Thai cuisine is far more than simply delicious, exotic dishes — it is a genuine national treasure, part of which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage. And yet, somehow, it’s become the norm that you can’t get a truly authentic Tom Yum just anywhere. I was genuinely astonished the first time I tried this soup in Thailand — it bore almost no resemblance to what I’d eaten under the same name elsewhere. And even within Thailand itself, you won’t find the real thing everywhere you look.
Thailand has it all — from makan carts (street food trolleys) to chain restaurants and expensive Michelin-starred establishments. McDonald’s, incidentally, manages to qualify as both a chain and an expensive option here, since a Big Mac will set you back around $7. Presumably because it isn’t especially popular with locals, while tourists are perfectly willing to pay $7 for a bun with a patty in it. I only ever ordered ice cream and coffee at McDonald’s here — after a genuinely dreadful McDonald’s experience in Indonesia, I rather lost my appetite for the game of “which country does the best McDonald’s.”
And yet, for even less — a mere $5 — you can eat very happily at a local patisserie chain with sea views, a price that covers two drinks and two cakes. At a patisserie run by an actual Frenchman, the same order would cost you around $10.
Cheaper still is the food at the local markets — the Night Markets themselves. Here, full meals start from around $1.50, and portions are sometimes fit for royalty.
A Night Market is essentially a street food court on steroids. Food stalls cluster together in one spot, tables sit alongside them, there’s music playing, and often even a dance floor — every pleasure at once, as the saying goes. But a Night Market isn’t about fast food; you’ll find absolutely everything there — starters, salads, soups, mains, desserts — and across a whole range of cuisines: Thai, Russian, Italian, Indian, Japanese. Thai food here is, without question, far more authentic than in the luxury restaurants — though it’s still adapted somewhat, since a truly authentic Tom Yum or Pad Thai would hit the average European stomach like fire poured straight down the throat.
Between the Night Markets and the luxury restaurants sit various tiers of eateries — from local spots perched on plastic chairs at the edge of the pavement, right up to the genuinely upmarket. There’s also a pleasant middle ground, where the food is as good as anything luxury has to offer, the interiors are stylish and European, but the prices remain reasonably humane. By “humane,” I mean somewhere around $8–12 a dish — usually for something more familiar to us, like pizza or pasta.
I have, for instance, a couple of favourite Italian restaurants, in Pattaya and on Koh Chang, where dinner for two — two pizzas and two drinks — comes to around $20–25. And these are proper Italian pizzas too, since the restaurants are actually owned by Italians.
Then there are the restaurants on wheels: a cart mounted on a scooter, or simply pushed by hand, where the vendor usually prepares just one particular dish. Prices here run even lower than at the Night Markets, and the food leans more towards local fast food — skewers, dried squid, that sort of thing. The only thing I ever order from these carts is roti — pancakes made from layered dough, filled with banana or mango. For some reason, they’re always at their best from a cart. I once found myself, quite unexpectedly, in the middle of a genuine spy-movie chase over a plate of roti. It happened on Beach Road. I was queuing for pancakes at an elderly vendor’s cart when the police appeared on the horizon, and rather than stopping to explain anything, the old man simply grabbed his cart and bolted, shouting “Go, go!” as he ran. But I’d spent a long time waiting in that queue, and letting the old man simply vanish wasn’t remotely in my interests — so I ran after him. Local taxi drivers even cheered me on, urging me not to fall behind. In the end, the old man ducked round a corner and set up his cart to keep cooking roti directly opposite the police station.
The truest, most delicious Thai food is found well off the tourist trail — in places where nothing is adapted for visitors, though eating there does raise the odds of scorching your insides on the local chillies. Fried rice, though, is always a safe bet, since the spicy sauce is served on the side rather than mixed in. The best seafood fried rice I’ve ever eaten came from two places: a local café in Chiang Mai, so thoroughly local it didn’t even have an English menu, where the rice arrived on banana leaves laid inside woven baskets — remarkably practical, since there’s nothing to wash up afterwards. The second place I doubt I could ever find again — a roadside café in Ayutthaya. “Café” is generous: three poles stuck in the ground, a roof over them, two tables, and a kitchen. That was the entire establishment. And a Thai woman who spoke not a word of English fed me some of the most extraordinary rice I’ve ever had, for a single dollar a portion — and then gave me second helpings, unasked.
