What's On This Page?

• Fruit [more]
• Beer [more]
• Expensive vs Cheap [more]
• Western Food In Thailand [more]
• The Ills Of The West [more]
• Chinese Food In Thailand [more]
• Discount Cards [more]

Thailand - Food Page 3

Fruit

Last updated: 11th November 2006

The variety of locally grown tropical fruit in Thailand is amazing and sampling as much as possible should be on everyone's agenda when in the Kingdom. Some of the fruit is available in other parts of the world such as bananas, oranges, apples and pineapples but there is fruit in Thailand I haven't seen anywhere else. Most fruit vendors are quite happy for you to sample some of the produce so there is an easy way to see if you like something before making a purchase.

Not only is the variety of fruit huge but so is the quantity. It's on sale everywhere in Thailand and there is a big export market. Thailand even signed a barter deal with China in 2005 to trade 66,000 tonnes of dried longan for 133 armoured personnel carriers.

Fruit can be bought from local supermarkets and department stores in its natural form. Supermarkets also sell it prepared and ready to eat, as do many street vendors. Their food carts have peeled fruit laid out over ice which they will cut into bite-size chunks and put into a plastic bag for you. They even give you a small stick with which to eat the fruit to avoid getting your fingers sticky.

Other street vendors will make fresh fruit shakes and crushes for you for just a few Baht. Alternatively you could invest in a blender and make your own at home. The variety and cheapness of fruit is one of the reasons I love being in Thailand.

Many Thais like to eat their fruit dipped in phrik glua, a mixture of salt and ground chilies. It is definitely an acquired taste but I quite like certain types of phrik glua with certain types of fruit, especially if the fruit is a little sour.

Tropical fruit is like insects. It seems that no matter how many different ones you see, you will always see another that you have never seen before.

	A promotion of Thai fruit organised by the Market System Promotion and Development Division of the Department of Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce. I obtained some of the information below from the booklet that was kindly given to me at the promotion event.
	Known as gra-jiap in Thai, the English translation is given as roselle. I had never heard of this fruit before coming to Thailand but there are many tropical fruits I had never heard of before coming to Thailand. It's quite unusual to see the actual fruit. It is normally sold as a drink (naam gra-jiap) and very tasty it is too - my favourite fruit juice drink in Thailand. The web site linked above mentions that roselle is also used to make jam and that it has medicinal properties. Many small restaurants and street vendors sell bottles of locally made fruit juice and naam gra-jiap is usually one of the choices. The closest equivalent I can think of is blackcurrant. It's tasty and packed with lots of healthy vitamins.
	Thai oranges aren't very different to the ones for sale in the rest of the world apart from the fact they are green instead of orange. They also tend to have a lot of pips in each segment.
	Jackfruit are large beasts. Vendors selling jackfruit cut them up and break off small, bite-size segments. I quite like the taste but they leave a furry residue on your teeth. The best comment I have heard about jackfruit is they leave your teeth feeling as if they need a shave.
	Longans are my personal favourites and I will quite often munch my way through a kilo of them at one sitting. There are different varieties but the ones in the picture are the ones I like best. To eat a longan just squeeze it very gently between the thumb and index finger until the skin starts to split. The skin can then be removed easily. Inside, the longan is divided into segments some of which have a stone and some of which don't. They are divine. Not only are they delicious but they are packed full of vitamins and other nutrients that are good for the body.
	The inside of a Dragon fruit looks more man-made than a natural product. The white flesh has a very soft texture and the thousands of soft seeds contained in the flesh makes it look almost like ice-cream with 'hundreds and thousands' scattered liberally. Because of the soft texture the top can be cut off and the fleshy fruit can be scooped out with a spoon or it can be peeled and cut into slices. It isn't quite as sweet as it looks. The taste, like all other tastes, is difficult to describe in words. As with all the fruit in Thailand, it's cheap and the best thing is just to experiment.
	Where I come from any type of curved, yellow fruit similar to those in the photo are called bananas. Not so in Thailand. There are several different varieties and they all have different names. The Thais are connoisseurs of bananas.
	Mangosteens are known as the "Queen Of Tropical Fruits". Mangosteens from the East of Thailand are available from May to June and from the South of Thailand are available from July to September. They have a thick skin that requires a knife to get at them. The white, fleshy fruit is sweet but with a hint or sourness. They can be eaten as they are or added to Thai dishes.
	Rambutan are the green and red 'hairy' looking fruit. To get at the fruit the skin can be removed with fingers and a thumbnail although employing a small knife may be easier for some people. The white fruit inside is sweet but houses quite a large stone.
	Guava are known as 'farang' in Thailand thus causing much mirth amongst the locals when 'farang gin farang'. They are sliced into thin segments similar to how an apple might be sliced. The texture is similar to a crisp apple and the taste is quite sour. They are sometimes dipped into a mixture of salt and crushed chilies (phrik glua). It's quite an acquired taste, not sweet like most of the other fruit but pretty good all the same. To check if a guava fruit is ripe to eat, the Thais flick their middle finger against it and listen to the sound. This is obviously a very special skill which has been developed and honed over many years (much like the old wheeltappers who used to used to work in the railway industry) but from my general observations it seems that a hollow sound is good.
	If ever there was a controversial fruit, this is it. Many Asians love durian but they are not always loved by foreigners, mainly because of the awful smell. I read in the paper recently that someone had died after a durian binge and that each year there are a number of 'deaths by durian'. The sulphur in durians raises the internal body temperature which can have fatal consequences. (Presumably it is also the sulphur that is responsible for the stench?)
	No durian! Durians are banned in many establishments and on public transport. It is recommended that durian is only eaten in small quantities and that mangosteen is eaten at the same time to counter the body heating effect. I wish I could tell you something about the taste but up until now this farang with a weak stomach hasn't been brave enough to try one.
	Pineapples grow abundantly in Thailand and although they are easily available in the rest of the world the ones in Thailand are the sweetest I have tasted. There is a traditional Thai way of cutting them which makes the fruit easier to eat with fingers and actually makes it taste better for some reason. I am reliably informed by my Thai friends that there are two types. There is the Phuket pineapple and there is the Phattalung pineapple. One section of the road through Phattalung has hundreds of roadside street vendors selling fresh pineapples. Phattalung pineapples are supposedly sweeter.
	There are different varieties of mango (ma muang in Thai) and they are eaten at different stages of ripeness. Ripe mangoes (ma muang sook) are sweet and often eaten as a dessert with sticky rice (khao niao). They turn yellow and the texture is soft by the time they reach this stage. Semi-ripe mangoes (ma muang mun) are green and firm. The flesh is a green-tinted white colour similar in colour to that of an apple. They have an interesting taste which is neither sweet (wan) nor sour (bprio). At this stage they are normally eaten after being dipped in a mixture of salt and ground chilies called phrik glua in Thai.

Expensive vs Cheap

One morning I decided to eat breakfast at a friend's cafe; the main reason being that it had been too long since I had seen her last. Unfortunately her place was closed and I didn't have a Plan B. I was with my girlfriend and made a quick decision to go instead to one of the top hotels in town for a breakfast treat.

I had imagined they would have great cooked breakfasts but I was wrong. All that was on offer was one of the things I hate most - the dreaded hotel buffet breakfast. We just ate fried rice. The food was mediocre, at best, and the bill came to Bt400 for two of us. Our drinks (coffee and orange juice) were expensive and by the time they had added on tax and service charges it was an expensive meal bearing in mind that fried rice in Thailand is a Bt30 meal.

That same evening I went to eat at a small local-style restaurant of which there are hundreds in town. They aren't really restaurants in the Western sense; just a lady with a sizzling wok cooking in a typical shuttered shopfront building with plastic tables and chairs.

This particular place is one of my favourites though and I walk a long way to get there. The woman owner makes probably the best sweet and sour dishes I have ever tasted. The sauce is perfect with just the right amount of 'bite'. All the ingredients are fresh, of course, and she adds a mountain of crispy vegetables. It comes with rice and water is free.

After eating there I always walk away feeling very full with the delicious flavours still on my taste buds. The price for the meal I've just described is Bt25, or one-eighth of what I paid for a very ordinary breakfast at an expensive hotel.

In Thailand there is no direct correlation between price and flavour or price and quality when it comes to Thai food. Some of the best Thai food I have eaten has been sold at giveaway prices from small restaurants. There is a difference with Western food though. Western food cooked on the cheap isn't usually very good. The best Western food I've eaten in Thailand has been at some of the bigger hotels where they have properly trained international chefs.

Western Food In Thailand

Western food is making an impact in Thailand, especially with younger Thais, but as you'd expect it is mostly of the junk food variety. For a nation where obesity is quite rare you see quite a few fat Thai kids nowadays. My best guess is that Western junk food has a lot to do with this. Pizza is popular (Thais smother it with tomato ketchup) but Pizza Hut dominates unfortunately. I have managed to find good pizza in Bangkok in the past but mostly it is Pizza Hut style pizzas. McDonalds is another favourite, as is KFC. I can't grumble too much about KFC. Their mashed potato (man bot in Thai) is something that satisfies my occasional cravings for Western food.

In Bangkok every style of food is available so it won't be a problem finding something to eat for even the fussiest of eaters. If you get off the beaten track though, and are a bit fussy, it can be a problem. As I mentioned before, for many farangs (myself included) breakfast is the greatest challenge. Anywhere that sees at least a few foreign tourists passing through will probably have a café that serves Western style breakfasts. These can be variable. I've had some good ones but many are nowhere near what I'd call a Western breakfast. Eggs generally are OK but an egg is an egg. The bacon or ham is quite different and the bread they use normally tastes very sweet.

TOPS supermarket bake good bread and sell butter and cheese from New Zealand and ham from Germany which is also very good.

The food in Western chain restaurants with branches in Thailand is fine, as is the food in large hotels who have chefs trained in international cuisine. Somewhere such as the Oriental hotel in Bangkok will satisfy the most discerning of Western palates. I wouldn't recommend Western food from small local style restaurants who add a few farang dishes to their menu. Many Thais just don't understand farang food and generally it doesn't taste too good.

The Ills Of The West

Throughout these pages I have sometimes been critical of Thailand. It's not because I want to pick on Thailand. On the contrary, it's a country I love, but my criticism has had more to do with sadness and frustration at how Westernisation is gradually ruining the country. (I almost said American Imperialism instead of Westernisation but maybe that is too strong, or maybe not?)

Thailand was a country that had so many things right before it sold out to mass consumerism and Western culture. Every aspect of life in Thailand has been affected, including the diet. The normal Thai diet is very healthy with lots of fish, fruit and vegetables. It is not high in fat and provides a good balance of essential vitamins and nutrients. What's more, because food is so abundant and cheap in Thailand, a good diet is available to most people.

According to a newspaper report I read (The Nation 2nd May 2005), a survey in Bangkok has reported that schoolchildren only eat 74 grams of fresh fruit and vegetables a day on average. Other studies (and my own observations) make it clear that Thai children are eating far too many high-fat, starchy foods and drinking too many sugary, fizzy drinks. KFC and MacDonalds are always packed out with Thais and carbonated drinks, often included in set meals, are the drinks of choice.

Another survey among adults indicated that children are losing their role models when it comes to eating a good diet. In the survey, 71% of adults said they ate instant noodles every day and 54% admitted to eating junk food every day. Only 47% made an effort to eat vegetables with their meals.

What is crazy is that no additional time or effort is required to eat healthy, nutritious Thai food. Small restaurants (which exist everywhere) will freshly prepare servings of rice or noodles with vegetables in the same time it takes to get a Big Mac and the cost will be significantly cheaper.

A burger or a pizza occasionally is fine but not every day, or even every week. One day Thailand might wake up to the fact that their current love affair with Western culture was a huge mistake but by that time the damage will have been done.

Chinese Food In Thailand

I've always liked the Chinese food sold in Western countries but until I went to Asia I didn't realise that the Western version is quite unlike Chinese food eaten in Asia. Without wishing to offend anyone, I'm not very keen on the authentic Asian variety of Chinese food.

The Chinese appear to eat anything (and everything) and are especially partial to animal parts that would normally be thrown away. Chickens feet, pig's ears and pig offal are particularly prized. It could be that I am just a fussy eater but it doesn't feature very high up on my list of favourite cuisines.

I feel embarrassed about my delicate stomach at times. I was invited to a small gathering which was being held in order to bless a shop for good luck. My Thai Chinese friend who had arranged it had worked hard the previous night preparing the food. When I got there I couldn't bring myself to eat anything apart from some fruit.

As I watched her eat there was a chicken's foot in her bowl and with a pair of chopsticks she grabbed hold of a 3cm cube of pig liver and ate it in one bite. I had seen pig liver on sale at the market before and wasn't sure how it was eaten but it looked almost raw.

She then reached for a plate of the funny looking fish that have heads tucked down 90 degrees to their body. As I watched, she plucked an eye from one of the fish and ate it, then another, then another. A small girl ran over to make sure she got an eye before they all disappeared.

By this time I was feeling quite ill. Because I wasn't eating it was a major concern to everyone there and I realise that it was probably quite insulting not to eat anything. Every two minutes someone was trying to give me a plate of something to eat. However, if I had forced anything down it would have come straight back up again and that would have been even more insulting.

In Thailand I'll stick to the Thai food and the Chinese can keep theirs.

Discount Cards

Many chain restaurants offer some kind of a promotional discount card but by their very nature chain restaurants in Thailand are normally foreign owned serving non-Thai food. The deals are often very good and it pays to buy a discount card even if you only plan to eat at the restaurant a couple of times.

I eat mainly Thai food at small, local restaurants because the food is tasty and cheap but there are times when I eat at chain restaurants. Fuji is one of my favourites for the great Japanese food they serve. Occasionally I want an American style steak and salad so head to my local branch of Sizzler. If I want something 'bready' then pretzels at Auntie Ann's normally do the trick.

All of these places offer discount cards. Sizzler and Auntie Ann's offer 2-for-1 deals with their discount cards. The cards cost Bt99 but it doesn't take long to recoup your investment. If two people eat out at Sizzler you save money after just one visit with a Bt99 discount card. Fuji has a points system where you get one point for every Bt300 spent and when you have 10 points you can get a Bt300 discount.

Discount card deals are worth looking out for in Thailand. One of the things I've noticed though is that most of the information about the deals is in Thai. All farangs are rich anyway, aren't they, so why do they need discounts?