Thai Fruit Salad and Eating Insects on Khao San Road (Day 3)

By Mark Wiens 30 Comments
Thai fruits
Thai fruits, stock video

On day 3 of the Thai food tv documentary, we began at the studio of the production company.

The crew needed to get some stock style footage, including in studio shots of all of the different salads we had eaten on the first day, and more individual shots of all the beautiful Thai ingredients and herbs.

They arranged a nice selection of fruit on the table, and with a foreground of fresh Thai fruit, I talked about how Thai fruit can be used in a salad known as yam ponlamai (ยำผลไม้), or Thai fruit salad.

By the way, if you’re looking for an awesome Thai fruit salad to eat in Bangkok, one of my favorites is at Chamlong’s Asoke, an all vegetarian food court.

Thai fruit salad
Talking around Thai fruit, and making fruit salad

After briefly going over some of the major Thai fruits, I then ate a bunch of Thai fruits, and quickly explained to the camera how each one tasted – guavas are sour and crisp, pineapple is sweet and juicy – and so on.

My stomach full of fresh and delicious fruit, it was then time to mix up some Thai fruit salads.

I first made a bowl of fruit salad with durian, dragon fruit, jackfruit, and watermelon, and dressed it all with fish sauce, lime juice, and chili flakes. Spicy durian, not a bad combination at all.

The next fruit salad was the normal Thai fruit salad style, including apples, guava, and pineapples – firmer and more sweet and sour fruits.

Thai food
Thai food gems map

Another scene the team wanted, was placing pins on a Thailand map, showing the places we’d be traveling to eat.

After wrapping up in the studio, and grabbing a quick lunch on the road, we jumped in the van, en-route to the infamous Khao San road – the backpacker hub of Bangkok.

Khao San Road Bangkok
Insects street food cart, Khao San Road

Khao San Road is not a place I’m too fond of in Bangkok, mainly because there’s not very much good food there, and it’s a pretty gross depiction of what Thailand is really like.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting place, and it’s definitely a place that’s always alive with energy.

We shot a few scenes just walking around Khao San, before the main shoot at Khao San…

Selection of insects to eat, I still haven’t had a scorpion before

If there’s any good food scene to shoot at Khao San Road, it would have to be malang tod (แมลงทอด), or fried bugs. The bugs are just deep fried and sprayed with soy sauce, so there’s little room to prepare them badly (or shall I say, to make them toned down in flavor from the Thai taste).

We ordered up a mixed plate of creepy crawlers, all of them which I had tried before, apart from the tarantula.

Since I had never eaten a tarantula, I was pretty excited about the opportunity to eat one this night.

Grasshoppers
Pile of grasshoppers

I did a lot of bug munching and crunching, and we got a lot of insanely close up footage of eating the bugs.

I’m a big fan of grasshoppers, silk worms are alright… but then it was time for the big ticket, the tarantula…

Tarantula
Tarantula

A fried tarantula definitely looks scary, but the ones you can eat are non-poisonous (at least I hope so).

The tarantula tasted almost like salt cured beef jerky, with a hint of a livery aftertaste to it – I thought it was pretty decent, and would gladly eat them again.

To get more footage, we ordered some Pad Thai from a vendor on the end of Khao San Road (ถนนข้าวสาร).

It was my first time to ever eat Pad Thai (ผัดไทย) from Khao San Road, and I can safely now admit that it’s as bad as it looks – it was basically falvorless – just noodles fried in oil with no seasonings.

Pad Thai Thip Samai is a much better option for Pad Thai when you’re in Bangkok.

But anyway, I mostly needed to be eating something while walking around getting footage of the action and life around Khao San Road.

A bit more filming and we called it a day. Thank you for following along on this “Thai food tv documentary” journey.

30 comments. I'd love to hear from you!

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  • High Rated Gabru

    3 years ago

    You are doing a great job. Please keep it up!!!

  • Vishal

    4 years ago

    Nice…go ahead.

  • Vishal

    5 years ago

    I also had some flavourless Pad Thai late one night on Khao San Road and I was so disappointed. I wish I would have read your Pad Thai recommendations before I went to Bangkok!

  • Duyen

    9 years ago

    Hi, I’m doing a sesearch on Thai food and your writing is surely a good reference for me. Thank you so much! Hope you keep writing such great blogs. Ah, have you ever been Hoi An, Viet Nam? I’m from Hoi An so if you have chance to Hoi An. I love to introduce to you the wonderful food background of Hoi An and Viet Nam as well! 🙂
    Best wishes,
    Duyen

    • Mark Wiens

      9 years ago

      Hi Duyen, great to hear you’re searching for Thai food. I have not been to Hoi An yet, but I’d love to go in the future. Thank you, I will definitely let you know if I can visit!

  • Peter

    10 years ago

    Great job! I must admit you are a hero… eating tarantuals is beyond imagination.
    The grashoppers are fine. Southern Mexicans mix them often in omelettes and I tried it once in Oaxaca myself.

    many greetings from Munich….

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Peter, great to hear from you, thank you very much. Yum, grasshoppers in an omelet sounds delicious!

  • Joe

    10 years ago

    Bugs are definitely underrated as a food. Plus, they’re way more sustainable than other types of protein (like beef, pork, chicken). And with the right technique, you can make anything tasty.

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Joe, good to hear from you. Yah, I agree, and I think they are gaining in popularity. Plus they could be prepared in so many ways, fried, in curries, stews, soups etc.

  • Jimena

    10 years ago

    Hi Mark! Great post! I’m travelling for a year with my boyfriend and we are going for the third time to Bangkok. Which area do you recommend to stay besides Khao San Road? What do you think about Sukhumvit road? Btw we loved watching your Malaysia videos! They were really useful when we went there. This is our travel blog: http://raisonblog.tumblr.com/
    Cheers!

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hi Jimena, great to hear from you, thank you for sharing your blog. In Bangkok, a good area to stay is somewhere along Sukhumvit or Siam. There are a few places around Thong Lor area, which would be good. Another good area of Bangkok to stay in is Silom, more of the business district of Bangkok. Hope you have a great upcoming visit to Bangkok.

    • Jimena

      10 years ago

      Great! Thank you for the advise Mark!

  • Michael Steinberger

    10 years ago

    There are some places I travelled where I taken care about the food which is free from impurities, and here those impurities are being well garnished. LOL Hahaha. The fruits looks mouth watering.
    Will definitely try this someday.

  • Kitti

    10 years ago

    I’m Thai but I don’t eat insects nor spiders , scorpions , rats , dogs , cats.

    Fruit Salads are great. I like it !!

    About Pad Thai, I also like ผัดไทเซ็นต์หลุยส์ สุมาลี Padthai Saint Louise – Sumalee there. One of my favorite Pad Thai stall. Their Pad Thai is not so oily and their sen chan give a very delicous taste they also have thai coconut custard ขนมถ้วย. (I think you have went to this Soi Saint Louise 3 or Sathorn 11 for TV programme already)

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Kitti, thank you for the Pad Thai suggestions, haven’t heard of that one, will try to check it out sometime.

  • Lindsay

    10 years ago

    If you liked spicy durian, you should definitely try durian som tam. We had it for lunch on my durian tour last week, and it was so excellent! Everyone loved it. The slightly underripe durian really absorbs the flavors well, and the texture is a nice contrast to the crunch of the carrots and cucumbers, I imagine a bit like mozzarella cheese. Highly recommended 🙂 You can see pictures on my latest blog post.

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      That sounds fantastic Lindsay, glad to hear you’re doing well. Going to check out your post now.

  • Sophie

    10 years ago

    Hi Mark! Just wanted to let you know my fiance and I are planning to marry and honeymoon in Bangkok and use your videos as travel inspiration. We love to watch them during dinner and dream of the places we’ll go and the flavours we’ll experience. We both want to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much for making your videos. We think you’re amazing and living the dream! Also, is there any way you can put your documentary up on youtube or to a streaming site?

    Yours sincerely, Sophie & Derek

    PS: Do you think you could possibly give Derek a shout-out? No worries if you can’t and just thank you again XD

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hi Sophie and Derek, wow, huge congratulations on the upcoming marriage, and that’s so cool that you’ve chosen Bangkok / Thailand as the location – I think it’s a great decision. Thank you so much for your support watching my videos, I really appreciate it. I’m still not certain about exactly how the documentary will be aired, but I’ll let you know when I have further details. When will you be getting married?

  • Sacha

    10 years ago

    The fruits look unreal! So pretty and colorful, and appetizing. I can’t say the same about the insects though…. Funny things is, I don’t have to go far to enjoy some fried insects! In my hometown there are cafes which sell grasshoppers to eat, and this is in the Netherlands. Who know! But that’s about it. And no, I haven’t tried them. Sad to say I am not as adventurous as you are, but insects are literally my biggest fear so no way I am eating them….

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Sacha, great to hear from you, thank you for reading this. Wow, that’s very interesting to hear you can get grasshoppers at a cafe in Netherlands – maybe it’s an upcoming trend?

  • Ashley @ Ashley Wanders

    10 years ago

    I also had some flavourless Pad Thai late one night on Khao San Road and I was so disappointed. I wish I would have read your Pad Thai recommendations before I went to Bangkok!

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Ashley, oh sorry to hear you had some flavorless pad Thai too. Next time you’re in Bangkok!

  • Andrea Anastasiou

    10 years ago

    My goodness, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to eat a tarantula! I won’t be trying that one when we get to Bangkok later this year. The fruit looks delicious, though 😉

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Thanks Andrea, the fruit in Thailand is fantastic.

  • Alexis

    10 years ago

    I’m thinking the livery after taste of the tarantula is the pouch? All I can think of is its big stomach. :-\

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Alexis, yah I think you’re probably right about that. I ate the whole thing in 1 bite, so it sort of all mixed up, but the meat of the creature is definitely that pouch.

  • Ken Kai

    10 years ago

    Fried tarantula’s.. Now that takes me back to Cambodia! I’ve tried and love every fruit you have there. One of my favourites – Durian.. 😀

    • Mark Wiens

      10 years ago

      Hey Ken, yes right about that – I think they are actually much more popular in Cambodia. Glad you love durian too.