Good morning, Fellow Foodies! The great thing about Hive is it's a morning somewhere around this world, right? Also, for today's post, I want to take you guys with me to my family's favorite breakfast place in Chiang Mai. Needless to say, we've been going there for ALL MY LIFE and still am too! Wonder where it is? Let me show you.
🍴 the Restaurant 🍴
... is called "Pathom" and it's been one of Chiang Mai residents's breakfasts since 1979. A lifetime of a congee place! Am I right? My parents always took us here, when we didn't know what to eat for breakfast, and for over 30 years, we still can come again and again.
Actually, even for me, coming to Pathom this time, I felt different. The restaurant has just rebranded the signs and logo to make it more modern. I quite like it. As I've said, I've been for so many years to this place, but for the first time, I saw them change like this.
Right up front, you'll see the kitchen, where they prepared all the food. Nice and hot, and most importantly delicious smell that you'll know right away, how the food is gonna be.
🍽 the Menu 🍽
To order, first, we'll choose which rice, we'll be going for today: Boiled or steamed. I'm not a big fan of steamed rice, so I usually get boiled rice. Then, we choose as many side dishes as we want to eat with the rice.
There are so many varieties of side dishes. Some are meaty and some are veggie. The ones on the menu are what Pathom offers. And normally, it's more than enough. You don't need more than these dishes.
🍽 Our Every Single Time Must-Have Menu 🍽
I'd like to show you one by one dish and give a little explanation of each dish we ordered.
A decade long of ordering and savoring this dish has been established between our family and the restaurant. If they see us, they gonna bring this dish to us, no question asked. This dish is Salted Pork. Very Salty, but that's exactly how Thai prefers food because eating with rice gonna bland the salty flavor down a bit and that's just correct.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS RICE. I mean, you can't have good brekkie without good carbohydrates, right? I prefer boiled rice because, yes I am an undeniably soupy girl and I'm not choosing jasmine rice for me.
🍽 Our Side Dishes 🍽
The second is stir Fried chicken. Our family ordered this every time, it became just something, my tongue got used to for so long. They tend to be a little (too) salty.
First up is Chinese sausage. I am today years old to know that this sausage, that I've been eating my whole life, came from China. Because it's so common in northern Thai food. Easy to make and to eat (with boiled rice is the best!)
The fourth dish is still in a category of innard braised (I think?) in the sweet brown sauce . This is blood curd. (With my limited English Vocabulary, I'll always call them blood jelly) It gave me a great texture of bounciness, especially with hot boiled rice.
The third is Pork tongue in sweet brown sauce. This is the dish, I always go for. If you have read my Try Beef Noodle with me in Chiang Mai, you'll know I love eating innards. Tongue is just da best (for me)!
The next one is a dish that I've grown to like as I've aged. It's called Stir-fried Eggplant. I hated eggplant when I was a kid. Not even because it tasted bad or anything, young judgmental me just didn't like how it looked. But now? Game Changer! So good. I Highly recommend it.
Now, talking about veggie dishes for non-meat eaters, I recommend this dish of Mixed Vegetable Stew. I believe this dish has been made since.. forever. It's very healthy and tastes homey. I love it and like to make fun of it as a sick people's food.
Lastly, it wouldn't be a Chinese style without this salted egg. Even though this one is a small side dish, the taste of it is really distinctive, still a very important part of the meal.
Another sick people's dish is this Clear Soup With Seaweed. Easy and very homey dish to make and it goes really well together with other side dishes.
This is how it looked together and what a true Asian family breakfast looks like.
That's it for my #nomnomfoodie post for today. I'll see what I'll write about on my next one, maybe something more western? Hmmm, We'll see. Until then...
Stay hungry and keep finding yummy food, fellow foodie
Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜