Although Jim and I like to eat (and Jim thankfully likes to cook), we don’t consider ourselves “foodies.” So I find it amusing that we had several major events planned around food.

Jim wrote about the first – our chicken and rice at one of the famous Hawker centers in Singapore. (RIP Anthony Bourdain and thank you for opening our minds to other parts of the world.)

The next was a significantly more upscale experience. I had seen a post about a Swedish restaurant in Bangkok called Villa Frantzen that was supposed to be fantastic. Since my niece is going to school in Sweden, I’m interested in all things Swedish, so I thought – what the heck – that would be different.

Turns out, chef/owner Bjorn Frantzen, who Michelin calls a ‘Nordic God,” has a 3-star restaurant in Sweden and although the Bangkok outpost doesn’t have a star yet, it seems likely to get one.

We had a really lovely experience, leaving our fairly gritty neighborhood to be greeted by a staff member as we pulled up in our taxi. We had a cocktail in the very Scandinavian feeling bar before moving to a lovely table overlooking the garden.

Not to bore you with the menu, but the food was delicious, and the service was excellent. We felt like naughty kids leaving the OAT environs, which is like Lonely Planet for seniors, for this rather upscale experience. But it’s still an experience, right? Just the other side of the tracks. I’d love to visit his restaurant in Sweden, but I’m afraid that could be out of the budget.

Our first day of touring with OAT started with a cooking class in a local family’s home. It wasn’t a true hands-on class, but our host demonstrated how to make red curry paste and then we made chicken curry, each of us adding an ingredient.

The food was delicious, but more interesting was meeting the family and touring their home, a traditional teak house on the river. I always wonder if the people we meet on these tours get sick of us Americans, but the owners truly seemed to enjoy speaking with us and sharing their traditions.

Jim will detail the rest of the day in his post, so I’ll move on to the next food event, which was a dinner cruise.

After a big lunch, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to another big meal, but again the highlight was less the food than the views. We finally got to see a city at night, an experience we missed in Singapore.

There were multiple tour boats, lit up with flashing lights and blasting music, but I enjoyed our smaller, private boat. The temples, malls and bridges were all magical to behold.

And to top it off, the food was good! More chicken curry, but this had an interesting addition of a type of banana that had the consistency of a potato. Plus pork stir fry and some tasty steamed vegetables.

Today is our last day in Bangkok. We don’t have any major food events planned, but it’s likely we’ll end up having something we haven’t had before.