of the facilities that set Silom Boutique Hotel apart from other hotels in the city.

In our room there are facilities such as television LCD/plasma screen, towels, complimentary wireless internet access, complimentary 3 bottles of drinking bottles daily. Besides, the hotel has a restaurant at the ground floor which we did not go. We can see people were singing Karaoke during we came back from our outing each day.

The hotel itself is near to the local residential and commercial or shops area, thus for me it gives me a real picture of how is the local livings are like. I can see it from near. Our family give a quite good remarks to Silom Boutique Hotel as a good quality hotel accommodations in Hat Yai.

New Year Celebration!

We woke up early this morning and went for our first movie of the year at Summit USJ – Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker. It is quite a nice movie. I like it.

Then we have our late lunch at Black and White Restaurant at Summit USJ too. This is our first proper meal in year 2020.

Issac having Spegetthi. Annabelle having Pataya fried rice. Alvin having ramen. I am having stewed rice.

Family Outing @ Puchong IOI Mall

Today even though is the last day of the year of 2019, Alvin still have to go to work because he has already apply too many leaves for our year end trip. The children and I were staying at home and unpacked the luggage and the stuffs we bought from Hat Yai.

Due to today is the last day of the year 2019, Alvin brought us to IOI Mall to have the dinner and we intended to watch a night movie. Unfortunately, there is no suitable movies that at the time we were there.

We had our dinner at the Ah Cheng Laksa. Issac had the Herbal Chicken Soup with Rice. Annabelle had the Butter Milk Chicken Chop with Rice.

Alvin had the Curry Chicken with Rice and I had the Curry Laksa. And this is how we spent 31st December 2019 together as a family!

The children were laughing at me as their mum is still in Hat Yai mood – snap the food photos before we eat. I paused for a while and only realised that may be my ‘Vacation On’ button not yet switch! Hahaha…

Greenway Night Market Hat Yai 24 Dec 2019

When we reached Greenway Market it is just 5.00pm. The stalls were not opened yet. Nevertheless we just walked in to the area to check if there is any other shops that already open.

To our surprise we saw a sign with the Greenway Food Station and food pictures. This made us super happy as we were hungry for food. The food court it-self is very spacious and have 2 floors.

Ground floor is mainly the food and beverages stalls and some dining area too. 1st Floor is mainly dining area and a beverage bar.

It is a good timing as well that we can have our dinner before all the stalls open at the market.

Greenway Food Station using the cash card system. We need to buy the cash card at the entrance and order the food we want and pay with the card and collect our own food.

There is a long stroll of food stalls selling different types of eye-catchy Thai street food, all priced at unbelievably wallet-friendly price tags.

Traditional Thai food stall – all about Thai salads. All kinds of salads can be seen here.

I noticed and surprised that even sushi is their street food, because I can see sushi being sell at the side of the road whenever we were walking.

All kinds of noodle soup especially Tom yam. I ordered Tom Yam Seafood noodles, to be frank I was a little disappointed or may be what should I order is the Tom Yum Gong soup instead.

Alvin ordered the Pad Thai, it is not bad too. Topped with pinch of sugar, roasted peanuts, and a little bit of chili flakes, make the Pad Thai so savoury.

Issac ordered a pork noodle soup and it taste just nice. It’s come with minced pork, pork ham and meat balls. Issac loves the pork meat balls, he said is different from what we have in Malaysia.

As usual Annabelle ordered rice, it is the cheese omelette with sausages.

We particularly enjoyed their Som Tam / Green papaya salad, not only it packed a flavourful punch but the crunchy element was so strong that one would need to chew for at least a few seconds before swallowing, maybe a tad too spicy for some though.

After our dinner, we start to explore the night market. The area is big enough that you would want to spare at least a couple hours to explore.

There are plenty of things to explore at Greenway Night Market, not only food and beverage but street fashion, cafes, phone casings and even pets!

It segregate to few zones. Some is indoor with roof cover and some are without. We were keep on walking until we were tired and just on the benches prepared in the market.

We did not buy anything as we noticed that the price not even cheap as well, or may be because of our Malaysian Ringgit was weaken.

There are a lot of women fashion kiosks or stalls. The dresses are nice, unfortunately I think I am too old for those types of dresses anymore. Huhu…

Finally we walked towards the end of the market where it is open-air and just like the flea markets.

We just called it off for the day, and I took a last photos for the night scene of the Greenway Night Market. I love the evening dusk or evening sky in Hat Yai – pinkly purple colour!

We called grab car and went back to our hotel. It was already 8.00pm when we reached the hotel.

Khao Tom Mat

But it was not enough for me and Alvin. Later in the night, Alvin and I went out to find food again with Issac and Annabelle stayed in the hotel. He brought me to a place near our hotel and we eat Khao Tom.

It is grilled sticky rice wrapped with banana leaves. It is made from steamed sticky rice with sugar and coconut milk wrapped with banana leaves into triangle shape and it has to be grilled before being served.

We ordered a plain only sticky rice, a banana filling and a mung beans or black beans filling. It is sweet as it is a dessert in Southern Thailand. Well, it is a good try to taste their local authentic Thai street food.