Non Thai food in Thailand

Eating Thai food everyday for a whole week was not something I could handle. It’s simply too much masala, too much spice and the use of coconut milk makes it all very heavy. I presume eating a more balanced meal i.e. more vegetables, cutting down on the protein and eating more judiciously would have helped. But then you only have one life!

We did get some non Thai food into our stomachs as well. Some of the places we ate at are:

The Kabuki Japanese at the J W Marriott Resort and Spa, Phuket

Siam Deli at the J W Marriott Resort and Spa, Phuket

Restaurant Crystal Jade, Bangkok

High Tea at the Siam Kempinski, Bangkok

The Kabuki Restaurant was not something I particularly enjoyed, it must be said. I find Sushi, Sashimi et al rather uninspiring. It’s knife skills I agree, but the food has no heat applied to it. Is it really cooking? The prices are eye watering and at the end of the meal you end up hungry. Her Royal Highness Queen of Kutch of course, loves the Sushi and Sashimi. HRH thoroughly enjoyed her beautiful looking Sashimi platter while I did have a reasonable soup and Pork cutlet.

Crystal Jade is an outpost of an upmarket Cantonese style Singapore based chain. Their restaurants appear in several South Eastern cities and the food is consistently good. They of course have several branches in Singapore which are well worth visiting. If you ever are in KL or Bangkok, Hong Kong or Singapore do eat at one of their branches.

The High Tea was great fun. Instead of going to a restaurant and grabbing some lunch we had High Tea. Rather incongruous setting, a German Hotel in Thailand serving some very English sandwiches and European pastry. As I said it was fun.

Smartly folded napkin. Would win a contest

Cold Sake with the Japanese meal

8 pieces of Sashimi for HRH

Miso with Udon. Please note the clarity of the broth

Tonkatsu - Breaded fried pork cutlet

Bacon & Cheese Burger

Club Sandwich

Hot Muffins

Pastry

Sandwich

The whole `Tea'

Another artfully folded napkin. Bit scary

Pork Loin with Carrot Cucumber and a spicy garlic sauce

Braised Beancurd with Minced Pork

Saute Beef with Satay Sauce

Stir Fried Egg Noodle with assorted meat and prawn

Thai Food in Thailand

Thai is one of the world’s more popular cuisines. The food has been influenced by the robust use of spices from India and the Chinese who have made this a formidable cuisine, loved the world over. As with other Asian cuisines, Thai food prides itself on balance, detail and variety, which are of great significance. Thai food is known for its balance of three to four fundamental taste senses in each dish or the overall meal: sour, sweet, salty, and sometimes bitter. Thai food by and large also very scores very high on aesthetics. Many dishes come beautifully plated with delicately carved vegetables on a pretty canvas of vivid colours.

This cuisine uses lots of herbs for flavour, freshness and vibrancy. The dishes are awash with Basil, Mint, Coriander, Kafir Lime leaves as well as Celery leaves. Salads play a large part in the meal. A salad is not just sliced cucumber, tomato and carrot but something that has a reasonable amount of knife skill applied to it. A classic Thai Papaya Salad or one of their minced salads (Larb) are particularly memorable. The dressing, if it could be called that, is a fine balance of sweet from palm sugar, sour from lime and vinegar and lashings of Fish Sauce to bring in the salt and the particular funky smell. Frankly all the salads we ate had the same dressing. Chillies play a large part too and a variety is used differently to influence spicing. The small, thin skinned red chilli is particularly spicy and getting it in your breakfast is not a particularly pleasant experience. The larger thick skinned red chillies are milder and impart a nice, warm chilly flavour without the vicious bite.

The stir fries are almost Chinese. Morning Glory which is loved in Thailand is stir fried with a dash of Soya Sauce, Garlic and Chilli. This is a dish that is almost entirely Chinese in its cooking technique. The Beef with Green Peppercorns is also entirely Chinese in its cooking technique. Both these dishes have the distinctive “Wok Hei” so typical of Chinese food. “Wok Hei” is the unique flavour imparted to food when it’s cooked in a wok on very high heat which causes partial combustion of the oil and the searing and caramelisation of the food in the wok. A good Chinese restaurant - at the risk of being condescending - even in India often gives you “Wok Hei” when you order a stir fried noodle.

The famous Yellow, Green and Red Curries owe their roots to India. A departure is the use of the aromatic leaves and the fact that unlike (i) the North Indian Curry don’t use a base of browned Onion, ginger garlic and tomato and (ii) the South Indian curry with its use of tempering; these curries are quite Indian in complexity, flavour, heat and richness. The Thai Curries have as long a list of ingredients as their Indian cousins and share several ingredients.

Thai deserts are a waste of time. Don’t bother eating them. They are generally coconut, sugar and fresh fruit based. Rather bland. Indian sweets are a much better option or if you can have an ice cream at one of the several Japanese, American and Swedish ice cream outlets in the malls.

All manner of fish is eaten as well as most meat. Of course there is a large Muslim community who do not eat pork. I have not seen too much of exotic meat or offal. The food is fairly tame in this aspect.

Everything had to be disinfected with copious quantities of beer. The local Singha beer, like its Asian cousins – Tiger, Asahi, Chang, Tsingtao has a sweet undertone which I don’t particularly like, but am willing to drink it under duress.

The levels of spicing differ widely. You can say you want spicy food and it would be normal for us Indians. The big problem is that often the food is very sweet. The belief being that sugar counters the spice, however I find this quite unpleasant. Be sure to tell your waiter at the time you order not to make the food sweet, this is far more important than asking for spice.

The photographs are of food that represents a sort of `Best of Thai’ or a selection of the most popular Thai food served in restaurants. It’s obviously not home cooking. I must apologise for the quality of some of the photographs. Some restaurants are so dimly lit that I had to use the flash which completely burns the colour in the food. Sorry about this again.

The Thai restaurants that we went to, which we fully recommend if you go to Phuket or Bangkok are:

The Ginja Thai Restaurant at the J W Marriott Resort and Spa, Phuket

Restaurant Thanying, Bangkok

Restaurant Somtam – a delightful salad bar in Siam Square – cheap as chips

Restaurant Baan Kanitha, Bangkok

Restaurant Thanying and Baan Kanitha are the restaurants most hotel concierges will direct you to. You could add Restaurant Baan Khun Mae, Restaurant Bolan and the Blue Elephant to this list. The Australian chef David Thompson has, in a `coals to Newcastle’ type situation, opened a branch of his Michelin starred Nahm Restaurant from London here in Bangkok. The problem with restaurants like Bolan, Nahm and Blue Elephant is that they are horribly expensive. They also have a more fusion approach to cooking. This type of food is referred to as “Thaifused” by the local press. A delightful word, if you ask me. 

Restaurant Somtam is a sort of fast food place. As the name suggests they have Somtam, the famous Thai Raw Papaya Salad as their centre and serve it with a lot of additional accompaniments. It has been voted by the local press as serving Bangkok’s best Som Tam. It was a cheap and cheerful joint close to our hotel and was inhabited by a very young crowd. Good for a quick small salad to take the hunger pangs off.

The Baan Kanitha has a wonderful appetizer that is served complementary. It would gladden every Indian heart. It consists of leaves, much like `Paan’ and bowls containing toasted grated coconut, small lime pieces, dried shrimp, peanuts, ginger, lemon grass, sliced green chilli and a jammy spicy sugary chutney. You make yourself a little packet and pop it into your mouth.

One point to ponder. Thai food is similar to both Indian and Chinese. These are flavours we Indians are familiar with. Mexican food too has many ingredients and flavours that Indians are familiar with. Lots of tomato, lots of chilli, corn, beans, lots of chapatti type breads like Tortillas but despite this both cuisines are very poorly represented in India. I wonder why? 

First the Salads and starters:

Poh Piah Sod - These were hybrid. A cross between Spring Rolls, Sushi and Vietnamese Rolls

Yum Woonsen - Glass Noodle and Minced Chicken Salad

Yum Nuer Yang - Beef Salad

Larb Nuer - Minced Beef Salad

The garnish that came with the Larb Nuer

Larb Moo - Minced Pork Salad

Som Tam - Raw Papaya Salad

Miang Come

Now the Stir Fries and odds and ends:

Nuer Phad Prik Thai On - Stir fried beef with green peppercorns

Phad Pak Boong - Stir Fried Morning Glory at Ginja

Phad Pak Boong - Stir Fried Morning Glory at Thanying

Tod Gra Tiem - Stir Fried Squid, Celery & Green Peppercorns

Phad Thai at Ginja

Phad Thai at Thanying

Phad Thai condiments at Thanying

Chiang Mai Sausage with Pork Crackling

Khai Jiew Nhaem - Thai Omlette with Pork Sausage

Phad Kaparao Khung - Shrimp with Chilli and Hot Basil

And finally the curries:

Gaeng Karee Nue Fak Tong - Yellow Curry with Beef and Pumpkin

Gaeng Keaw Wan Gai - Green Chicken Curry

Gaeng Phed Moo - Red Curry Pork

Gaeng Khiew Wan Moo - Green Pork Curry

And finally some pretty presentation:

A serving of Brown Rice.

Beautifully prepped Baby Corn sold in a supermarket

The napkin is inside the pyramid

A canape of sweet pork on pineapple with a Chilli to add some heat

Customer irritations

Well now that it’s the New Year i.e. post Diwali, why not contrast my previous post of Customer Delights with Customer Irritations and Aggravations. 

Overly obsequious and fawning

We cannot stand this kind of behaviour. This is especially prevalent in South East Asia. Prolonged welcomes, `Namaste’s’ or their Thai equivalents and the particularly disgusting and distressing trait of kneeling on the floor when addressing you. The moment you ask a hotel staff a question you are offered a chair/sofa to sit while the staff disappears to get an answer to what would by now have been a routine question for the staff. On securing the answer, the staff will kneel while you are seated and provide you with an answer. This manner of wanting to show that you are an honoured guest for whom they will lay down their lives is to my mind being unnecessarily fawning. I mean, come on you are a professional, act like one, don’t fawn.

Tip mongering

This is another disgusting practice which many in the hospitality industry and the areas around it [taxi drivers, guides et al] are often guilty of. I can understand government officials wanting bribes, baksheesh, speed money, call it what you like. That problem will be short lived if you believe what Kisan Baburao Hazare says. However this tip mongering and telling you stories of how hard they work, how incomes have disappeared, how children, parents wife’s are dying, all to extract a tip, are irritating. Quite often we see thru the bullshit. Once again, you are a professional, act like one stop moaning.

Pushy waiters

A long established tradition in restaurant menu writing is that the most expensive dishes appear on the top of the section, followed by the cheaper dishes. Thus in the meat section, for example the Australian Steak will be at the top, as will be the New Zealand Lamb chop, then Pepper Steak [Indian meat], then some chicken dish. Following so far? Now, after looking at the menu you are confused as to whether to order the Pepper Steak or the Chicken. You make the mistake of asking the performance monkey masquerading as a waiter for a selection out of your shortlist. He promptly recommends the Australian Steak. Hey, that was never on my radar!! I was not born yesterday. I do not want a frozen piece of meat. I am happy with Indian meat. I am unwilling to pay stupid prices, I know how to read, are some of the responses that come to my mind. Stop pushing expensive food.

Incorrect menus

It’s now trendy to not only list but describe in excruciating detail every ingredient in a dish. This is especially true of our fancier restaurants. What I find is that in many restaurants the dishes presented are not what was promised to you on the menu. Problems could be (i) that the ingredient does not exist in the form it is described, like, soggy noodles on a soup that has to have crisp noodles, or, (ii) a minuscule quantity or often not giving you the ingredient at all, like, Asparagus or bacon on a Pizza. Often these dishes are priced at a premium so you feel doubly cheated when the exotic ingredient does not show up in appreciable quantities. This problem assumes myriad forms, I am listing but two of them.

Billing

Fortunately, incorrect billing is now on the decline. However, actually getting a bill after a meal is a difficult proposition. One would think that the conclusion of a meal would be something every waiter and restaurant exists for. It is payback time; it’s when the waiter will be rewarded for his efforts by the punter leaving a tip. It’s time to get rid of a miserly complaining customer and get a fresh set of suckers in. But alas, no. Restaurants take ages to give you your bill. After finally getting the bill, its ages till the credit card or cash is collected. Then it’s a long wait, while you wriggle in your seat desperately wanting to go to the toilet and get rid of all the beer in your bladder but you are paralysed. The waiter has not got the card or change back. Finally, it looks like things are done and you can charge to the toilet and exit. Why does all this take so long? Can you not get remote card swiping machines? Finish the charade then and there, get rid of the punter and turn the table. No life is not so simple. Also mind you, the Shettys in Udipi restaurants don’t play silly buggers like the trendy restaurants. They know how to turn around tables.

These are my peeves. Would be glad if you dear reader could add some of your favourite irritations.