43 Thailand #7: Sukiyaki

Think there's enough scallions?

Lately, I've been thinking about Japan a lot. Originally, we were thinking about sending clothes and food, but as Maki of Just Bento and Just Hungry, one of my favorite bloggers (she's responsible for getting me into bentoing) points out in a recent post, given all the current transportation difficulties, the surest way to make sure you're helping from overseas is to send money. In her post she recommends organizations that you can donate to.

And that's a segueway to my next travel post from our trip to Thailand (getting back to my 43 travel stories).

Japanese food is pretty popular in Thailand: from sushi to sukiyaki, a hearty soup of sliced beef simmered together with vegetables and noodles in a hot pot and eaten family style. On both of my trips there I've eaten the latter with my friends A. and T., though the Thai versions I've had bore a closer resemblance to Chinese hotpot or Japanese shabu shabu, with your own individual dipping sauce and quick cooking vegetables, meat, and other ingredients that you add at different times.

However, I had never encountered a dish like the one pictured, also called sukiyaki. A. ordered it on our second night in Chiang Mai. The basic elements were thin noodles and scallions, stir-fried with egg in a sweetish sauce. Though the dish itself wasn't particularly memorable (I preferred my lad na), the name intrigued both me and M., though our friends were at a loss to explain where the name came from when we asked.

It's interesting to see how the use of an imported word develops and evolves over time (in a particular culture (case in point, mandu). I wonder how common the fried noodle dish called sukiyaki is in Thailand?