I'Ll Eat Any Thai Food....Except This.

[Grawburg]

Horrible, horrible swill I was told is eaten, but looks like garbage pail..anyone know what it is...other than the obvious....

[mallyrd]

I reckon it is "super deluxe fish head soup".

[Michaelaway]

Look at the... PALAAH!! Min, min!!

[lovelomsak]

If you have ever eaten somtom you have probably eaten this. It is pha lah please excuse my spelling of it I amnot sure how it is spelt but it is just your basic fermented fish so common here.

[mca]

I'll eat anything apart from Kai Haang Haang. That baby bird embryo in the egg. Not a frigging chance.

[backsoon]

If you have ever eaten somtom you have probably eaten this. It is pha lah please excuse my spelling of it I amnot sure how it is spelt but it is just your basic fermented fish so common here.

Yeaa, may be. But to me it looks like the inside of pink jelly-fish digestion tract.

Anyway,nobody is kicking Thai food here.Most of it is lovely, if you don't mind your food overdone, overspiced and sweet-sour-salty-bitter all in one. Alternatively,you can always get a beautiful meal in most 5* hotels on Sukhumvit @ 2,000Bt/person.

P.S. Can anybody tell me what are my neighbours cooking everyday that smells like 5 days dead dog? I don't know how it looks, - avoid their place like plague. My wife thinks it is this salty cutlets of barracuda looking fish preserved in some kind of oil???... GOD! It's really bad!

[Grawburg]

Perhpas the reason why it smells like dog is because it IS dog?

[thaigone]

Has anyone tried live river shrimp? It (they are) is served in a small rice bowl with a lid to keep them from jumping out. My GF loves this dish and says it tastes great. I have been at a little restaurant with my GF and her family and only my GF will eat it. Just wondering about the taste. I ain't gunna try them.

[Jimbob1]

Has anyone tried live river shrimp? It (they are) is served in a small rice bowl with a lid to keep them from jumping out. My GF loves this dish and says it tastes great. I have been at a little restaurant with my GF and her family and only my GF will eat it. Just wondering about the taste. I ain't gunna try them.

Yeah my wife loves it and I tried it when we went to the Mekong near Loi ... it's OK but wouldn't go out of my way to get it ... bit like eating Sushi... only FRESHer ...

I have seen my wife and her Mum make fermented fish ...(Issan)

They clean fish and leave heads on ... they put slits in the flesh and rub them with a mixture of salt, MSG, and flower made from toasting and grinding rice... then they fill the cavity with boiled rice and tie off a few at a time in plastic bags and leave for 2-3 Months before they use them ...

By that time all has turned to liquid except the frames which they discard and use the "Juice" .....

Now we are in Oz my wife uses anchovies to cook with to get a close match to the flavor and fermented fish is an acquired taste but I have found I have gotten used to it and even look forward to eating dishes it is used in.

[midnightjay3]

I've eaten that in the Philippines!! It's called "balut", taste good though. Should eat it at night so you can't see the little chicks.

I'll eat anything apart from Kai Haang Haang. That baby bird embryo in the egg. Not a frigging chance.

[sulasno]

Has anyone tried live river shrimp? It (they are) is served in a small rice bowl with a lid to keep them from jumping out. My GF loves this dish and says it tastes great. I have been at a little restaurant with my GF and her family and only my GF will eat it. Just wondering about the taste. I ain't gunna try them.

you sure they are river shrimps and not sea shrimps ?

put the live shrimps into a pot, add brandy (to make them drunk); wait for 10 minutes and they are ready to be eaten :-)

try googling for "Drunken prawns"

[krading]

I've eaten that in the Philippines!! It's called "balut", taste good though. Should eat it at night so you can't see the little chicks.

I'll eat anything apart from Kai Haang Haang. That baby bird embryo in the egg. Not a frigging chance.

I bought some from a roadside stall once but got ripped off, not a feather or beak to be found.

[PoorSucker]

I'll eat anything apart from Kai Haang Haang. That baby bird embryo in the egg. Not a frigging chance.

[Eazy-Going]

sure it's not from the men who've cleaned the drains....looks scrumptious!!!!

[Garry]

Balah, Palah etc, I've heard so many different ways of pronoucing it. Stinky Fish as most rural Thai's call it in English. It can be made from fresh or salt water fish and shell fish. The Balah I am used to, is when my wife makes it (her recipe), uses complete (cleaned) fresh water fish with rice, pineapple, thai salt (MSG), rice and lots of fish sauce. The large glass container is filled to the brim almost, sealed and covered out of the light. It is generally left to ferment over 6-12 months and can be topped up with fish sauce as required. We have Balah that is 2-3 years old. At around the 6-12 month mark, it can get pretty smelly (stinky) as it matures. If you haven't got a strong stomach then best avoid when a bottle is being opened. You can clear a room with it and everyone complains about Durian, go figure.

Using it in cooking, generally the juice and sometimes some solids are used and cooked before it is placed into a Somtam, Bamboo soup etc, but I have seen it placed raw when food is prepared. I refuse to eat it if it hasn't been cooked in advance and that is my only rule with it. Also the older it gets the less it smells, well from my experience anyway.

In food it taste excellent, so don't knock it until you try it in some cooking. As another poster has stated, most of you have probably eaten it without even knowing what was going down your throat.

Cheers Garry :jap:

Edited July 20, 2010 by Garry

[johntou]

Can anybody tell me what are my neighbours cooking everyday that smells like 5 days dead dog? I don't know how it looks, - avoid their place like plague. GOD! It's really bad!

We get that smell blowing in from our neighbours on a daily basis. We abandon our kitchen for half an hour every day when they are cooking up, as it comes in through the windows. Occasionally we seriously mis-time sitting down to eat at our kitchen table...

[Garry]

Can anybody tell me what are my neighbours cooking everyday that smells like 5 days dead dog? I don't know how it looks, - avoid their place like plague. GOD! It's really bad!

We get that smell blowing in from our neighbours on a daily basis. We abandon our kitchen for half an hour every day when they are cooking up, as it comes in through the windows. Occasionally we seriously mis-time sitting down to eat at our kitchen table...

It just dawned on me what the guy could be smelling and it not Balah. It could be semi sun dried buffalo or cow hide. That stuff stinks to high heaven when it gets BBQ'ed and come to think of it, it does smell like 5 day old dead dog.

[PhilHarries]

Sure the contents of that bucket isn't the rubby dubby for shark fishing?

I've eaten the Vietnamese equivalent of balut, okay but I'd not cross the road to eat it again.

I don't mind pla ra in small doses.

Meng da are best eaten with beer, or is it after beer make that lots of beer.

The deep fried locusts are okay but you do need beer with those to wash all the little bits and pieces down.

The live prawns again are okay but I'd rather not.

I'll try anything once, sometimes only the once but at least I know from first hand experience what it's like.

[murray122]

Can anybody tell me what are my neighbours cooking everyday that smells like 5 days dead dog? I don't know how it looks, - avoid their place like plague. My wife thinks it is this salty cutlets of barracuda looking fish preserved in some kind of oil???... GOD! It's really bad!

Could be pak cha-om; a green thin leafy vegetable that absolutely stinks when cooked!

Edited July 31, 2010 by murray122

[Panhandler007]

I'll eat anything apart from Kai Haang Haang. That baby bird embryo in the egg. Not a frigging chance.

AKA balut! in the phillipines!

[Gluestick]

I can eat the baby duck in the egg but that first picture looks scary.

[Gluestick]

I used to eat the Vietnamese version of the duck eggs. Anyone ever eaten blood?

[Crushdepth]

Can't stand anything made from blood. It tastes like a punch in the mouth.

[dmax]

looks like something they give the residents of klong prem central prison

[Gluestick]

I've had pig, duck, cow, and human blood. Blood isn't that bad unless you have too much fresh blood instead of the congealed or coagulated stuff. It shows when you go to the bathroom later... The maid (Burmese) cooks some god awful stuff sometimes for herself. It's like fermented something and it stinks up the whole house for a day or two.

Edited April 23, 2011 by Gluestick

[blue eyes]

Hear is a photo of the 4 stages of plah lah for sale in the market in Phi Mai.See how it goes from fish to gravy?

[Michaelaway]

Yuk-o-rama...

[SantiSuk]

If you have ever eaten somtom you have probably eaten this. It is pha lah please excuse my spelling of it I amnot sure how it is spelt but it is just your basic fermented fish so common here.

You would do well not to eat anything with palaar in it. It can contain parasites that can really bu%%er you up. Very sick with fevers, stomach cramps and diarrhoea and then long term carcinogenic damage your liver if left untreated. Millions in Thailand are long term infected but don't know it. Not nice - been there done that. Same same laarp plaa, if made with uncooked fish.

[SantiSuk]

Can't stand anything made from blood. It tastes like a punch in the mouth.

Many dishes in Thailand have blood in them. I'm not talking about the little gelatinated blocks of blood, but liquid stuff used in similar fashion to the northern Europeans' use of stock to flavour dishes. The best and richest noodle soups usually have blood in them even when they don't have the blocks.

[Millard]

I've read about a Thai country dish that contains feces. Has anyone else heard of it?

Also, I'm surprised so many people find eating blood disgusting. It's quite common in the UK in the form of black pudding. I find it quite tasty.