Instead of posting things as I eat them, I have been taking pictures and I will post them all together.
For this first edition, I'll cover my first month: central and south Thailand. I actually can't say that I was particularly adventurous during this time, and I was surprised how much of the food felt at least somewhat familiar. I didn't accidentally order anything miserably spicy because one of the first Thai phrases I learned was "not very spicy."
If you're one of the people that I have had extensive conversations with about my feelings about soup, you might find these pictures entertaining. I have been eating a lot of soup. It felt many times like my options were meat/veggies over rice or some type of soup with rice. And almost always rice.
One of my favorite things has definitely been the amount of fruit that is available. Most of it has been familiar to me like pineapple and mango, but I have also been eating papaya, dragonfruit and green mango (its not as ripe so it reminds me more of a green apple almost). You buy it from a cart on the street and it comes cut up with a skewer to eat it with. So good.
Some general observations before you get to see all the pictures. For the Thai people, food seems to be a very social thing. I think at most meals they share the dishes instead of ordering individually like we are used to. It definitely did not seem as common here for someone to be eating alone as it was in the US. Also, the service at restaurants is definitely held to a different standard than I am used to. For example, unless the place is really busy, the waiter or waitress will simply stand there and wait for you to place your drink and/or food order. This took a little bit of getting used to for me, as I usually have no idea what I want and it takes me a while to peruse the menu. In addition, when the food is ready, they bring it out to you. There is no waiting for all of the food at the table to be ready. If you order coffee or alcohol, sometimes the first dishes will arrive before your beverages. At a lot of the smaller restaurants, they have one wok to cook things, so the dishes arrive one at a time. This can be a little bit of a tease if you're the hungriest one at the table and your food does not arrive first.
Thai food is not all incredibly spicy (or maybe they just know not to make it crazy spicy for me). Instead, it is a very interesting balance of spicy, salt, sweet, bitter, and sour. At the table there will almost always by little jars of vinegar (with chilies in it), sugar, salt, sugar, chili powder, and fish sauce. A couple of times then I did not put these on my food before I dug in I was shown by one of the waitresses the error of my ways. It is really amazing how the flavors compliment each other (when you add them right). If you don't then you get something that turns out like weirdly sweet Phad Thai, really vinegary rice or something odd along those lines.
Some Thai words for you:
Chicken-gai/kai (I have seen it spelled both ways)
Shrimp-kung
Pork-muu (moo) (I KNOW right)
I don't remember the names of some of these dishes, so a description will just have to do.
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| Dragonfruit- fun fact: it makes your pee a funny color |
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| Iced coffee to go |
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| Logo look familiar? This is Krating Daeng, essentially Red Bull without the carbonation. It inspired the creator of Red Bull to tweak it for western tastes and sell it. |
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| Minced pork (muu) with clear noodles and veggies |
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| Fried rice |
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| Curried chicken on rice with an over-medium egg |
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| Tum Yum Chicken |
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| Fried wide noodles with chicken |
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| Phad Thai Gai. This is considered to be a pretty boring dish. Not boring as in not tasty, just not a very exciting choice. |
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| Cashew chicken. The Thai name for this is so hard to pronounce. |
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| Green curry with beef. |
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| Tom kha gai. Sour coconut soup with chicken and mushrooms. |
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| This is what it looks like if you order food to go (for take away as they say here) |
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| Chicken with chilis and holy basil. |
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| Massaman curry. Delicious and one of the specialties in the south. |
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| Noodle soup with chicken |
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| Yellow curry with chicken |
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| Minced pork and veggies over rice. |
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| The best Phad Thai in BKK. The bright orange comes from a shrimp paste. |
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| Tom Yam seafood and noodles. Big pieces of squid are odd. |
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| Street food. |
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| Street food |
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| Desserts from an Indian bakery that I kept walking by every time I left my hostel. |
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| Fortune cookie and marshmallow fluff tacos. |
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| Fluffy white bread with a custard sauce (front) or butter and honey (back) |
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| Banana-nutella roti and mango sticky rice with coconut milk |
I swear there are puns for everything. Want to open a Thai restaurant? May I suggest a name along these lines: Bow Thai, Thai Tanic, Thai Riffic, Thai Foon, Thai Ranosauraus, EnThaiCing, Thai Mee Kangaroo Down Sport
