I love mangoes. When I was a kid, I would buy mangoes outside school for what I remember was 1 or 2 pesos in one pack. I love unripe ones and I would eat it with vinegar or shrimp paste. Heck, I bet that's the reason why I have acidic stomach and even my teeth are affected. As I grew up, the prices of mangoes also grew lol. Now they're like 10-20 pesos each pack.
Anyway, in Thailand I wasn't that curious of what their mangoes taste like. Since I eat it so much back in the Philippines, I wasn't that enthusiastic to try them and I was so excited to try out new fruits first. So yeah, in the first few days in Bangkok, I ignored it. Hahah, man I shouldn't have.
Just like in my country, they would get sold usually in the streets. I don't know what came to my mind that time but I wanted to eat mangoes - I started to crave them so I bought one. One pack was 20 baht which was $0.58, just average price for a mango.
When I was looking for the sauce, I saw no vinegar nor shrimp paste. Instead, they have this what I thought was salt with chili. I mean, I wasn't wrong but it taste like they have more sugar and chili than salt. I was thinking I probably won't be satisfied with only salt since I usually eat it with vinegar and salt.
When I tried it... BAAAHHM. Holy shit, they were right. These mangoes don't need vinegar or any other shit.
You know, the unripe mangoes that I'm used to are really sour so vinegar and shrimp paste (which was usually salty and sweet) are perfect for them. But Thai mangoes have a different taste. Like, really good different taste.
They're sweet even when they're unriped and I was really surprised of that. The sweet, salty, and chili just work perfectly together and I got obsessed fast. :D They're also really juicy, so even when you only got salt, it will mix with the mango juice so it gives you the sauce naturally.
It was a bit sour when unriped but not really. It still leaves a bit of sour taste in my teeth which makes it sensitive (I don't know what it's called lol) but it wasn't much compared to Philippine mangoes. Only a lil bit sour but still a lot sweeter than sour.
I tried one in Phuket too and they had the sweet chili fish sauce which was also really good.
There was this one store in Sukhumvit that we always pass by and they always and I mean literally always have a long line. Grab drivers and walk-in customers usually line up and wait for the food - all day everyday - so we got curious whatever the hell they're lining up for. :D
One night, there was rain and thunder and surprisingly there was no line haha. We thought hmm, so we only need lightning and thunder to be able to buy without a line. :D
We bought 2 mango sticky rice from them and wow, it was really good. Also, apparently these mangoes are called Thai Honey mangoes cos they're sweet and juicy which is obvious why it's called that lol. So yeah, this store is famous for a reason and we saw why.
I love Thai mangoes and how they eat it. I will definitely miss it. :(