Is Thai food better outside of Thailand?

[johninbkk71]

Could it taste any worse than it already does?

[Millenial]

Paris, milan, marbella, switzerland , brussels - all tried and tested with the wife as judge - yes and no...

Not spicy enough or sweeter than normal

However outside thailand i am happier to eat thai food on occassions ( rarely as in once a week

And at least you know the rice outside of thailand is good quality and the rest of the ingredients.

Now fish... In thailand it is the norm to have fish that smell. - fish only smells when rotten by the way as fish has no taste ...

[richusa]

As an American chef cooking for 25 years. Cooking in 10 different countries. it depends on the chef's abilities, getting ingredients in most major cities is no problem with daily flights from Thailand.

I've had the most horendous Thai food in western countries, USA and Europe...>>>> (because that's what the local people want)

complete BS.

I was on holiday in Florida , and I ordered a larb gai........lol...had strips of capsicum,....etc...not even recogniseable......The manager was Thai......he said the locals like this.......I tried to order a couple thai dishes not on the menu.and said cannot do.......there was 1 other table.....and I told him....THIS IS WHY YOUR RESTAURANT IS EMPTY........

Was in Dubai on business.......called out the chef.....asked for a couple dishes and wham......perfecto....

I think over the last 10 years, the Thai food in Thailand has taken a dive.......too sweet......lack of character.......and also had great dishes......

[Don Aleman]

Yes, it is much cheaper here but, in the U.S. they add a secret ingredient - TASTE ! Ten years here and I ate, partially, 1 meal here with unidentifiable

ingredients, an unusual odor, prepared by dirty hands, served on a questionably

"clean " plate & wondering why all the Thais, and a few foreigners, who also had an unusual odor, going " Yum,yum " !

[PuaSai]

My experience is that Thai food outside of Thailand, "good" Thai food, is hard to find. It all depends on availability of certain ingredients I imagine. I have eaten in Thai restaurants in the U.S. And only one in L.A. not far from LAX called Araya Thai was very good and one in New Hampshire was decent. The others I guess think it the dish is heavily spiced up, it makes it Thai food and it was crap. Ironically there is The Villa restaurant in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that makes excellent Thai food. Just a few doors down there is another one, BANGKOK SEAFOOD, that I haven't tried yet. For a decent size Larb dish, it's like $5.00 - $6.00 US. BUT, rice is separate.

I miss the food in Thailand and only once in many years of enjoying street food did I get sick. It never deterred me because I love the quality and low price of the street food experience. Can't wait to get back there.

[Alan653]

Coming from my home city of San Francisco, there are lot's of thai restruants.

Some are affordable, most are over rated. Pad Thai or Satay, in most of the

place's charge you about $12.00 to $15.00. The curry dishes are better there IMO,

and are affotdable.

Yes the issue with the vegetables and water here in LOS, i agree with you.

"Would you like more plastic bag with your stir fry sir?".

Also the issue with most "street vendors" is ( and im sure we all have seen this)

is when they go to "clean" their dishes and other utensils they just dump them into

a plactic tub of water with no soap and swish them around and that's it....all clean. NO THANKS I'LL PASS.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Alan653

[dundas]

I've been dragged into several Thai restaurants in Australia by friends - "dragged" in there because to my taste these places over salt the food, rather than over sweeten it, which is what many other posters here are describing.

No Thai food I've eaten in Oz matches the taste of some of the cheaper food I've eaten here - I tend to order chicken and seafood rather than beef or pork, though. And after living here on and off for five years, eating for the most part at cheap-medium restaurants rather than roadside stalls, I haven't suffered any more incidence of food poisoning than I would have back home, so whatever the appearance, I don't buy the argument that eating here is inherently unsafe. It can happen anywhere, including five star establishments.

[Tony125]

I lived on the east coast (USA) and had a friend who owned a Thai restaurant. She said the food was ok but that the ingrediants used were not fresh as that could only get on west coast where could be shipped in right from Thailand. To get to east coast she said was to expensive to ship in. I also know that my Tom Yum Kung in Boston had like 3 shrimp in it over here 10 or more.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Tony125

[seancbk]

Yes, it is much cheaper here but, in the U.S. they add a secret ingredient - TASTE ! Ten years here and I ate, partially, 1 meal here with unidentifiable

ingredients, an unusual odor, prepared by dirty hands, served on a questionably

"clean " plate & wondering why all the Thais, and a few foreigners, who also had an unusual odor, going " Yum,yum " !

One has to ask where the hell you are eating to experience that?

The Thai food here in Thailand tastes superb they just don't put enough meat in for my Western sensibilities.

Although when you consider that many Western dishes are predominantly potatoes and rubbish like Yorkshire pudding and vegetables because people were (are) too poor to have meat as the main part of their meal, then you can understand why most Thai dishes are 70% rice, 25% veg and 5% meat and why the meat is the cheapest bits they can use.

[islandguy]

No, just back from the States, no comparison (and all the Thai food I ate there was cooked by Thais). Having said that, I no longer eat street food (except for khanom and a few vendors of one item - like hor muk - known to me) and I don't eat meat. Living in the South, I know where to go to get fresh high quality sea (not aquaculture) food.

[Jingthing]

I have found a few Thai places in both the S.F. Bay area with versions of some Thai dishes better than anything I've ever found in Thailand. Yes they've got all the ingredients and these best places were cooking for a lot of Thais.

[Alwyn]

In Seattle there's a Thai restaurant that has "Angel Wings."

It's a boned chicken wing, stuffed with wun sen, pork, and other ingredients, with a dipping sauce. It's almost a meal in itself. I have no idea how they stuff so much into a single wing.

It's exceptional. $3.99. Never seen it anywhere in LOS.

But if you want down and dirty, the gǔuaidtǐiao, the khao phad, and the phad Thai can't be beat in LOS.

Maybe if you've never seen that food in LoS, it's not real Thai food? Just saying...

[sustento]

I have two Thai friends who own restaurants in the UK. The best Thai food they serve is the food they cook for themselves after the place is shut. Half the stuff they eat simply wouldn't sell if it were put on the menu..

[Alwyn]

I've not found a place in the UK that does Thai food better than in Thailand yet, doesn't mean there isn't one I guess. I went to a Thai restaurant in North Wales - Pwllheli. It was in an hotel owned by two chaps from Manchester who both has Thai wives so I was quite hopeful.. Nope, didn't work for me! I think if you stay away from the botulism barrows and places that don't use either ice boxes or fridge you should be okay. One thing I disagree with is the quality of meat part. In the UK almost all meat suffers from being bloated by water injections (to make it look 'plump' and weight more..) and can be tasteless, that apart the pork in Thailand I think is World class!

[tifino]

I reckuns that Thai food, outside Thailand, is only as good (or not) as what is made real by the Thai missus you manage to bring back home...

[HerbalEd]

Yeah ... Thai food is better in Thailand. Imagine that. Also, if you ate at every Thai restaurant in North America and Europe you would still only experience about a third ... or less .. of the different dishes that are available in Thailand ... plus a lot of different mushrooms, veggies, fruits, wild greens, etc.

[Deli]

Hard to find a nicely decorated Restaurant in Phuket serving well cooked Thai Food in a clean ambiance, where staff understands one of the four languages I speak without difficulties and where prices are not the same as in London, Berlin or Paris... Latest experience: I ordered a piece of cake and a Cappuccino with caramel.

I got a piece of cake and Calamaris... This is why I usually think Thai Food is better outside Thailand

[Tomtomtom69]

I've yet to find a decent Thai restaurant meal outside of Thailand with the exception of eating with Thai friends who home cooked. I've eaten in Thai restaurants in Europe, UK, Middle East and Oz.

One of the biggest failures I found was a lot of the so called Thai restaurants especially in Oz were run by Vietnamese or Malays who jumped on the band wagon when Thai food became popular.

I know of one Thai who was sponsored into Oz as a cook by a Vietnamese owned Thai restaurant. He's slowly adjusting the food and customers tastes to the authentic Thai taste and its working. The clientele numbers have greatly increased as they remember the taste of meals they had while on holiday in Thailand

Are you sure about the ownership of Thai restaurants in Oz by these non-Thais? The only "Thai" restaurants in Oz that I am aware of with non-Thai owners or even non-Thai staff are those that advertise themselves as serving something more than just Thai food. For example, a Thai-Lao-Viet restaurant, which is typically owned and run by a Vietnamese or Australian-Vietnamese.

The reason I bring this up is because throughout all my years of frequenting Thai restaurants in Oz, not once have I been to one where I noticed any white Aussies, or other non-Thai staff working inside in any capacity, with the exception of one upscale Thai restaurant in the Sydney city CBD where an Aussie chef is the head chef at a Thai restaurant I believe is called Rockpool. Correct me if I'm wrong if I got the name wrong as I've never actually been there.

Whereas in the USA, many Thai restaurants employ white, black, Hispanic etc. waitstaff, cleaners and chefs, even in the most "Thai" area of the country, namely LA's Thai town.

[Tomtomtom69]

No, just back from the States, no comparison (and all the Thai food I ate there was cooked by Thais). Having said that, I no longer eat street food (except for khanom and a few vendors of one item - like hor muk - known to me) and I don't eat meat. Living in the South, I know where to go to get fresh high quality sea (not aquaculture) food.

I am pretty much like you - I pretty much don't eat street food in Thailand except in rare cases mostly when on long cross-country trips, although even then I tend to seek out better quality food inside shopping malls or chain restaurants to break the journey, depending on where I am. Since I live in a moo baan far away from the nearest street stalls, I might as well eat in an air-conditioned shopping mall, which is usually where I eat these days when I'm not eating at home. The quality is predictable, the food is pretty good (or at least, my palate is so used to this stuff that it passes as high quality for me) and while a dish can cost anything from I dunno, 90 to 300+ Baht, I can't get myself to go out of my way to eat at a crowded street side stall alongside a busy road, inhaling all the fumes from passing traffic and sitting in the sweltering heat just to save a few Baht when I'd rather avoid the 200m commute from the shopping mall parking lot to eat somewhere much better inside.

Besides, I've had friends who've only been to Thailand once or twice be less than inspired by street food such as Khao papraow kai, for example, which consists of extremely dry rice with a greasy, badly fried egg, and some extremely spicy chicken (or it could also be moo or pork) when I thought it was only me.

[connda]

I eat Thai food every day at a restaurant primarily frequented by Thais, and owned and run by a Thai family. A few days ago a women came in and started complaining that she wanted 'real Thai food'. Now she is complaining to one of the wait-staff that, I know for sure, isn't understanding anything she is saying.

Afterward, she passed my table and I told her that this restaurant is where Thais eat, it's 'real' Thai food, and foreigner are rare except in the 'high season'. Me? "This is 'real Thai food'. Her: "I want food that taste like Thai food at home". Me: "The food back home is Thai-like food that appeals to Westerns. This is 'real Thai food'.

So, imho, Thai food in Thailand is 'real Thai food'. If you don't like the taste of it, go to the tourist section of the city and pay 4x as much for the farangized food your looking for. Oh, and don't go to Lanna, or maybe even Isaan. You'll never recognize the food you're eating as 'real Thai food'.

[schondie]

Not from my recent experience. A friend took me to the "best" Thai restaurant in an English town recently. The Massaman curry was not fit for a dog to eat. The sauce was watery, overly sweet (not made with coconut sugar but with white sugar from the taste) and tasteless. I've eaten better ones from a market for 20 baht.

The rice was overcooked and bloated, the spring rolls were obviously not made but bought frozen. The only plus for this restaurant was that they had proper Chang beer and not the Export variety.

[loloal]

Ex missus also found it difficult to find good Thai food in phuket or other tourist areas.

She was all about food and not easily satisfied. When arriving a new town our routine was to try up to 5 or 7 restaurants on the first days -and she wouldn't worry about how much of my money we would spend - just to find one place she would qualify as "real Thai food". And I mean IN Thailand.

After identifying the rare places able to satisfy her palate we would eventually need to go to several different places to compose just one take away dinner. One street shop was ok for chicken, one was ok for rice and some vegetables, another one for rare vegetables and soup, a last one for kanom...

Note that we had better results with small very specialized street shops than with regular restaurants. Hygiene was checked by missus too and she wouldn't let me buy from some street shops that she instantly identified as "this one dirty, will make you sick sure na"

A frequent sentence I heard from her when siting in a restaurant : "they are not Thai. Workers are Myanmar. Not real Thai food. Mai aroi sure!"

Probably she was too difficult to satisfy - not surprising she's an 'ex' - but she enlightened me about different levels of what can be called Thai food.

I'd add that my most memorable Thai food experience where in countryside, either Issan or south, in places NOT influenced by western tastes, where everyone would still stare at the Farang

No farang menu, obviously no English translation of the menu, no special farang pricing and plentiful cheap food...

Long story short there's Thai food and Thai food and if the very authentic one is difficult to get in it's own country, I wouldn't even wonder if it may be better outside.

Now if we are talking about US / UK / UE / Oz palate etc, I'm sure one might be satisfied by Thai-like food in another country. But would we be really talking about Thai food then ?

[In Search of Space]

I wouldn't say Thai food outside Thailand is that good for the same reasons at post 16 Ezzra stated, unless you want to go seriously up-market. We all know that not necessarily the best Thai food in Thailand comes from the most expensive restaurants. But a taxi driver a few months ago was grilling me because he had heard that G'paw moo was 500 baht in London and he could get it in Bangkok for 40 baht, he was stunned to hear that it was true !

[connda]

No, just back from the States, no comparison (and all the Thai food I ate there was cooked by Thais). Having said that, I no longer eat street food (except for khanom and a few vendors of one item - like hor muk - known to me) and I don't eat meat. Living in the South, I know where to go to get fresh high quality sea (not aquaculture) food.

I am pretty much like you - I pretty much don't eat street food in Thailand except in rare cases mostly when on long cross-country trips, although even then I tend to seek out better quality food inside shopping malls or chain restaurants to break the journey, depending on where I am. Since I live in a moo baan far away from the nearest street stalls, I might as well eat in an air-conditioned shopping mall, which is usually where I eat these days when I'm not eating at home. The quality is predictable, the food is pretty good (or at least, my palate is so used to this stuff that it passes as high quality for me) and while a dish can cost anything from I dunno, 90 to 300+ Baht, I can't get myself to go out of my way to eat at a crowded street side stall alongside a busy road, inhaling all the fumes from passing traffic and sitting in the sweltering heat just to save a few Baht when I'd rather avoid the 200m commute from the shopping mall parking lot to eat somewhere much better inside.

Besides, I've had friends who've only been to Thailand once or twice be less than inspired by street food such as Khao papraow kai, for example, which consists of extremely dry rice with a greasy, badly fried egg, and some extremely spicy chicken (or it could also be moo or pork) when I thought it was only me.

I eat at restaurants frequented by Thais, and street food most of the time. I've never have been sick by anything I've eaten from Thai restaurants or street vendors. I've gotten food poisoning twice while in Thailand eating at well-known, international food franchises. Go figure. But, after living here almost 8 years, I have specific vendors and restaurants that I go to. I've already been through the selection process of 'this restaurant sucks' and 'this restaurant is OK', and this restaurant is great'. Same goes with street vendors. I know these people and I know the quality of their food. Caveat - If I'm traveling outside of town??? Different story. I'm more conservative in my selection of food. But still, I break outside of the 'box' of my own prejudices. The only way to find out if something is great or something sucks is to try if for yourself. If it's not good: walk. If it's great: become a regular.

But, I do like people who think like you. I makes that place I go to less crowded. lol

And rice? Here in Thailand you're probably eating Mali Hom or an equivalent that is export quality. The stuff you call rice back home is probably Uncle Ben's Converted Quick-Cook rice. You like it because it's what you are use to.

Edited November 30, 2014 by connda

[sadhukar]

I have two Thai friends who own restaurants in the UK. The best Thai food they serve is the food they cook for themselves after the place is shut. Half the stuff they eat simply wouldn't sell if it were put on the menu..

Oh god, what are they called and are they in London?? I am dying for some authentic thai food and not all this British-fusion crap where everything is unsalted, the texture is terrible and 2 chilies means its too spicy. I swear if I can collect all the tears I shed when my green curry is served with bamboo shoots AND NO EGGPLANT I could make another lake Michigan in the sahara desert...

Edited November 30, 2014 by sadhukar

[connda]

I have two Thai friends who own restaurants in the UK. The best Thai food they serve is the food they cook for themselves after the place is shut. Half the stuff they eat simply wouldn't sell if it were put on the menu..

Oh god, what are they called and are they in London?? I am dying for some authentic thai food and not all this British-fusion crap where everything is unsalted, the texture is terrible and 2 chilies means its too spicy. I swear if I can collect all the tears I shed when my green curry is served with bamboo shoots AND NO EGGPLANT I could make another lake Michigan in the sahara desert...

+1 555

[sustento]

I have two Thai friends who own restaurants in the UK. The best Thai food they serve is the food they cook for themselves after the place is shut. Half the stuff they eat simply wouldn't sell if it were put on the menu..

Oh god, what are they called and are they in London??

Sorry they're in the Midlands.

[SoiBiker]

The only plus for this restaurant was that they had proper Chang beer and not the Export variety.

I wouldn't call that a plus.

[gyrosman]

If you like the idea of MSG in your food or the servers who pick there toes before cooking your food and no wash stations before they cook the nexts person food, yes, it taste different outside LOS.

[Loptr]

What many people fail to understand when it comes to Thai food cooked elsewhere is

first of all the availability and the authenticity of the fresh ingredients, herbs and veg

grown in Thailand have a similar but unique flavours and characteristics to the same

grown outside of Thailand, second, the cooking utensils, the wok, the burners, and every

other utensils use in here to cook Thai food add a lot to the flavour of the finished dish,

last but not least, the cook, nothing will compare to an Issan hands cooking the dish...

+1... This is my experience... The ingredients do not have the same flavor as ingredients in Thailand... Couple this with food prep methods (hygienic or not) and the dishes just don't taste the same in the west...