Thai Food

Thailand is a paradise when it comes to delicious food.
Spicy or non spicy, the dishes vary from advanced to very simple but with one thing in common, the wonderful and complex tastes.
You don’t have to go to any classy restaurant to get a tasty meal either. Often the basic Thai food is the same or even better in small restaurants or at the movable kitchens.
However seafood and special dishes might be more common to find in expensive restaurants that also often offer a wider range of beverages such as imported wine.

Many people tend to think that the food sold at the market or at the movable kitchens might make you sick, that’s really not true. The food is in general very well prepared.
Markets can be found all over Thailand, small markets, big markets and huge markets. You will most certainly be able to find everything from grilled chicken and squids to Thai sweets and fruits all to a price that you just don’t complain about.

Don’t hesitate to dig into the strangest things you find, it will only give you a new experience and often people find their favorite food or snack this way.

Fruits

During your visit in Thailand you just have to eat all the delicious fruits. The taste of imported fruits most people are offered at home are not the same as here where the flavors are much stronger. Below are a list with some of the most common fruits in Thailand and their names in Thai.

Banana – Gluay

Thai bananas comes in some different varieties and shapes. The normal bananas that most people are used to are referred to as “Gluay Hoom” and are very common. Another smaller kind is the “Gluay Naam Waa” and it has a more meaty structure to it and is sweet in taste. They are as thick as regular bananas but much shorter and they are often almost straight. Sometimes this bananas have brown stones inside and if biting into one of those the taste is not very nice. However, don’t let that scare you from trying these bananas, most of them doesn’t have any stones and I think they are very tasty. The third kind is not very common and is called “Gluay Khai” and it looks almost like a normal banana but a lot smaller and thinner, it also have a sweeter taste.

How do you eat it?
Probably the same way as you done before, in other words, as a monkey.

Dragon Fruit – Gaeo Mang Goone

As well as pineapple this fruit comes in two varieties. One with white fruit meat and one with strong purple fruit meat. The fruit meat contains many small black seeds that of course are eaten as well. The taste differs slightly between the two kinds and I cannot really say which one I like more. Dragon fruit is packed with strong antioxidants such as lycopene and also the protein collagen among vitamin C and more. This fruit is not an Asian fruit from the beginning but only grows in South America. The fruit is a cactus fruit and the structure of the meat is kind of like the fruit meat in kiwi.
How do you know if the inside are white or purple?
The white kind has longer and more thin “leaves” on the outside while the one with purple inside has shorter and thicker leaves. Also the purple kind tend to be smaller. The purple kind has more antioxidants.

How do you eat it?
This is a clean and easy to eat fruit that you either cut in half and eat the inside with a spoon or you can easily peal the skin of the fruit and then cut it in to pieces. Then you can just enjoy. This is one of my favorites that I eat almost on a daily basis.

Guava – Farang

Guava looks almost like a big apple, green and round. The fruit is called farang in Thai and it is the same farang as they call white people. Why it is like this don’t know for sure. The fruit comes from South America and the Caribbean.
The taste is dry, and kind of lame but is well worth a try.

How do you eat it?
Dig in to it like with an apple or slice it up to.

Mango – Mamoang

The mangos found in Thailand have a slightly flat shape and the color varies from green to yellow. The inside of the fruit is also yellow. Mango is used in for example salads but do not expect to get ripe pieces of mango in a salad. I have seen people do this. The mango salad is a mix with chili and many other things and the mango being used are young mangos that are cut in small pieces and mixed with the rest of the ingredients, yet this is tasty.

How do you eat it?
Peal the thin skin of the mango and then cut the meat off from the long thin stone inside the fruit. Watch out so you don’t cut yourself.

Mangosteen – Mankot

Another favorite of mine. This fruit have a brown reddish shell that will be slight soft when the inside is ready to be eaten. The inside looks almost like a garlic made of silk. The small fruits which I like most have no stones inside while bigger fruits often have one or more wedges with stones inside. The taste of mangosteen is extremely special and I don’t know how to explain it other than that it’s fantastic. Mangosteen is known for its health benefits and it has a lot of vitamins like B1 and B2 and also minerals and potassium.

How do you eat it?
This fruit is not very hard to open if it is ready to be eaten but you might get some red color to you fingers if you are not using any other tools. The easiest way to get in to the great tasting meat is to use a knife and cut through the shell all around the fruit and then just open it up. If you don’t have a knife or if you want to go local style you can grab the fruit with two hands and then press with your thumbs and index fingers and slightly twist your hands in different directions and it will open up.

Papaya – Malako

This fruit does often have the shape as a pear and the color is green to yellow. When ready to eat they go yellow but in Thailand you will find green papaya being used in foods like the Isaan specialty “Som Tam”. The inside of a ripe papaya has a yellow orange color.

How do you eat it?
Slice the fruit in half and get rid of the many small seeds and then just eat it with a spoon or you can peel the skin of the fruit, slice it in half, get rid of the seeds and then cut it in to smaller pieces.

Pineapple – Sapparot

The tropical fruits number one. The juicy meat of a pineapple is for most people something that will give an exotic feeling. The pineapples in Thailand are mainly of two different kinds. One that are longer and more slim and one that is shorter and looks more like a ball and can be very green even if its ready to be eaten. In my personal opinion the round shaped pineapple is the better one. Pineapples are rich on vitamins and magnesium.

How do you eat it?
Well, peeling a pineapple might not be very easy if you never done it before so the easiest way (except buying a peeled one) is to cut it in wedges and then let the knife slide under the meat as close to the peel as possible.
The other way is to cut the peel of first and when done that you will also have to cut away the brown dots that will be left, unless you didn’t cut away half the fruit with the peel already. Slide the knife diagonally across the fruit just above the brown dots and then do the same again just below the brown dots and the line with the brown parts will fall off, got it? Having done that you can cut it in any desired way.

Watermelon – Daengmoo

This is just plain simple watermelon and they come in some varieties as well.

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