Thai food goes West...

It's been almost a week that I had Thai meal every day in the restaurant, didn't happen that often, as my boyfriend's family visited us in Thailand and they're craving for Thai food. We went to all different Thai restaurant and I was still kind of surprised with all the different outcome.

First night in Phuket we had a Thai dinner at a hotel. All the dished that I ordered turned out to be great and the service was also fantastic. I didn't expect Thai food in the hotel restaurant would be that good since most of them is a bit let down because they try to impress foreigner by making more of the western taste; less hot, more mild and sometime even more creative but just only a few times that it would actually work. The food filled up the table and so did our stomach but we all, especially me, were happy about how tasty the food was. Second night we went down to Surin beach to find another good Thai dinner and we found "Twin Brother". We passed all fancy good decorative restaurant just to stop at this simple wooden table with simple decoration. Their waiters are so friendly, not that kind of aggressive friendly, and helpful. The food was nicely cooked with a touch of local taste and not Western taste at all beside that I asked them to put less chilli but it still taste wonderful. Our bellies were full and happy again, mission accomplished.

One morning his dad asked me if Thai people eat like that every morning since he saw me had fried noodle, boiled rice, rice with curry and some fried veggie. I said we don't have much time to eat a big breakfast like that any more but yes we could eat everything for breakfast. His parent thought it's really a good idea since breakfast is the most important meal of the day so they also tried a little bit of everything as well.

I have to admit that I am so lucky that my boyfriend and his family are not the fussy eater or else I would possibly get a migraine trying to figure out what and where to eat. Everything that I ordered they tried and even liked it. On Sunday we went to one of our favorite restaurant called "Cafe Chilli" in Siam Paragon shopping mall, he ordered som tum pu pla-ra and tum tang (both his favorite). For Thai people, they are impressed and overwhelm with his appetite as you won't see much of foreigner will take Pla-ra pretty well. That meal I asked for a little mild food because I didn't want to burn their and my tongue like I accidentally did the day before at the Deck at Arun Residence but they are still keeping their standard by constantly providing a good food whether it's mild or not, impressive.

For your information: Pla ra (Thai: ปลาร้า [plaː ráː]) is fermented fish sauce, popular in Northeastern Thai cuisine. It is made by pickling several varieties of fish, mainly Snakehead Murrel (Channa striata) and herring. The fish is cleaned and cut into pieces, after which it is mixed with salt and rice bran. The whole is then left in a big jar covered with a wooden lid, to ferment for three months to a year. Thanks to Wikipedia.

It was my 3rd time at the Deck by Arun Residence but it was my first time that I really tasted their food. My boyfriend and I didn't expect that it's gonna be that spicy so we ordered 3 kind of spicy salad and seriously they did burn my tongue. So imagine how they would feel like with these spicy dished. We all did wipe some tears that evening. Another disappointment include in that hot moment, we chose Arun Residence for our dinner destination as it's well known for their breathtaking scenery at dawn opposite to "Temple of the Dawn" so of course we expected sunset just by the famous temple. But since it was rain earlier so we were out of luck that evening for both dishes and dawn.

First night in Bangkok we took them to China Town to the most famous Seafood in that area. That food stall has never failed yet. Food was great and it was amazingly quick to serve 6 starving adults before we got hungrily mad. I could order more dished but considering that I haven't been to the gym for a while, I shall better stop eating for the night *sigh*.

We had a couple more Thai meal which was ok but like I said before, some restaurant's tended to impress foreigner by decreasing the real Thai flavor. I understand it can be hard to keep the taste with less spiced. Do we really need to do that? We've almost lost our character and the flavor when we put our proud Thai dishes into the world just to keep up with foreigner's standard. Do we desperately need to do that? Some food stall or restaurant even have to add carrot into Thai menu; for stir fried vegetable, I can accept but not in some curry or everything.

You can be so creative but you also have to know where you're came from. Don't loose your character just because people will appreciate you more. Be yourself and let them appreciate who you truly are.

Live & Love

Yosita Anita V.f