Thailand is a paradise for food lovers and a huge draw for us as travellers. From the bustling street food scene of Bangkok to the serene beachside restaurants of the islands, each region offers a unique culinary experience. After having spent a few months in the country over several trips here are, in our opinion, Thailand’s ten best foods to try.
1. Pad Thai: The Quintessential Thai Dish
Pad Thai is a staple that you simply cannot miss. Stir-fried rice noodles mixed with eggs, tofu, shrimp or chicken and flavoured with tamarind paste, fish sauce, and palm sugar. The dish is topped with crushed peanuts and a squeeze of lime, adding a delightful crunch and zing. This is our son, Jarvis’s favourite dish, and one that he tried all over the country. Still his favourite to this day is the one he learned to make at the cooking school on Koh Lanta – Cooking with Mon. Although he was pretty impressed with this one at the beach, wrapped in an egg net.
2. Tom Yum Goong: Spicy Prawn Soup
Tom Yum Goong is a fiery and sour shrimp soup that epitomises Thai cuisine’s bold flavours and impeccable balance. Made with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal and chilli, it offers an aromatic and intensely flavourful experience. On trying this for the first time during our backpacking travels in the ‘90’s, I was blown away and remains a firm favourite still now. It was my first experience, Having grown up with pretty traditional British food, of this balance of salty, sour, spicy and a little bit of sweetness.
3. Som Tam: Green Papaya Salad
Som Tam, or green papaya salad, is a refreshing and addictive dish. I need to order it alongside every meal. Featuring shredded unripe papaya, tomatoes, green beans, peanuts and dried shrimp, it’s dressed in a spicy and tangy lime juice, fish sauce and palm sugar mix. I’ve tried recreating this at home in New Zealand wheever I come across the green papayas in an Asian grocery store, but I can never make is as good as when you’re sitting there at a beautiful beachside restaurant, sand in between your toes and cold Chiang beer in your hand.
4. Massaman Curry: A Rich and Aromatic Delight
Massaman Curry, influenced by Persian cuisine, is a rich and hearty dish. It normally includes tender beef, potatoes, peanuts and a blend of spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. It’s not as spicy as other thai curries and is often mild but rich. This is Rob’s favourite, but he always asks for extra chilli to go with.
5. Khao Soi: Northern Thai Noodle Curry
In Chiang Mai, we discovered Khao Soi, a northern Thai specialty. We’d cooked it at a cooking class just outside the city walls on our third trip to Thailand. I think it had taken a couple of trips to get past trying just the more popular dishes and into searching out some regional specialities. This creamy coconut curry soup is served with egg noodles and topped with crispy noodles, pickled mustard greens, shallots, lime and ground chillies fried in oil. My favourite was at a local’s place in central Chiang Mai where I had it for breakfast with a strong Thai coffee with condensed milk on the side. Delicious.
6. Pad Kra Pao: Stir-Fried Basil
Pad Kra Pao is a quick and delicious stir-fry featuring minced meat (often pork or chicken) with Thai basil, garlic and chillies. Served over rice and topped with a fried egg, it’s a common street food dish that’s packed with flavour. I enjoyed a particularly spicy version in Bangkok, where the fragrant basil and fiery chilies left a lasting impression.
7. Kaeng Khiao Wan: Green Curry
Kaeng Khiao Wan literally means sweet green curry and is a fragrant and spicy dish made with green curry paste, coconut milk, chicken, eggplant, bamboo shoots and Thai basil. This dish is available all over the country and beyond and is normally everyone’s first experience of Thai cuisine. There’s an art though to getting the balance of sweet, salty, spicy and sour just right. I’ve had many that were too sweet or too creamy. It’s normally on the menu of every cooking class too, which is a great insight into all the beautiful ingredients that go into the paste and how to get the balance just right.
8. Laab: Spicy Meat Salad
Laab, a northeastern Thai dish, originating from Laos, is a spicy meat salad made with minced meat (usually pork or chicken) mixed with lime juice, fish sauce, herbs and toasted ground rice. This tangy, spicy and slightly crunchy salad is served with sticky rice and eaten with your hands, scooping up some delicious salad and rice at the same time.
9. Moo Ping: Grilled Pork Skewers
Moo Ping are marinated and grilled pork skewers that are a popular street food snack. The sweet and savoury marinade, often made with garlic, soy sauce and sugar, creates a juicy and flavourful snack. Cooked over charcoal on many a street corner, our kids would stop and grab a few of these as they passed.
10. Mango Sticky Rice: A Sweet Treat
Ending our list of Thailand’s ten best foods on a sweet note, Mango Sticky Rice is a popular Thai dessert that is available all over the country. Sweet, ripe mangoes are served with sticky rice cooked in coconut milk and topped with sesame seeds. We cooked a version at the Chiang Mai cooking school, with the rice scented with butterfly pea flower turning it a delightful blue colour. To me, dessert isn’t necessarily something we order when travelling, maybe as we’ve already ordered so many savoury dishes to share, so we often end up having this for breakfast or lunch as it’s a meal on its own.
Our breakdown of Thailand’s Ten Best Foods really is only scratching the surface on what foods are available throughout Thailand. One great tip is that we always try and do a food tour early on in our trip in order to experience a whole bunch of regional specialities that we can then search out again throughout our trip. An awesome one we tried was Chiang Mai Street Food tours where we tried the local Chiang Mai sausage, coconut cakes, soy pork, Chinese doughnuts and a whole raft of other dishes we never would have found otherwise https://www.chiangmaistreetfoodtours.com/
One thing’s for sure, we always finish our travels having overindulged on all the local cuisine, having made sure we’ve tried as much of everything as possible.
For our highlights on things to do in Thailand, check out our travel highlights blog post here – https://8brighteyes.com/thailands-travel-highlights/
