Here is Kei from Japan. He was in Panom Pehn for a couple of days and just arrived here in Bangkok, heading to Hom hostel. When he just arrived, the food for cooking demo, rice seasoned with shrimp paste, was ready. Then he ate it along with drinking beer. Unlike original Thai people who eat them separately, he mixed every ingredient together and ate it all at once. Finally he finished the entire dish. Then he asked us what to say very tasty in Thai. We proudly replied “Aroi Mak.”

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Regarding the cooking demonstration, the menu for the day was rice seasoned with shrimp paste, which is tricky for anyone to cook since there are plenty of ingredients to become one dish. Those include sliced omelette, Chinese sausage, fried dried shrimp, sliced shallots, chopped string beans, sliced red chilli, sliced sour mango, and caramelized pork belly. And the challenge is putting everything together take some time to be done. And remembering it is even harder. However, our chef is good at cooking authentic Thai food so this is not a big deal for him to cook. He finally made the dish within only 20 minutes.

Kei also made friend on that day with a Chinese guy named Steve who at the same day cooked Chinese beef soup for Hom guests. The soup itself was amazing and he liked it so much. It went really well with the seasoned rice. Surprisingly, Kei can speak Chinese, so Kei and Steve had a great long conversation and they laughed a lot.

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His first impression of Hom hostel was the staff who were so welcome and generous. Plus the Hom’s table kitchen which people could share their meal together. He remarked it as an astonishing idea. What’s more, he mentioned about the concept of the hostel and cooking club which is similar to the community in the mountain for travellers in Japan when people harvest together, cook together, eat together, drink together, and enjoy the valuable time with one another. It has been a fabulous trip for him so far.

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He has been to more than 80 countries in the world. Therefore, he is pretty a cosmopolitan person. Talking about food, he had tried a plenty kind of ingredients that he did not expect and did not eat in Japan so he always had different experience all the time he travels. In his viewpoint, this kind of home cooking style is the most authentic way of cooking.

We asked him about what he had learned from travelling since he has been to a lot of countries. A big question for everyone. His favorite country is China and Singapore in which he has been there many times. Basically the important thing is the different culture and he do respect and appreciate each cultural differences. Also sometimes we need to adjust ourselves to local cultures rather than judging that this is weird. Plus he love to learn to gain new experience about each uniqueness of the country.

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The reason why he is here in Thailand because he would like to help in local tourism of suburban Bangkok area called Bang Kachao which is beautiful green area. Since he does sustainable tourism amongst the Kyoto area in Japan so he hope that his method in Kyoto would distribute to sustainable development in Thailand.

XOXO
Your HOM Family