Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Thai food festival

Last Sunday we went to a Thai Food Festival held in Greenwich Park. The weather didn't look too promising to start with, but we had glorious sunshine all afternoon, which is a rare treat in London, even in summertime. No wonder the festival was so busy, even though there was an entrance fee.


The main attraction of the festival was the large number of stalls selling yummy Thai food, most of which was cooked on the premises. There was barbequed meat, aromatic curries, noodles, Pad Thai, fruit and snacks.


This man convinced me to try some Thai sausage. It was delicious, although not quite as nice as German bratwurst.


There were several stalls selling anything from Hello Kitty merchandise...


...to leather shoes and wooden photo frames.


We also saw a puppet theatre performance. It was a traditional story, but can't remember what it was.


Look at how the puppeteers move in sync with the puppet.


Several stalls displayed awesome Thai fruit carvings. Who would have thought watermelons and marrows could look so interesting?


We even got to watch a carver in action. He was turning a plain-looking melon into an amazing flower with a very very sharp knife.


OK this isn't very Thai, but I couldn't not show you a traditional ice-cream van. There were several dotted around the festival grounds and judging by the queues, business must have been really good that day.


If you'd like to see more pictures from the festival, I have posted a selection on Flickr.

10 comments:

ShadowFalcon said...

Ok I'm so jealous right now I wish I'd been there!!

Karen said...

It looks like a perfect day! I would have stuffed myself silly.

I've never understood the Hello Kitty fascination. It seems very odd to me.

We still have the old fashioned ice cream truck around here, too. The prices are outrageous, though, and kind of take the fun out of it.

Jackie said...

I love those fruit carvings. Greenwich is my favourite of the big London parks.

GMG said...

Don't know why were you complaining on London weather; it seems to be gorgeous. You should see Iceland... ;)
Have a great, sunny, weekend!

Tinsie said...

@ ShadowFalcon: There will be another Thai festival in Surrey during the August bank holiday weekend - might be worth considering?

@ Karen: I luuuurve Hello Kitty. I guess it's nostalgia as much as anything. I had Hello Kitty-everything when I was a kid.

I'm pretty sure ice cream vans over here sell ice cream at the same price as corner shops, newsagents etc. I've never thought to compare.

@ Jackie: I like Greenwich park too :-)

@ GMG: Probably because I only take photos when the weather's lovely (which isn't very often, I might add). The fact that our weather is better than Iceland's is a small consolation ;-)

Puss-in-Boots said...

Yum, I love Thai food as long as I'm careful with peanuts. And as most of their cooking uses peanut oil, it doesn't leave me a lot to choose from, so I'm more inclined to give it a miss. Anyway, it looks a great time was had by all.

palmtreefanatic said...

woweeeee
I wanna go there! yummy and neato!

Tinsie said...

@ Puss-in-Boots: Yes, they do use peanuts and peanut oil rather a lot...

@ Palmtreefanatic: It was super yummy :-)

Anonymous said...

I must say I am feeling hungry :)

Stefan Jansson said...

Very impressive what they can do with a knife and a watermelon. Some great photos in this post.