Thai cuisine: what to eat and how much it costs

Thai cuisine: what to eat and how much it costs. Remember this hackneyed phrase that teachers and parents told us in biology lessons at the moments when we flatly refused to eat: a person can live without air for 10-15 minutes, without water - 5-7 days, and without food - about a month. You know, coming to Thailand, you won't want to live a day without Thai food!:)

What do they eat in Thailand, how much does it cost, and where do I advise you to eat?

Thai dishes

Thai cuisine is the very best Thai people can think of. I'm not afraid of this word, but for me it has become a worthy competitor to the Italian one (I thought there would be nothing tastier than pasta cuisine). Fast, spicy and with only fresh ingredients - that's all about Thai cuisine. Most dishes are cooked in a wok, a large, deep-bottomed skillet. The cooking process usually does not take more than 10-15 minutes.

The basis of all dishes is rice or rice noodles, vegetables and, most importantly, pastas and sauces, thanks to which the dishes get that incomparable "Thai" taste. And now more about some of the dishes that have become my favorites.

Pad Thai is probably the most famous Thai dish, which is rice noodles fried in a wok with an egg and several sauces (fish, oyster, tamarind) and various fillings (most often chicken, seafood or pork). This dish has become my (and not only my) favorite during my life on the island. It never gets boring, because, firstly, you can constantly change the options for fillings and types of noodles (wide or thin, rice or egg), and secondly, because you will not try two identical pad-thai from different housewives.

Pad Thai, Thai food
Tom Yam Kung is a spicy Thai shrimp soup. Get ready for the fact that it is spicy and that there will be only broth and shrimp in this soup, and therefore you should not be surprised, "what kind of sticks and grass are sticking out here?" (yes, many of the ingredients in this soup are inedible and are added just for the flavor of the broth - lemongrass, galangal, lime leaves). And do not try to ask to bring you Tom Yam not spicy or little spicy. Anything, but not this soup, as it is tantamount to asking for dumplings without meat or borscht without cabbage!

Tom yum kun, Thai food recipes
Curry (green or yellow) is a dish for those who like spice. My favorite is green curry with chicken (it’s chicken meat that goes perfectly with curry paste for my taste) - it is served in a deep plate and looks almost like soup (there is a lot of sauce and chicken and vegetables float deep in it). By default, rice does not go with curry, so order it separately, but preferably 2 servings at once, since it is very difficult to eat spicy gravy without rice, but at the same time it is so tasty that you don't want to leave a drop.

Curry, Thai food
Stir-fried is a Chinese technique for cooking a dish in a wok, when vegetables and / or meat (chicken, pork, seafood) are fried with constant stirring in a special sweetish sauce (the technique is similar to how we stew, but with Thais everything is much faster which is why vegetables are only slightly processed and do not lose most of their beneficial properties).

Stir-fried, Thai food, recipes

Fish & Seafood - well, and where without fish and seafood: squid, oysters, shellfish. Comments are superfluous, just choose your favorite sea creature and how to prepare it

Prices in restaurants: whole grilled fish (for two) - from 250 baht in a restaurant, oyster - 40-60 baht apiece, a plate of mussels - 100 baht, fried squid with vegetables - 80 baht.

The best places to eat

There is one food axiom to remember if you are going to Thailand. No matter how cool the restaurants you go and no matter how low the prices (in terms of rubles or hryvnias) surprise you there, you will try the most delicious and authentic dishes (without discounts on European stomachs) in the cheapest cafes for locals. It is very easy to recognize them - for us they look like eateries: plastic (sometimes stone) tables and chairs (or benches) under a canopy, an open kitchen - a gas stove and a table where all the ingredients stand or lie in front of you. There is either no menu in such places at all, or it is served to you printed on A4 paper and consists of a maximum of 10 positions. Thais themselves eat in such places, as well as farangs, who were not embarrassed by the appearance of such a cafe. Having tasted food in one of these places, we stopped cooking at home altogether - only Thais can cook so deliciously, and we did not want to eat miserable parodies prepared on our own.

Fruits

And although fruits are essentially irrelevant to the kitchen, without them the picture will be incomplete, because you will eat fruits regularly and every day. Mango is the king of Thai fruits - in season it costs 30 baht / kg, out of season - 80 baht / kg ($ 2, 6). Papaya - 35 baht / kg, bananas in the markets are sold not in kilograms, but in bundles, there are at least 4 varieties - 20 baht / bunch of 15 baby bananas, dragon fruit, guava, watermelons - 50 baht / kg. Coconuts are the main drink on the island - 20 baht in the market ($ 0.6), up to 50 baht in restaurants. And also rambutans, lychees, mangosteen, tangerines and durian - a stinky fruit that you can only taste in Southeast Asia or South America.

You can talk endlessly about Thai food, as well as enjoy it, discovering more and more new flavors. Of course, those of you who like this food (and I can't imagine how it could be otherwise) will want to cook some of the local dishes on your own. If you are not ready to shell out a fairly round sum for courses (only in Koh Samui I found several culinary schools), I will give you a simple advice: go to the markets more often and look, look with all your eyes, how the dexterous hands of Thais and Taeks cook a dish in 5 minutes, which you then consume, smacking your lips with delight. And most importantly, starting the practical part, do not be discouraged by the first 2-3 discarded pad-thai of your own preparation - the first pancake is lumpy:)

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* I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the above prices are the approximate cost of meals / products on Koh Samui. Prices in other parts of Thailand may differ both upwards (for example, in Phuket) and downwards (Chiang Mai).

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