Joanna James
Among all things fun and exciting about Thailand, getting a taste of the mouth-watering Thai cuisine is, without a doubt, one of the most unmissable experiences on your trip. Indulge in an assortment of delectable traditional Thai dishes and savour the tantalising tastes of the Land of Smiles.
While there's a whole host of authentic dishes Thailand has to offer you, Pad Thai makes for a familiar start to the exploration of Thai cuisine for the taste buds outside the Southeast Asian nation. One of Thailand's most favoured national dishes by both locals and tourists alike, the flavourful stir-fried rice noodle dish could be found around every corner, from makeshift street food stalls to cafes and fine dining restaurants. The combination of rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, scrambled eggs, and bean sprouts is best known for its unique combination of sweet, sour, and salty flavours.
You wouldn't fly all the way across the world to Thailand just to treat yourself to some Pad Thai that's just a phone call away at the takeout Pad Thai place back at home, would you? For a truly Thai experience, try a fried cricket or one of the wide variety of fried worms. That's right, Malang Tod is one of the Southeast Asian nation's most authentic dishes that consist of a variety of fried insects such as crickets, beetles, worms, and grasshoppers. You'd be surprised to see that it is tourists more than locals who gather around Malang Tod stalls, feeling adventurous to give the bizarre dish a try.
A traditional Thai dessert to your traditional Thai meal, Khao niao mamuang, best known as mango sticky rice among tourists to Thailand, is both a delectable dessert and a snack. There are two elements to the dish — the lump of rice and the slices of mango. The rice is sweetened glutinous rice mixed with coconut milk, while the mango is just freshly cut slices of juicy mango. The combination of vibrant yellow and white colours makes it wonderful to the eyes as it is to your taste buds.
Thin stripes of unripe green papaya mixed with roasted peanuts, green beans, tomatoes, and a tangy sauce in a bowl, som tam is one of the most simple dishes in Thai cuisine, but at the same time, one of the most flavourful as well. The spicy salad is widely popular throughout Thailand, so much so that a variety of regional variations of the dish has begun to emerge over the years.
Another mouth-watering delicacy of Thai cuisine that strikes the perfect blend of spicy and sour, Tom kha gai is a local classic served at Phuket restaurants including the likes of Age Restaurant as well as eateries in other parts of the Southeast Asian nation. The dish gets its unique spicy and sour flavours from the galangal and bird's-eye chilli peppers that are mixed with coconut milk and chicken.
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