Restaurants With "authentic" Royal Thai Cuisine...

[junkofdavid2]

Whenever my "tourist" friends come into town and wana eat "authentic" Thai cuisine, they drag me to a "good restaurant" they know with "authentic" and "royal" thai cuisine. (And that's what the sign says outside the restaurant.)

When I eat there, I usually find the food is bland compared to the other Thai food I eat (even if not on the street).

And nope, they wouldn't dare eat in these "low-so" restaurants even if I prod them to.

Am I right to assume that all or most of the restaurants which say "authentic royal thai" cuisine outside are false tourist traps with "westernized" thai cuisine, or have I just been unlucky?

Or maybe I just don't know what "authentic" royal thai cuisine is really supposed to taste like? (and it really tastes like these tourist restaurants?)

Edited November 8, 2007 by junkofdavid2

[Dissolution]

Or perhaps the royalty prefer blander food (possibly health reasons?) in contrast to the health-shortening/liver-killing spicy foods that the rest of the populace enjoy.

[LtLOS]

From what I know about this term Royal Thai, it has always meant to me superior presentation and service versus a different type of Thai flavors. This is where Thai food carving and very precise presentation and preparation are emphasized. In the past before the underground construction started I would entertain guests at the Benjarong Dusit Thani for what I considered at that time a very good representation of Royal Thai. But I am by no means an expert, and would like to know where others consider this unique Thai art form presented well. I also heard the Sukhothai on Silom has a good Royal Thai Restaurant, but never been there.

[sbk]

Moved to Thai Food Forum

//MOVED//

[NguuMuu]

This is a question I'd also like to know the answer to.......any takers?

[seonai]

Taken! Royal Thai cusine I believe started with HM King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) and it was the introduction of milder, more subtly spiced Thai food, not killed by chilli especially. He enjoyed a lot of European travel and brought tastes back with him. With Royal Thai cuisine the flavours are individually created to produce a beautiful dish where you can taste each herb without being overpowered by chilli or lemongrasss.

My source - an F&B manager at a posh resort in Kata that specializes in this cuisine

See article below which explains a bit further:

Refreshingly Royal THE NATION 24

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I was invited to an opening ceremony of food promotion at the Hilton Hotel the other day. Normally I do not like to go to these functions because I find them stuffy and every hotel in Bangkok has food promotions. This function is different because the food promotion they are having brought back memories of my childhood and the food I use to eat during the summer months at Sukhothai Palace where I grew up.The name of this promotion is called “Royal Thai Cuisine for Summer”.

Hilton had asked the Palace Institute of Culinary Arts, which is a small school in the Grand Palace ground that trains young people the fine arts of Royal Thai cuisine and many other long forgotten arts of handicrafts etc, to come demonstrate the intricate processes of Royal Thai cuisine. The opening ceremony was graciously presided over by Her Highness Princess Vimolchatra and many ambassadors and their wives. Princess Vimolchatra is well known in the diplomatic corp because many years ago she use to work at the British Embassy as a consulate and I remembered going to see her to ask for visa to England.

One of the most interesting eating cultures in Thailand is, what I would like to call palace food. Thai food in the palace is not that much different, in terms of ingredients, from regular Thai food. The difference comes from the attention to details in the cooking processes and the time consuming way of presenting the food in the royal court.

The attention paid to in the selection of ingredients that are used in the royal kitchen is much greater than in our regular food. In the early days of Thai history, when Thailand opened trade with Portugal, Japan and China, royal Thai cuisine was influenced by the eating cultures from these nations that traded with us. Thai food changed through the ages as the country opened up for trade, beginning with the palace food. From Portugal and the Moures, Thai curry had coconut milk in it. In the past coconut milk was used primarily in desserts. Westerners who came to Thailand were use to milk and creamy rich food, hence the addition of coconut milk in Thai curry. Thai desserts in the olden days only used fruits, rice flour, palm sugar and coconut milk. With the arrival of our traders, palace cuisine saw the use of eggs in desserts and the use of flour, wheat flour in our desserts. All these new palace foods came from Portugal. The influence of western cuisine in palace food was greatest during the Rattanakosin Period when King Mongkut sent his children abroad to be aducated.

The court of King Rama V to the present has a western kitchen and in the early days Western trained Chinese chefs were hired to cook for our kings. To this day a meal in the palace consisted of western courses and Thai courses. Many Thais have mistakenly called our Khanom Farang a Thai invention. They even think that our sweet dessert made with egg yolk and sugar syrup called Tong Yim and Tong Yod are Thai inventions but in reality Catherine de Torqema who was the daughter of the Portugese emissary taught Thais to make this dessert called golden threat during the Ayuthaya period. This is not to say that Thai cuisine does not have a unique characteristic of its own. It certainly does and this fact has been proven by the popularity of Thai food all over the world. We Thais should be proud of our culinary culture and try to promote it correctly. Through our food week show the world that our culture is refine, complicated yet simple and above all our food is unique.

My apologies for going off on a tangent about Thai food history, we will now go back to royal Thai cuisine for the summer. One of the most interesting dishes in the repetoire of palace summer food is the Kao Chae. This dish literally means rice soaked in water.Lots of Thais thought that this dish was invented by someone in Petchburi province but it was invented in the palace during the reign of King Rama II and evidence of this dish was found in the writing of our famous poet laureat Sunthorn Pu who wrote about eating this dish.

The dish consisted of various fried and sweetened meats, eaten with carved cucumber, raw mango and wild ginger. Everything is eaten with rice that is cooked cooled, washed and served with scented water and a little ice. This is not a dessert and the thought of eating greasy food with cold rice soup is very strange indeed but it actually taste very good and very refreshing. The main ingredients that goes to make Kao Chae are; stuffed banana peppers in lacy egg threat, fried tiny balls of shrimp paste, fired pickled strips of giant Japanese turnip or daicon, carmelised fish, pork or beef strips, and fresh, beautifully carves vegetables that has a cooling effect to the stomach as well as cutting the greasiness of all the fried foods. Such fruits as raw sour mango and fresh wild ginger do the job of helping digestion. This maybe require an acquired taste to first appreciate this dish but for most Thai it represents a Summer treat and everyone look forward to their Kao Chae every summer.

It feels like every summer you keep the cultural tradition going by eating Kao Chae. At the function at the Hilton I had the opportunity to explain the history and the way to eat this cultural gem to all the ambassadors and their wives that were present. I felt proud that I was there to do my job of explaining our eating culture to these distinguished guests.

There were many ambassadors who came with their wives to this food festival. The Swiss Ambassador who lived in Thailand for a long time eagerly tried this dish with his charming wife. The Russian ambassador, the Japanese ambassador, the Australian Ambassador and the Turkish Ambassador and their wives all gathered around the Kao Chae table and asked questions on how to eat it and what was in it. It made me proud to be there to explain all to them. I am proud of my country’s unique food cultural heritage.

Copyright©2001; McDang.com Webmaster ; [email protected]

[suegha]

That's that then. Well done seonai!

[Jingthing]

health-shortening/liver-killing spicy foods

Excuse me, but what does spiciness have to do with killing livers? I don't believe it.

Edited November 25, 2007 by Jingthing

[seonai]

If you Google chilli liver damage there are links to this

[Jingthing]

If you Google chilli liver damage there are links to this

I imagine Thais have high rates of liver disease and cancer (just guessing) mostly from drinking too much booze and also hepatitis. However, you are right, peppers might cause health problems when used in excess:

There is EARLY STAGE research on possible damage: (CNN)

Research on capsaicin's bad side is still in the early stages, but scientists have found that it can cause some tough side effects: abnormal blood clotting, blistering of the skin and severe diarrhea. Long-term use can lead to kidney and liver damage, so go easy.

Edited November 25, 2007 by Jingthing

[hUsh]

I would recommend Somboon Restaurant... both Thai and foreign friends recommended it to me. You can have the Thai spiciness or not too much as foreigners would like it (I can eat the spiciness in between)

Also have the best (and IMO affordable) seafood in Bangkok.... It may not be the "authentic" royal thai cuisine (but closest it can get--- feel free to express opinions to the above mentioned restaurant)

[sabaijai]

There is no single 'royal Thai' cuisine. The Thai term is aahaan chao wang, food (for) people (of the) palace, and it's a quasi-marketing term that has been promoted only during the last 30 years or so to describe dishes cooked following recipes used by palace chefs. The term doesn't -- and never did -- specify which palace, so can apply to any recipe cooked by a palace cook, no matter how minor the royal status, just as long as the residence was considered a wang (palace). It didn't begin or end with Rama VI's reign and most likely most dishes presented today as 'royal Thai' use recipes that are no more than a hundred years old.

Prior to the mid-20th century palace recipes were not generally circulated outside royal circles, but in modern times, especially as minor Bangkok palaces were abandoned or sold, cooks who had worked in them started restaurants advertising 'royal Thai cuisine'.

Palace recipes are not necessarily less spicy or more European, flavour-wise, but Chinese and Mon influences are typically more prominent due to Chinese and Mon presences in the various royal palaces of central Thailand. Two more common threads that 'royal Thai' recipes tend to share are fine ingredients and elaborate presentation.

[hhfarang]

Whenever my "tourist" friends come into town and wana eat "authentic" Thai cuisine, they drag me to a "good restaurant" they know with "authentic" and "royal" thai cuisine. (And that's what the sign says outside the restaurant.)

When I eat there, I usually find the food is bland compared to the other Thai food I eat (even if not on the street).

And nope, they wouldn't dare eat in these "low-so" restaurants even if I prod them to.

Am I right to assume that all or most of the restaurants which say "authentic royal thai" cuisine outside are false tourist traps with "westernized" thai cuisine, or have I just been unlucky?

Or maybe I just don't know what "authentic" royal thai cuisine is really supposed to taste like? (and it really tastes like these tourist restaurants?)

Try Kinaree Royal Thai restaurant half way down Suk Soi 8 on the left side.... best of that type I've found in Bkk and I don't think it's a tourist trap as I've been there many times and usually am the only farang present.

[sabaijai]

Whenever my "tourist" friends come into town and wana eat "authentic" Thai cuisine, they drag me to a "good restaurant" they know with "authentic" and "royal" thai cuisine. (And that's what the sign says outside the restaurant.)

When I eat there, I usually find the food is bland compared to the other Thai food I eat (even if not on the street).

And nope, they wouldn't dare eat in these "low-so" restaurants even if I prod them to.

Am I right to assume that all or most of the restaurants which say "authentic royal thai" cuisine outside are false tourist traps with "westernized" thai cuisine, or have I just been unlucky?

Or maybe I just don't know what "authentic" royal thai cuisine is really supposed to taste like? (and it really tastes like these tourist restaurants?)

Try Kinaree Royal Thai restaurant half way down Suk Soi 8 on the left side.... best of that type I've found in Bkk and I don't think it's a tourist trap as I've been there many times and usually am the only farang present.

I wonder what version of 'royal Thai' Kinaree serves, and what connections they have to which palace, etc, that moves them to use the term 'Royal Thai' in their name.

[zzdocxx]

Thanks, this is an interesting thread.