Just wondering where we can try genuine Thai food?

Thanks

Thailand

That says it all! Scheps, try the street food for authentic.

LOL Hanuman.

LOL x2 Hanuman

Street food and some of the mall eateries (like MBK, 5th floor)

... or Thai dishes cooked by Maeng, at Pickled Liver...

There was a recent thread about street food. Lots of folks debating the subject. Is it safe to eat it? Various opinions, to be sure.

Hi, thanks all for your replies. While I totally understand that the most genuine Thai food is cooked and served by the local folks, I'm unsure about specific spots/restaurants in Bangkok, so any of your recent experiences would be great!

scheps,

There are several type of Thai food but in general you can classify them into 4 different group of cuisines, there's a 5th but that's what we call royal food or food for the royal court of Thailand.

The 4 groups are from the 4 regions of Thailand - the North, Northeast, Central and Southern. All different and all tasty. I just google and came up with this website which offer a pretty good explanation: http://www.sawadee.com/thailand/food/regional.htm

For the Bangkok area try:

Baan Khanitha at their newest location on Sathorn road. http://www.baan-khanitha.com/index.p...home&&laung=en

For somehting more simple try the Secret Garden restaurant which is on Sathorn Road as well. http://bkmagazine.com/review/sweet-secret

There are several more Thai restaurants and many regular Fodorites have very good recommendations. If you have specific type of food you would like recommendation for, i.e. Northern dishes, seafood etc, then let us know

Street food - IMO it's like eating frozen pizza vs. eating a freshly made gourmet pizza. Good for a try but the very best street food are Chinese style or Chinese infused which is not what I consider as "genuine" Thai food.

Scheps- Don't come to Thailand looking for Chinese food. Would you eat for dog food in Paris?

Edit: -for

Well said Hanuman. Street food is the Thai fast food. That said I love a hot dog from street vendors every visit to NY or Chicago. Same same IMHO

Aloha!

Here is are links to a couple of articles on Thai street food written in conjunction with David Thonmpson who is chef at Nahm in London, Europe's only Michelin starred Thai restaurant (so he should know a thing or two). The aricles are quite long, but do give a lot of detail including directions to the restaurants;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tra...cle6820368.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tra...ffset=0&page=1

crellston,

"so he should know a thing or two" that only mean that he knows how to cook fusion Thai food that would appeased the French palate. Several of my friends tried his cooking at the recent world gourmet festival(annual Four Seasons thing) in Bangkok and the were not impress. I'm sure if I were to open a Thai street food kiosk outside of his UK restaurant he would change his opinion drastically. Some of the items on his menu in the UK are Geng Gwio Warn Plaa at over 800 Baht ++, Geng hang lae at 850 Baht ++ - I wonder if that comes with rice? To come to Thailand and try to sell those dishes at 1/2 the UK prices is crazy IMO.

Anyways the OP ask for "genuine" Thai food and the articles you post the link to are for Thai-Chinese food.

Reminds me of the time I ate at Nobu in London when they first open. The waiter try to push "a very special" Japanese appetizer for 15 pounds and when I ask what it was he said "Gyoza"! I'm a big, big fan of Matsuhisa in LA and it was disappointing to see the commercialization of Nobu Matsuhisa's cooking.

You will find all kinds of Thai food in Bangkok. Yes, there is Thai "fast food" like street food and some of the mall food courts. There are also small, hole in the wall places as well as fancier Thai restaurants. There are also fusion-type restaurants, which I've mostly found to be disappointing. As noted, there are a number of Thai regional cuisines.

I don't eat street food in Bangkok. The mall food courts I've tried have been in the not-very-good to ok range. Anywhere you go, do tell them how much spice you want. Places will tone down the heat because you are a foreigner unless you say otherwise.

Here is a smattering of places I've enjoyed in my last few trips to Bangkok:

Lana Thai at Face: excellent food, including some unusual dishes, in a great atmosphere (old teak buildings) Prices are high for Bangkok, about what you might pay at an upscale Thai place in the states.

Lemongrass: I've been eating here for a couple of decades. I always enjoy the food here. The small-ish menu has interesting dishes. The chef will make old favorites upon request.

Harmonique: this is Thai food with a Chinese accent. It's an interesting setting, the food is good and relatively cheap. I ate there a month after it opened (about 8 years ago) when it was the hot new restaurant in Bangkok. We were the only non-locals. In the years since, the clientele has shifted to more and more visitors. Last time, there were only a few locals. The service ranges from ok to abysmally slow. If you go, make it all part of the experience.

Chote Chitr: a little hole-in-the-wall place that was reviewed by RJ "Johnny" Apple before his death. Hard to find, on our first visit, we wandered the area with directions written in Thai, and despite the help from many locals it still took us an hour to find it! We now have published easy walking directions here. I love the food here. The complexity of flavors is amazing. Order something you can get at home and see the difference! One of the dishes recommended by Apple is the Mee Grob, a dish I considered "Thai junk food" before eating it here. It was a revelation.

Go out and explore and find your own favorites!

On the contrary, I've had very good experience with the food courts, although the dishes can be spartanesque and lack glitz, they are good basic representations of Thai food.

Do not miss the street food, btw. If you consider yourself a run of the mill tourist not concerned about authenticity, then Kathie's suggestions above will probably suite you nicely.

Maybe someone might ask David Chang? Seems like he's had some good experiences with streetfood. There's a Q and A that Fodor's did with David Chang in the travel news section:

Fodor's: When you first started out as a chef, you spent some time in Tokyo, and you've noted that Japan changed the way you think about food. Relating that sentiment to New York City, how would you describe the dining scene here and would you call it a food culture?

David Chang: I don't know. It's not as great as it should be. I think it's great that we have all this street food but it's not like going to Southeast Asia and getting street food there. Now that would be awesome.

http://www.fodors.com/news/story_3680.html

Last year I watched an interview on Charlie Rose with David Chang and this guy really lives food.

Jeepers if we listen to Mango we are heading fast towards that "you haven't seen the real Thailnd unless" thread AGAIN Mango - Kathies suggestions are perfectly good and helpful and snidey comments amount run of the mill tourist is what makes you an a*se sometimes.

Good job on outing yourself as a ROTM tourist, Smeagol.

whatever...