Pictured below is sour green mango with sweet chilli "jam" shallot and sun dried shrimp
Meals in Thailand often have an interesting composition or hot cold sweet and sour in one dish, soft foods are garnished with crunchy things to provide an interesting contrast in the mouth. An example is Pig blood noodle soup, the broth is rich from the blood, the noodles are soft and fresh the pork is tender and the veggies are cooked until just limp. The contrast comes in the from of bean shoots or pork crackling.
Thai cooks do not use much salt instead they reach for nam pla or fish sauce or other seafood additives like kapi made from shrimps, it has an overpowering aroma to say the least but is delicious when used correctly. Sugar is very popular with Thais I sometimes find this strange or over the top as they eat the fruit sour instead of waiting for it to ripen and allow the flavour of natural sugars to develop. Sugar can be found on nearly every ta ble in Thailand and is sprinkled over noodle and rice dishes with total disregard for their expanding waistlines.
One of the best ways to experience real Thai food and Thailand is to eat from the street hawkers. I know guide books often recommend against it. If your worried about food poisoning I have lived in Thailand for over 2 years only times i have been sick is from large establishments that served Western dishes. Still worried about food poisoning use common sense and look for busy places and take charcoal tablets after you meal. Most commonly you will find soup noodle called "Kway Teow" you can choose from sen mee the thin rice noodle, sen ngai the wide soft noodle and bat mee a fine egg noodle. The broth is usually made from pork bones and sadly it commonly contains MSG. You an find the soup served with Chicken, Duck,Pork, Pork wantons & crab meat and balls usually pork or fish...................I stay clear of these balls. Then comes the hawkers who cook everything up in the morning and serve it tepid all day long, this can be very cheap in a real Thai neighbourhood but goes against all food handling and bacteria control systems.
We have taste tested and photographed a wide range of Hawker and restaurant meals below and provide you with the Thai name in phonetics to aid ordering.
noddle soup with pork or beef or kuay tiew rua mhoo/nua & written like this in Thai ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ.
Pronounced in Thai something like Qwa-tee-ow roo-ah moo/ new-ahh
This example we found at Chatuchak Market and cost 35 THB
You can choose from up to 4types of noodle ; Sen ngai, sen mhee, baa mhee, sen lek
The soup is made from a stock of bones herbs and pork blood, which gives it, it's dark colour and rich/sweet flavour. Whilst the idea can be off putting blood is very nutritious and delicious. Typically the soup contains;
pork /beef, pork ball, beansprout, morning glory, and slice of saw leaf herbs.The accompaniments are on the table usually before you get your meal, often found in 4 small plastic pots called krueng Prung containing chili powder, vinegar, fish sauce & sugar.
Pork on Crispy Bread or "Khanom Pang Na Moo" written in Thai ขนมปังหน้าหมู.
Prounounced pretty much h ow it looks, this is really a version of Prawn toast. I believt it used to have Prawn meat in the mix but its hard to find it.
