Comprehensively Eating Thailand

[Stupid_American]

Find any?

[jokhm]

holy &^*# What happened to my actual post!?

Here's a rewrite, sorry if it is less linear and containing less content then I originally wrote.. Hard to remember precisely..

Hey All

I'm about to arrive in thailand, after several hundred days away, and this time, despite it being the 10th time I'm traveling there, I'd like to get my street food done correctly. Can anyone discuss this a bit further, with some thai names (with pronunciation) for these snacks and general foods that I should be expecting to see and look for?

I'll mostly in Bangkok, and then further south near koh lanta for much of my two week stay. I'm really hoping that this time I can take proper advantage and not mindlessly wander through the great snacks uninformed. I've done that countless times, and loved it, but always felt like I've missed so much. Also a few random thai connections with travel buddies at previous trips took the time to show me some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life, but somewhere, somehow, I left with only the knowledge that I had eaten fantastically well, and not with the details of exactly what I ate, and how/where to find it in the future.

Hope this post makes sense to some. I know that if someone asked me the same thing for my area, I'd likely turn them to a few major specialties, and my routine favorite places to find them. In this case the language is also an issue! So I think the ideal would be to simply have an extensive vocabulary list to walk around with and help with ordering/identifying, rather than simply locating the correct stall or restaurant. But so far my searching online hasn't produced some kind of list I can build or study from. Anyway, any thoughts?

Thanks!

J

[prasantrin]

I'm not sure if this is what you're after, but have you seen http://www.thaistreetfood.com/ ? It has English names of dishes with the Thai script, and also pictures. The only problem is that it doesn't give you a transliteration of the Thai, but most Thais are literate (one of the highest literacy rates, if not the highest, in SE Asia), so if you bring a written copy, they should be able to read it.

I've never seen some of the dishes as street food, but that doesn't mean they don't exist as such (I rarely get to frequent those eating establishments).

[djyee100]

Have you seen this article?

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/travel/06bangkok.html

[Peter Green]

There's that booklet still out there, too. Thai Hawker Food by Kenny Yee and Catherine Gordon.

Somebody said it was out of print, but I still see copies in Asia Books and Kino when I go looking. It's a good grounding from which to branch out.

[note: edited after I found the book and checked the title and authors]

Edited February 3, 2009 by Peter Green (log)

[Peter Green]

Import Food had a good walking tour of some excellent spots around the Giant Swing.

And he also does a good night stall tour of Thonglor.

his site is at ImportFood.com. Poke around, and you should find his walkabouts.

My only recommendation, though, is that it helps to read Thai script and numbers to find the places.

Chop dii

[Stupid_American]

Import Food had a good walking tour of some excellent spots around the Giant Swing. 

My only recommendation, though, is that it helps to read Thai script and numbers to find the places.

Chop dii 

←

Maybe printing out the photos of the storefronts could also be useful. It would be extremely difficult to locate these without my wife.

[v. gautam]

Austin Bush has Google Map Links, e.g. http://www.austinbushphotography.com/2009/...t.html#comments

for alll the street eats he has reviewed. Plus, you get a picture of the place, where it is and what to expect by reading the actual blog.

For example, http://www.austinbushphotography.com/2008/...kor-market.html

And, http://www.austinbushphotography.com/2008/...g-market-2.html

Enjoy.

Edited February 4, 2009 by v. gautam (log)

[djyee100]

There's that booklet still out there, too.  Thai Hawker Food by Kenny Yee and Catherine Gordon. 

Somebody said it was out of print, but I still see copies in Asia Books and Kino when I go looking.  It's a good grounding from which to branch out.

Agree. A friend bought that booklet on a recent trip to Thailand, and I flipped thru it. It's a good basic start if you want to be systematic about tasting the major kinds of street food. One friend bought the booklet in a bookstore in Bangkok (I was told a bookstore near one of the Skytrain stops, if that's any help to you. ). Another friend bought the booklet at the Sengho bookstore. http://www.sengho.com/

[Piglit]

Just had the worst experience at a restaurant in Bangkok to date - La Piola on Soi 11. I don’t recommend it to anyone….. however, for those reading this post that are articulate food writers, you’d be doing me a favour – and all other unfortunate tourists - if you go there and review it for yourselves!

To start off with, we went having fond memories of previous experiences there and were hoping for more. Perhaps that was our first mistake. The second mistake was to order Italian buffalo mozzarella. It might have been mozzarella, but clearly neither buffalo nor Italian. When we asked to view the packaging, we found a lump of plasticy cheese in a small plastic container with a Thai address written on it, and the words “Italian style” on the label. Yuk. Insulting enough, but they they decided to still charge us full price for it!

Alas, the comedy of errors continues – bottled water is ordered, and it is poured from the bottle. Suspicion is raised when we don’t see the waiter open the bottle, and is confirmed when the water tastes worse than something found at a slow running river on a camping trip beside a chemical plant.

Steaks were ordered as the mains – and two stacked, limp schnitzel-like pieces of meat were served, stacked on top of each other. No sides, no nothing. Damage done US$30 per person and a yucky feeling in our stomachs. We complain and an Italian women called “Mama” appears. You don’t mess with mama, especially when she has kitchen knives at her disposal.

This drama ended in the bill being delivered. It was a rude shock and higher than we had budgeted, fully charged all items including those we complained about, and the fake bottled water. Again, we complain. The net effect – the bill comes back 500 baht higher than the original bill. Agh.

This experience was to semi-regular customers (used to dine there about once a month, but experiences have become worse each time). One of our group is Italian and the other a local Thai, and we were the only diners in the restaurant that night. What a fiasco and way to treat the customers who are paying the entire staff wages for the evening!

Suffice to say, we’ll never be back. Has anyone else has similar horror stories with La Piola?

[tjdnewyork]

Agree about La Piola. Went there a few times about 5 or 6 years ago, when they also had that place next door or around the corner that only did things al forno. I thought both places were very good. But on my last visit, about six months ago, I thought it was pretty terrible.