vegetrian food in thailand?
 

my bf and i will be coming to Thailand on our honeymoon at the end of this month. we will spend some time each at BKK, CM and KS.

We are vegetarian, and had been counting on eating lots of vegetables and fruits during our stay.

I just read some indications on other posts that we cant eat fresh salad in thailand (!!!) due to the water... wow, i hadnt though of that!
are there any strictly vegetarian resturants we can find? or vegan?

please advise!!!

Common advice in any country with questionable water supplies is to avoid uncooked foods like salads.

You will need to eat in higher end places if you plan to stick with salads.

The thai people have a lot of vegetarian foods. My veggie daughter had no problem eating there, although we often found broths were meat or fish based.

Fruits that are peeled are usually safe as well.

Thank you Lcuy for the post...

we know we can most likely walk into any restaurant and just order something vergetarian, but we really dont like doing that in order to avoid the chance of it actually containing meat or seafood...

are there any straight up "vegetarian" or "vegan" restauurants? or is that something hard to find?

i dont need names and locations... just an indication if it will be somehting we can locate while there...

(for instance, we had a hard time finding places we wanted to eat at in Paris - go figure...), so just like "yeah, you'll find no problem" or "u better research them NOW"...!!
thanx!

We don't eat meat either, but do eat fish, so that makes it easier. However, my daughter isn't a big fish fan. In Thailand, she's really happy with fruit, vegetables and salads, tofu. We had no problem at all getting pad thai made without meat, fish and fish sauce...asking for just cooked noodles with sauce on the side worked in places that couldn't understand no fish sauce.

Many say not to eat raw veggies and to peel your own fruit. We followed that regime religiously when our daughter was younger, and we all had some stomach trouble. The last few trips, we threw caution to the wind and ate whatever we wanted. We still had some mild stomach problems, but nothing bad. Our daughter did get very sick, but we're 99% sure that was from swimming with elephants over and over, mouth wide open, ingesting some of the very unclean water the elephants were bathing in.

How much risk you are willing to take with food though is really up to you. You'll hear that eating even one lettuce leaf will land you in the hospital, and you'll hear that someone ate only cheap street food and weren't at all ill. We eat lots of vegetables and fruits during our trips. I eat salad every day, sometimes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Eating in high end places doesn't guarantee you won't get sick. Eating street food doesn't guarantee you will get sick.

We did a custom cooking class in Chiang Mai where vegetarian food was specially included, as well as not so common foods. The regular class menus can also be made vegetarian. The food at elephant camp was also prepared for our daughter vegetarian, no problem.

There is always Indian and Italian. A family we met in Chiang Mai had trouble keeping Kosher, and ordered pizza every night for one of their children. He was thrilled, and it contained no meat/fish. You could also get only veggie toppings, no cheese, no problem.

I don't think you'll have any trouble really.

Hi,
in Bangkok, the Whole Earth restaurant (if it's still there) on Soi Langsuan has an extensive vegetarian section to its menu.
Around Sukhumvit Soi 3 - Little Arabia - there are many Indian and Middle Eastern restaurants - the Indian ones also have vegetarian dishes.

You might find these links helpful.
http://www.happycow.net/asia/thailand/bangkok/

http://www.dininginthailand.com/restaurant18.asp

http://www.thebackpacker.net/travela...k_articles.htm

The Blue Elephant I know does a vegetarian course menu.

Although fish sauce is used in a lot of Thai cooking, you can find "strictly vegetarian" food, meaning there is no fish, chicken or meat stock used in the cooking. Thais are Buddhists and many are strict vegetarians themselves. For some restaurant suggestions, and a helpful pronunciation guide for saying things like "no fish sauce", take a look at http://www.happycow.net/asia/thailand/.
If you don't want to try the language bit, you should have your hotel write down in Thai words to the effect that you are a vegetarian and do not want your vegetable dishes cooked with any fish, chicken or meat sauce, stock or fat.

As Cicerone says, many Thais are vegetarian, so you'll find that restaurants will gladly make vegetarian food for you. There are a few vegetarian restaurants around, but there is no need to confine yourselves to those.

You can pull up my travel report by typing in "Siam Ocean World" in the SEARCH box and scroll down until you get to the area where I talk about Tamarind Cafe in Bangkok which is has absolutely delicious food. I vacation in Bangkok regularly and was there for three weeks in Dec/Jan and this restaurant was one of the best. It's vegetarian/vegan. For 30 years I've been vegetarian/vegan/macro, but I keep the fish in...I guess from being macro for so many years.Plus I like the taste. So,when in Bangkok, I have to be careful not to get meat/poultry or meat/poultry broths mixed up into my food since the system just can't handle it anymore. Happy Travels!

By the way, three of us, from the forum, will be having lunch at Tamarind Cafe on Sept 3. If you want to join us, let us know. Happy Travels!

Correction...September 02nd, not the third. It's a Saturday. Happy Travels!

Hey guys, thanx for the info!! Guenmai - we will actually be in CM on sep. 2, but have made a note about Tamarind Cafe as you suggested...

Indeed, we originally planned on eating anywhere, but mainly fresh salads... but when i read on fodors that u cant eat fresh vegies in thailand, i freaked!
so, we will prefer the vegetarian / vegan restauratnts, as that clears us of having to explain taht we dont want any fish or meat/poultyr based sauces in our foods, which will not be an easy task as we dont speak the language - and as Guenmai indicates - stomache cant handle it any more! LOL

thanx guys - i can always count on you! i will keep questions coming if needed, otherwise will post how our trip is progressing! cant wait! 3 more weeks!

KimJapan, Thnx for the links! the happycow site is informative, we will print the pages and take them along!

Have a great trip. Happy Travels!

I'm not vegetarian, but could easily have been while in Thailand! My very favorite dish was mixed vegetables. I don't recall seeing restaurants that were strictly vegetarian, but pretty much everywhere has vegetarian options. Fruit is also awesome (and especially fruitshakes)!

Actually very few Thais are vegetarian, all the vegetarian restaurants I've been in are run by Chinese Thais. In Thai vegetarian food is called AHARN JAE and a vegetarian restaurant is called RAHN AHARN JAE. These restaurants are found mostly in the heavily Chinese populated areas - BKK, Phuket, HatYai, Chonburi for example. Many regular Thai restaurants will prepare food specifically for vegetarians once they are fully aware, so I suggest you master saying AHARN JAE or have a Thai write it for you.

Go to this site, you can copy and print out a card in Thai:

http://www.suk11.com/allergy.htm

Thanks to Anil at SukII Bkk.

We all wish you the best on your honeymoon and for many years of good traveling.

Have you had the Hepatitis A immunization? That would relieve some concern about foods, especially salads. ((*))

You should not eat any uncooked food unless it's a banana or something like it that has been peeled (by you).However, you should have no problem getting cooked vegetarian food.