Thai Food

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Thai Food
 


Thai barbeque, Thai basil restaurant, Thai bbq, Thai bbq restaurant, Thai catering,
Thai chili restaurant, Thai cooking, Thai cuisine restaurant, Thai curry

Thailand is well known for its excellent food offered in Thai restaurants,

low priced seafood selection, tasty herbs, spices, curries, chilies, Thai food served maybe just on the open roadside Thai restaurant or maybe in a stylish setting with some sophisticated Thai food arrangements.

Something to eat, already hungry ? The point is, one of the red snapper in the middle -picture below-, barbecued, is less than baht 200 with rice in the open air restaurant in Patong Beach - not at the beach front -, Phuket Thailand, just the right Thai food, spicy, tasty, good and not to expensive.

The international tourist invasion of the last few decades had a very positive impact to the Thai food scene, since many foreigners opened restaurants offering their specific food. That means you can find the usual Thai restaurants beside Japanese restaurants, Korean restaurants, Italian restaurants, French restaurants, German restaurants, Austrian restaurants, a variety of Chinese restaurants, Spanish restaurants, Indian restaurants, Pakistani restaurants, Arab restaurants and naturally  the Burger stations, plus mixtures of the before mentioned with Thai food.

Myriads of Restaurants (many right on the beach) with the usual wide selection of tasty seafood, curries, white meat and red meat (not so popular among Thais) give you any reason to be happy. Open air beer fill up stations, some call them bars, are plenty and
might be companion is almost for sure waiting there.

Street Food in Thailand

Like other Southeast Asian countries, food stalls are everywhere in the streets, markets and festivals of Thailand, providing an endless smorgasbord of aromas, color, sounds and flavors - food in Thailand is a feast for all of the senses.

The next 'hotdog stand' does have a grill, placed over a large bin of charcoal, with flattened chicken quarters sizzling on sticks that you eat like a popsicle; next door to that is yet another steel cart heaped with fresh, ripe pineapple, mango and papaya.

Having a huge mortar and pestle for transforming the greener papayas into a crunchy, sweet-sour-spicy salad with morsels of shrimp or squid, chilies, garlic and sugar.

Thai Street Food Barbecue Phuket
Thai Street Food Barbecue Phuket

But be aware, according to my own experience the change that you have a real stomach problem afterwards is 90%. Don't listen what they tell you, the problem is all this street vendors use water from the tub and water from the tub in Thailand is, as everyone will tell polluted, it wont matter if you boil or not.

A other problem is that hygienic is almost below zero, usually any vegetable, salad or whatever is only minimal washed.

This philosophy even don't stop at the big chains like -the Pizza Company- which was Pizza Hut before. E.g. I encountered in their Phuket -Lotus- branch worms and cockroaches in the salad. On top of it they clean of the junk from the table and the floor, after they throw the used dirty cloth into the same compartment as the knives and forks to be used for eating and so on, this actually is a endless story.

What makes Thai food so delicious and distinctive among other Southeast Asian food is this unique blending of fresh herbs, spices and other ingredients that combine for a perfect balance of sweet, sour, salt and heat that leaves your mouth feeling clean and your taste buds popping in the afterglow.

Fresh fruit, salads and even soups and noodles are ladled into plastic bags with a skewer, fork, spoon or straw for eating on the go or perched on a folding chair at a nearby metal card table in the market.

Thai buses and trains become moving picnic grounds, with everyone chatting, eating and sharing the fare hawked through the vehicles' windows at roadside stops and terminals: Gai Yang, the flattened barbecue chicken on a stick, skewered meat and fish balls and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves.

Thai Street Food Skewer and Calamari
Thai Street Food Skewer and Calamari

Carnivals and markets feature huge woks at knee-height, bubbling with deep-fried critters of all sorts, many unidentifiable. Are they grasshoppers? crickets? spiders? baby birds? small frogs? -- my mouth and eyes were constantly wide open in wonder and amazement! I spent an inordinate amount of time in the fresh produce and night food markets -- exuberantly fascinated and often visibly discombobulated, to the great amusement of the vendors and shoppers.After traveling every aisle of food carts and woks on my mission to find the freshest, most interesting and tasty-looking dishes, I was often met with earnestly shaking heads or "No, you don't want that - that's Thai food!" by English speaking cooks or bystanders when I pointed and gestured and tried to ask for a

Thai Sea Food
Thai Sea Food

meal I knew I truly wanted.

On my first such adventure, I did not know that the custom was for the cook to show the ladle with the amount of the garlic and chili for you to indicate how much you wanted: thinking she was simply asking if I wanted those Thai ingredients, I nodded vigorously at the heaped display, and in it all went! Yes, it was Thai food, and I enjoyed every sizzling touch to my lips under the watchful, laughing eyes of the vendors and bystanders who

Thai Food Koh Samui
Thai Food Koh Samui

had gathered. I spent as much time learning about, admiring and experiencing the food as I did with major tourist attractions, often spending hours strolling through streets and markets taking in the sights and smells and sounds: quiet clucking rising up from a heap of vibrantly coloured roosters or chickens tied together at the feet - a Thai rooster's plumage is extraordinarily beautiful; plastic tubs and buckets just full enough of murky grey water to keep the fish, frogs or turtles alive until a sale was clinched; mounds and mounds of green and red, and purple and orange; the pleasant stench of durian and jackfruit - pleasant because I was just so thrilled and in awe of it all!                                     

  Since we have the Chinese "Year of the Rat" we would like to give you a gourmet experience to eat some delicious grilled or BBQ rats in Thailand, no need to rush to China click here   

I tried deep-fried grasshoppers at a carnival in Kanchanaburi during a sound and light show of "The Bridge On The River Kwai" that ended with a fabulous fireworks display recreating the Allied bombing campaign that destroyed the bridges of the Death Railway in 1945. I tried a few tiny roasted wood worms offered by a very thin host in a northern hill-tribe village near the Myanmar border, and feared that I was eating his family out of house and home. I discovered countless traditional dishes I had never tasted and savoured authentic versions of some I had had in Toronto's newly arrived Thai restaurants. As often as I could, I watched their creation so that I could try to replicate them when I got home and got a kitchen again.

Thai Food Tom Yam Seafood
Thai Food Tom Yam Seafood

Many people are alarmed at how daring I was with my stomach. During two years of round-the-world travel, including six months in Southeast Asia, I only had one tiny bout of queasiness over a couple of days on Sumatra in Indonesia. In fact, I had never eaten so well or felt so healthy in my life. I must have found the perfect balance of common sense and adventure, or, some might argue, I was just lucky.

I don't recommend trying everything, and I do recommend a few common sense tips for sampling the full range of the food on offer throughout your travels: at street and market stalls, do watch the cooking for awhile to ensure that the ingredients are fresh and the food is being cooked thoroughly; if you have any doubts, move on to the next vendor choose vendors that have a good steady flow of customers - not only is the food probably very good, but the turnover means fresher food ask your guesthouse

host and any other residents you meet for their favourite places to eat, and for recommendations on dishes to order follow the other safe eating tips you find in travel guides, like recommendations about water, ice cubes, and peeling fruit and vegetables.

Street Food Karon Beach Hot Dog and Fish Hawker Phuket Night
Street Food Karon Beach Hot Dog and Fish Hawker Phuket Night
Street Food Karon Beach Spicy Stuff on the Move Phuket
Street Food Karon Beach Spicy Stuff on the Move Phuket
Of course, you will find an endless selection of sit-down restaurants where you can savour some of the more familiar Thai dishes now found in restaurants around the world: green curry with chicken, red curry with beef, pad Thai and other noodle dishes, and wonderfully aromatic sweet basil dishes.

Whether you plan to samplethe fabulous Thai foods from the street

vendors  and markets or stick to what you know, learn a few tips on deciphering a menu or asking for a type of dish with a few Thai Food Terms.

Many supermarkets are now carrying a range of prepared Thai food sauces, curries and other Asian products, but if you enjoy adventure and creativity in your own kitchen, many Thai recipes are fairly easy to create once you've mastered a few essentials.

Thai Beach Food
Thai Beach Food

Gai Yang, after all, is really just barbequed chicken with a Thai twist! A good food reference guide or cookbook with a glossary of Asian ingredients will help you gain that perfect balance of sour, sweet, salt and heat that is unique to Thai cuisine.
© recipe-for-travel.com

Carolyn Nantais is a freelance writer, website copywriter, world traveler and culinary xenophile who indulges in temporary retirement from time to time to travel and eat around the world.

Her new website, The Recipe for Travel, is a food companion for travel lovers and travel companion for food lovers, with stories, recipes and practical travel planning tips gathered through adventures in round-the-world travel and food.

 


A taste of Thailand - vegetarian

The Menam Chao Phraya is a wide, muddy river that flows through the heart of Thailand. Its tributaries drain most of the country, including the rice fields of the central plain which have fed the Kingdom for centuries. Although modern Bangkok sprawls along roads in all directions, the river is the center of the city. Along its banks are Bangkok's oldest temples, its largest produce market, the Grand Palace and the famous Oriental Hotel. Here, too, are the Chinese-Thai neighborhoods that are an intriguing mix of residences, small manufacturing operations, offices and shops.

All day long, high-speed "long-tailed" boats roar up and down the river carrying sightseers, while at night, floating restaurants carry diners in a long slow loop up and down the river. River transportation is also a popular alternative to Bangkok's grid-locked roads. From 6 in the morning until 7 at night, public river boats travel the Chao Phraya. For less than 50 cents, you can journey for miles past wooden houseboats, temples, riverside restaurants and newer luxury hotels.

If you visit in the fall, you might notice crowds of people, bright lights and colorful banners surrounding a small riverside temple, Wat Josue Kong (wat means temple in Thai). This is Bangkok's vegetarian festival, the Festival of the Nine Imperial Gods, which takes place during the first nine days of the ninth Chinese lunar month. (This year, it began Sept. 23 and ended Oct. 1; next year it will begin on Oct. 11 and end on Oct. 20. Getting off at the next boat stop to investigate low the congested streets parallel to the river. You walk past storefront machine shops where metal-smiths pound hot steel into boat anchors and crowbars, past crews of young men braiding half-inch thick steel cables and down narrow streets lined with piles of truck axles and engine parts. Then you turn a comer and follow a growing stream of people moving toward a small, crowded street aglow with fluorescent lights. Now you're in the Thalad Noi area of Bangkok's Chinatown (near the end of Charoen Krung Road's Soi 20). It's about a 20-minute walk up river from the Sheraton Hotel's River City complex, although the Harbor Department express boat stop is the closest one to the festival.

Here, the grimy storefront machine shops are obscured by rows of vendors selling lotus flowers, fruits, candles, incense and brightly colored religious objects. Scores of other vendors are selling fried, boiled, steamed and roasted vegetarian foods. Walk through the gauntlet of vendors and you find yourself in a large covered square, half of which is filled with folding tables, chairs and impromptu kitchens. The other half contains a large, raised altar bearing three-foot tall candles and huge, smoldering logs of incense.

At one end of the square is a Chinese-Thai Buddhist temple hung with banners and lit with neon lights. At the other end is a Chinese opera stage where characters in dramatic makeup and sequined costumes act out scenes to the sound of gongs and stringed instruments. In front of you, a woman and her daughter kneel at the altar and male attendants carry a log of incense over their shoulders.

The vegetarian festival is a centuries-old Taoist celebration that began in southern China. Legend has it that the festival originated at a time of flood, fire and famine from which people were saved by Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. To thank her, the people invited nine gods to join them for a festival of purification in which their sins and those of their ancestors would be washed away. As part of the purification, celebrants adhere to a vegetarian practice, known in Thai as kin jeh, for the 10-day festival. Eating meat and eggs is prohibited, as well as garlic, green and yellow onions and shallots. These aromatic foods are believed to excite or heat up the body, a condition not conducive to worship and meditation. (A similar prohibition against onion and garlic exists in orthodox Hindu cooking.)

Today, most of the people who participate in the festival are Chinese-Thai. The entire event has a family atmosphere, with carnival games and even a small ferris wheel. At noon the first day, there is an inaugural ceremony during which the gods are invited to the festival. On subsequent days, there are Chinese opera performances, as well as a procession honoring the god of birth and death. Toward the end of the festival, celebrants release turtles and fish to help carry away their sins, and launch floats with candles and flowers to pay respect to their ancestors and the gods. On the last full day, alms are given to the poor, and in the evening a large and colorful procession of worshippers headed by monks, drummers and a 12-person Chinese dragon circles the temple area three times to bid the gods farewell. Ceremonies at noon the next day close the festival.

Throughout the festival, street vendors dole out seemingly endless quantities of one-plate vegetarian meals and traditional Chinese-style sweets. Most vendors specialize in one or two dishes. The most popular one-plate meals are noodle dishes. There are fried, round, chewy noodles of yellow wheat and thin rice noodles served with mushrooms, grated radish, tofu, Chinese kale and soy sauce; noodle dishes with mushrooms and faux meatballs made from wheat gluten; and noodle soups made with tofu or several varieties of mushrooms.

Other stands offer vegetarian versions of common Thai dishes such as red curry with green beans and faux pork, or stir-fried tofu with snow peas and baby corn. All are available on a bed of rice for 20 baht (about 80 cents). Several restaurants on nearby Charoen Krung Road (near Wat Mangkong) offer even wider selections of Thai-style dishes for similar prices. In place of the traditional fish sauce, they use a sauce made of soy sauce and herbs.

One of the most delicious dishes offered at the festival is also one of the most dramatic to watch being prepared. Pak boong fai daeng is a simple stir-fry dish in which a pile of pak boong (a mild leafy green with arrow shaped leaves and hollow stems) is roughly chopped and heaped in a bowl, then topped with chili peppers, fermented soybean paste and a dash of sugar. Vegetable oil is heated to the smoking point in a wok, and the contents of the bowl are dumped in and stirred quickly while a red flame (fai daeng) leaps up from the wok. As the flame fades, the contents are turned out onto a plate and rushed to the diner's table.

The snack foods at the festival include a variety of baked or deep-fried Chinese-style snacks filled with sweetened bean paste, coconut or taro root. There are also deep-fried egg rolls and vegetable fritters served with a sweet, spicy dipping sauce, as well as fried taro root pancakes. A vegetarian version of the popular Northeastern Thai/Lao green papaya salad, som tham, is also popular. It combines shredded papaya, lime juice, palm sugar, chili peppers, sliced tomatoes, green beans and julienned mushrooms, pounded together wooden mortar and pestle and served on a plate with fresh greens and balls of glutinous rice.

There are also vegetarian festivals in the southern Thai cities of Phuket and Trang. These festivals are even more exotic than Bangkok's, featuring acetic feats by young male followers, such as body piercing and climbing ladders of razors. The festival is also spreading throughout Bangkok. This year, there were yellow and red pennants with the Chinese symbol for kin jeh on restaurants and food vendors' carts all over the city. During the festival, many hotels and restaurants offer vegetarian buffets or add special vegetarian items to their menus. Some of the larger restaurants advertise these offerings in Thailand's English-language newspapers.

The festival is certainly the most exciting way to experience

Thailand's vegetarian cuisine.

But any time of year, delicious and inexpensive vegetarian food is fairly easy to find here. All you need is some persistence and a few Thai phrases.

The Chinese restaurants along Yaorat and Chaoen Krung roads are generally good places to look for vegetarian food. If it is not festival time, tell the waiter that you are a vegetarian: "khon kin jeh." Your food will be free of meat, eggs, dairy and fish sauce, and probably without garlic or onions as well. If a menu in English is not available (many places have them), you can usually order by pointing to the fresh ingredients that most restaurants prominently display, pantomiming which ingredients you do and don't want.

In addition to the Chinese-Thai vegetarian tradition, there is a vegetarian movement taking root in Thailand. The group behind this movement is called Santi Asoke, a back-to-basics Buddhist group founded in the 1970s that advocates a simple lifestyle, herbal medicine, vegetarianism and organic farming. Unlike most Buddhists in Thailand, Santi Asoke adherents take the Buddhist injunction against taking life as an exhortation not to eat meat or eggs. In contrast, most Thai Buddhists (monks included) believe that eating meat is not equivalent to "taking a life" - as long as they didn't personally kill the animal. Santi Asoke has upset the mainstream Thai Buddhist hierarchy by criticizing mainstream Buddhism's tolerance of meat eating, gambling, drinking, prostitution and consumerism. In response, the Buddhist hierarchy challenged the legitimacy of the Santi Asoke practices, forbidding the Santi Asoke monks from wearing Buddhist robes or even calling themselves Buddhists.

Despite their disdain for meat eating, Santi Asoke cooks make every attempt to replicate the texture of meat through the use of wheat gluten. Their restaurants and food shops, or sala mahansawalat, are increasingly popular. They are only open during the day, and are almost always packed. Food is served cafeteria-style and meals are cheap even by Thai standards: a bowl of noodles or a serving of food over rice costs about six baht (25 cents). They offer vegetarian versions of many Thai dishes, such as sweet-and-sour faux chicken with vegetables, or Northeastern Thai/Lao-style salad with chopped shallots, mint leaves, onions, chili peppers and faux chopped pork. These restaurants serve their meals with brown rice (most Thais like their rice as white as snow). Their curry pastes and spicy dipping sauces use a vegetarian "shrimp" paste made of fermented soy beans which looks and smells very much like the real thing.

In Bangkok, the largest Santi Asoke restaurant is on Kamphaengphet Road (behind the small city bus parking lot near the pedestrian bridge) just south and west of the large weekend market on the north side of town. There are also Santi Asoke restaurants in many other cities including Nakorn Pathom, Korat, Ubon Ratchatani and Chiang Mai.

Vegetarians can also eat their fill at a good vegetarian restaurant right around the corner from the main train station in Bangkok. Just walk east about 50 yards down Rama IV Road and you will find a small enclosed restaurant that offers only Chinese-style vegetarian food. Bangkok's many Indian restaurants all offer vegetarian dishes, as do most of the low-budget guesthouse restaurants. The Seventh-day Adventist Hospital in Bangkok has a vegetarian cafeteria that serves both Thai- and Western-style vegetarian food. There are also upscale restaurants in Bangkok and Chiang Mai that mainly cater to foreign vegetarians.

You won't go hungry in Thailand any time of the year. But if you have a spirit of adventure, come during the vegetarian festival. You'll be rewarded with authentic Thai vegetarian cookery unavailable anywhere else in the world. It's a countrywide festival of tastes.

Author Stephen Carroll was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand for two years. He now works as a baker in Kalamazoo, Mich.
COPYRIGHT Vegetarian Times, Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT Gale Group

 

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