Your Top 3 Thai Dishes

[KhunLA]

dupe

Edited February 7, 2023 by KhunLA

[gamb00ler]

33 minutes ago, Northstar1 said:

best Thai food I have had was in Canada

All my family are Canucks and most love Thai food  ... care to share the details of the restaurant in a PM?

[gamb00ler]

1 hour ago, Andre0720 said:

There is no such thing as good food in Thailand, at least if someone is looking for healthy food. Nobody knows how to cook, nobody.

Thankfully, you're not accurate.  My stepson has lived in this CM neighborhood for 35 years.  He's in the restaurant business and knows how to serve healthy food and also knows where to get healthy meals.

 

My wife usually politely asks the restaurant to eliminate as much added sugar and salt as possible.  After several years we're so used to low sugar meals that when we accidentally get a "normally" sweetened dish we notice it's too sweet on the first bite.  If we want more salt, there is usually fish sauce at hand.

[Andre0720]

1 hour ago, gamb00ler said:

Thankfully, you're not accurate.  My stepson has lived in this CM neighborhood for 35 years.  He's in the restaurant business and knows how to serve healthy food and also knows where to get healthy meals.

 

My wife usually politely asks the restaurant to eliminate as much added sugar and salt as possible.  After several years we're so used to low sugar meals that when we accidentally get a "normally" sweetened dish we notice it's too sweet on the first bite.  If we want more salt, there is usually fish sauce at hand.

So you found a place where you can get less sugar, in Chiang Mai.

Well, congratulations.

You say that I am not accurate. In Phuket, I think that I am.

Now the mere fact that in Chiang Mai, you also have to ask for less of this and that, says it all...

[Northstar1]

12 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

All my family are Canucks and most love Thai food  ... care to share the details of the restaurant in a PM?

Mango Thai restaurant in Kingston Ontario 

the Penang curry is outstanding as well as other dishes!

[ozimoron]

11 hours ago, Andre0720 said:

So you found a place where you can get less sugar, in Chiang Mai.

Well, congratulations.

You say that I am not accurate. In Phuket, I think that I am.

Now the mere fact that in Chiang Mai, you also have to ask for less of this and that, says it all...

In Pattaya I always ask for no sugar. For tom yum I ask for no carnation. It's not hard.

[gamb00ler]

18 hours ago, Andre0720 said:

So you found a place where you can get less sugar, in Chiang Mai.

Well, congratulations.

You say that I am not accurate. In Phuket, I think that I am.

Now the mere fact that in Chiang Mai, you also have to ask for less of this and that, says it all...

When you notice that it's raining everywhere outside, do you not carry an umbrella?

 

It's raining sugar on your food... asking for less sugar is your protection.  Is it so hard?

Google Translate will help you with that.

Edited February 7, 2023 by gamb00ler

[Northstar1]

1 hour ago, gamb00ler said:

When you notice that it's raining everywhere outside, do you not carry an umbrella?

 

It's raining sugar on your food... asking for less sugar is your protection.  Is it so hard?

Google Translate will help you with that.

It’s not just the sugar, have you ever watched a Thai cook? It’s nonstop adding this and that, splash of this, splash of that etc etc!  Very unhealthy!

[Andre0720]

On 2/7/2023 at 10:17 PM, ozimoron said:

In Pattaya I always ask for no sugar. For tom yum I ask for no carnation. It's not hard.

Even if you ask for 'no sugar', there will be sugar in your dish or Tom Yum.

Thai people do not even know what is in the sauces and pastes that they add in the preparation of meals.

These sauces, they typically contain some 20% of added sugar.

"What is tom yum paste made of?

Ingredients: Soy bean oil, lemongrass, salt, shallot, galangal, chili, water, dried shrimp, lime, msg, kaffir lime leaves, citric acid, garlic, sugar, paprika color."

There is just about always sugar in the food here, mainly because nobody knows how to cook.

I always say, the cook is the one who makes the sauce, and the sauce comes from Super Cheap mini-mart.

The typical restaurant here has about 10 bottles of various sauces, about 20% sugar in each.

 

So yes, it is very hard to eat a meal in Thailand that is not laced with this slow acting poison.

[Andre0720]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:50 AM, gamb00ler said:

When you notice that it's raining everywhere outside, do you not carry an umbrella?

 

It's raining sugar on your food... asking for less sugar is your protection.  Is it so hard?

Google Translate will help you with that.

Ok. I will just copy and paste a same response, for your own knowledge and benefit.

 

Even if you ask for 'no sugar', there will be sugar in your dish or Tom Yum.

Thai people do not even know what is in the sauces and pastes that they add in the preparation of meals.

These sauces, they typically contain some 20% of added sugar.

"What is tom yum paste made of?

Ingredients: Soy bean oil, lemongrass, salt, shallot, galangal, chili, water, dried shrimp, lime, msg, kaffir lime leaves, citric acid, garlic, sugar, paprika color."

There is just about always sugar in the food here, mainly because nobody knows how to cook.

I always say, the cook is the one who makes the sauce, and the sauce comes from Super Cheap mini-mart.

The typical restaurant here has about 10 bottles of various sauces, about 20% sugar in each.

 

So yes, it is very hard to eat a meal in Thailand that is not laced with this slow acting poison.

 

Hope that this will help you, without the need of Google.

[proton]

On 2/7/2023 at 8:48 AM, Northstar1 said:

I tend to agree with your thinking, cheap ingredients and full of sugars etc. certainly not healthy.

best Thai food I have had was in Canada.

thai family owned restaurants using quality ingredients. And the health department doing regular inspections,( as in every establishment) then a grade is posted in the front window!

fabulous food. 
bangkok does have great Thai restaurants but with this quality comes price!

can’t expect much for 60-80 baht now can we?

 

Took 9 out last night, scoffing for 4 hours- 2.2k baht, ahan Issan, no curries on the menu!

[gamb00ler]

7 hours ago, Andre0720 said:

"What is tom yum paste made of?

Ingredients: Soy bean oil, lemongrass, salt, shallot, galangal, chili, water, dried shrimp, lime, msg, kaffir lime leaves, citric acid, garlic, sugar, paprika color."

 

You copied that ingredient list from here:

https://importfood.com/products/thai-curry-paste/item/instant-tom-yum-paste

 

My wife assures me there is no sugar in any of the prepared curry pasts (about 10) that she keeps on hand. 

Your ingredient list is from a canned version that bears little resemblance to the product that most Thais use.

 

She buys them from the big paste merchants that you find in the large open markets like this one:

https://goo.gl/maps/EDwbNWt9fDhgTruh6

 

You can watch them make it if you're interested enough to go.

 

Here's the merchant:

Edited February 9, 2023 by gamb00ler

[Andre0720]

12 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

 

You copied that ingredient list from here:

https://importfood.com/products/thai-curry-paste/item/instant-tom-yum-paste

 

My wife assures me there is no sugar in any of the prepared curry pasts (about 10) that she keeps on hand. 

Your ingredient list is from a canned version that bears little resemblance to the product that most Thais use.

 

She buys them from the big paste merchants that you find in the large open markets like this one:

https://goo.gl/maps/EDwbNWt9fDhgTruh6

 

You can watch them make it if you're interested enough to go.

 

Here's the merchant:

Well, thanks for the research.

I used to buy this type of paste, years ago. As they were used in Thai cuisine to make spicy fried vegetables. Then I stopped when I realized how Thai people are so careless about handling these products, and how new paste would certainly be mixed with the old one leftover. I no longer trust these people who will do everything to save a few bahts. Now if there is a claim that Thais do not put sugar in those pastes, I would be extremely surprised. But I will check, because when I stopped using this product, it was for hygienic reasons.

Now, in restaurants, this is not what is put in Tom Yam. The large canned containers of Tom Yam paste are there. Like the Maepranom brand.

On the photo attached, 30% of sugar.

[gamb00ler]

@Andre0720 often my wife is right even if it sounds sort of dodgy.  She has always told me that the spices in the pastes are strong enough to inhibit bacteria.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861189/#:~:text=Chiles%2C onions%2C black pepper%2C,of common food borne bacteria.

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1998/03/food-bacteria-spice-survey-shows-why-some-cultures-it-hot

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01394/full#:~:text=Spices can also exert antimicrobial,et al.%2C 2010).

 

We lived in US until late 2020 but would visit Thailand almost every year, sometimes more than once.  My wife would buy several pastes in the open market, divide them up into thin blocks in plastic food bags and then freeze them.  When headed back to US they were put in another layer of plastic bag and packed in our luggage.  On arrival, they went back into the freezer.  The paste would last us until the next trip to Thailand.  We never had a problem with spoilage in the 15+ years we did this.

Edited February 10, 2023 by gamb00ler
spelin