What to eat in Thailand, and where

The centre, around Bangkok, gives you the dishes you already recognise: coconut curries, pad thai, tom yum. The north is milder, herbal and built on sticky rice, with Burmese and Shan influence. Isaan, the northeast, is sour, salty, dried-fish funky and genuinely hot, and it is where som tam and larb actually come from. The south is the hottest cooking in the country, coconut-rich, turmeric-yellow and shaped by Malay and Muslim kitchens.

If you eat the same six dishes in all four regions you will have had a good holiday and missed the point.

Bangkok and the central plains

Central Thai cooking is the diplomatic one: balanced rather than extreme, sweeter than the other three, and the source of most of what has travelled abroad.

Order these. Pad kaphrao, minced pork or chicken fried hard with holy basil and chilli, served over rice with a fried egg on top, which is the national working lunch and costs two or three dollars. Khao man gai, poached chicken over rice cooked in the stock, with a ginger and fermented soybean sauce that is the whole dish. Boat noodles, small intense bowls of dark beef broth eaten three or four at a time. Kuay teow reua and guay jab, a peppery rolled noodle soup in Chinatown. Tom yum goong, which is better here than anywhere. And moo krob, crisp pork belly, which is the correct thing to order when you cannot decide.

Where. Chinatown, Yaowarat, after dark, on foot, on a weekday rather than a Saturday. Or Wang Lang market across the river on the Thonburi side, which is where Bangkok eats when there are no visitors around. Our three days in Bangkok by neighbourhood sets out where the eating fits into the rest of the city.

The overrated one. Pad thai. It is a fine dish and it is not a great one, it was popularised as a nationalist project in the 1930s and 1940s, and it occupies a place on tourist menus wildly out of proportion to what Thai people actually eat. Order it once, from a stall with a queue, and then order something else.

Chiang Mai and the north

Northern Thai food, ahaan neua, is the cooking most likely to change what a visitor thinks Thai food is. It is herbal and savoury rather than sweet, it uses far less coconut milk, and it is eaten with sticky rice rolled into a ball in your right hand and used as a scoop.

Order these. Khao soi, a curried egg noodle soup with crisp noodles on top, pickled mustard greens and shallot on the side, which is the dish people fly back for and costs around three dollars. Sai ua, a coarse grilled herb sausage with lemongrass and kaffir lime. Nam prik ong and nam prik num, two chilli relishes eaten with steamed vegetables and pork crackling. Larb khua, the northern version, which is dry-fried and dark with spices rather than sour. Gaeng hang lay, a slow pork belly curry with ginger and tamarind that shows the Burmese border clearly.

Where. The lanes north of the old city moat, and the markets: Chang Phueak for khao kha moo late at night, and Ton Payom for a daytime spread. A morning market visit with a guide who can explain what is on the tables is one of the three or four guided things in Thailand we think is genuinely worth the money.

Isaan, the northeast

Isaan is the least visited third of Thailand and the sharpest food in it. Lao in origin, built on sticky rice, fermented fish, lime, dried chilli and grilled meat.

Order these. Som tam, green papaya pounded in a mortar, and specify the version: som tam thai is the sweeter tourist-facing one, som tam pu pla ra with fermented fish and salted crab is what it is supposed to taste like and it is confronting the first time. Larb, minced meat with toasted rice powder, mint and lime. Gai yang, grilled marinated chicken. Nam tok, grilled pork sliced into a sour dressing. Sai krok Isaan, the fermented rice sausage, which is sour and excellent.

Where. You do not need to go to Isaan to eat it, and you should. Isaan migration means the best som tam in Bangkok is often at a cart outside a construction site. But eating it in Ubon Ratchathani or Khon Kaen, with the Mekong nearby and a bag of sticky rice hanging from your wrist, is a different experience and a reason to give Thailand a third week.

Heat warning, honestly given. Isaan food is hot in a way that central Thai restaurant food usually is not. Ask for it phet noi, a little spicy, the first time. Nobody will think less of you.

The south

Southern Thai cooking is the hottest in the country and the most underrepresented abroad. Turmeric, black pepper, fresh chilli, coconut, and a substantial Muslim tradition along the Andaman coast and towards the Malaysian border.

Order these. Gaeng tai pla, a fermented fish kidney curry that is fierce and one of the great dishes of the country if you can take it. Khua kling, dry-fried minced meat with a pounded curry paste and no liquid at all. Gaeng som, a sour orange curry, usually with fish. Massaman, which is the gentle Muslim curry everyone knows, and it is genuinely southern. Roti with condensed milk from a street griddle, and khao yam, a southern rice salad with toasted coconut and a fermented fish dressing, both of which are breakfast.

Where. Phuket old town, which is Sino-Portuguese and has a Hokkien food tradition of its own, including moo hong and the noodle dish mee hokkien. Trang, further south, for its dim sum breakfast culture. Krabi town’s night market rather than the resort strip.

How to order

• Thai meals are shared and arrive when they are ready. Order for the table, expect the dishes in no particular order, and do not treat the first arrival as a starter.
• Rice is the meal. The dishes are what you eat with the rice, not the other way round. Order roughly one dish per person plus one.
• The condiment caddy is not decoration. Fish sauce with chilli, dried chilli flakes, sugar and vinegar with chilli sit on most tables and you are expected to adjust your own bowl. Noodle soups in particular arrive deliberately under-seasoned.
• Spoon and fork, not chopsticks. The spoon does the eating, the fork pushes food onto it. Chopsticks are for noodle dishes of Chinese origin.
• Say the level. Mai phet is not spicy, phet noi is a little spicy, phet mak is very. Getting this wrong once is a rite of passage. Getting it wrong at a genuine Isaan stall is a lost evening.

What street food actually costs, and whether it is safe

Both questions have short answers. A plate of pad kaphrao is two to three dollars, a bowl of khao soi around three, a market dinner for two with drinks ten to sixteen. A sit-down dinner for two at a good local restaurant with beer is twenty to thirty. See what two weeks in Thailand really costs for the full picture.

On safety: high turnover is the rule that matters. A stall with a queue of Thai customers is cooking fresh and selling out daily. The genuine risks are the ice at an empty place, pre-cut fruit that has been sitting out, and shellfish at a quiet beach restaurant.

Dietary requirements, said honestly

Vegetarians need advance work rather than optimism. Fish sauce and shrimp paste are in almost everything, including most curry pastes and most dishes a menu calls vegetarian. The word that works is jay, which is closer to vegan and is widely understood, and yellow jay signage marks vegan-friendly stalls.

Serious peanut and shellfish allergies must be communicated in Thai, in writing. Peanuts in particular are used as a garnish and in pastes in ways that are not visible on the plate. Our partner team in Thailand briefs the restaurants we book in advance, which is a better system than a translation card and a hope.

The one class worth taking

Cooking classes in Thailand range from excellent to a set of pre-measured plastic bowls in a room. The ones worth thirty-five to fifty-five dollars start at a market, explain what the ingredients are and why the paste is pounded rather than blended, and let you cook four things you would actually make again. We book two or three specific schools and refuse the rest, and Chiang Mai has the best of them. Food and culture, 13 days is built around the four regional kitchens rather than around one class.

Plan this trip

Tell us how you like to eat and we will build the route around it, including the markets, the two or three classes worth taking and the restaurants our partner team books by phone. Free first proposal, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Thailand: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Three days in Bangkok, by neighbourhood
• What we would skip in Thailand
• Food and culture, 13 days
• Classic Thailand in 14 days
• All our Thailand trips

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