Thailand Tips #12: Fried Rice w/ Chicken Might Crack a Tooth

Thai food made in Thailand is a little bit different at times. Sure it’s spicy more than most can handle, but there are other differences as well.

I used to enjoy eating Kow Pad Gy (fried rice with chicken). The place I ate it at was great - the food was delicious and prepared the same way every time. I ate there almost everyday.

Then, I moved to another city and changed restaurants - in their fried rice there are, more times than not - pieces of chicken bone hidden in the chicken because they just don’t take the time to remove the meat from the bone. They chop it all with a meat cleaver to make small pieces - but there are bone chips and large bone pieces in the chicken that will give you a surprise as you crunch down on one. I’ve known one expat to lose a tooth over this and heard more than a few gripe stories about it. Me included.

Be careful eating meat and fish as Thais don’t typically take out the bones.

Thailand Tips #11: Wrong Order in Restaurant

I notice this a LOT more in Thailand than anywhere else I’ve been. Whenever I order food - in English or in Thai - the order is frequently wrong. It’s not usually just a little wrong, it’s usually completely wrong.

It’s not like I ordered with regular rice and I got sticky rice. It’s more like I ordered Som Tam and I got Pad Thai.

Best response? If you can eat it - eat it. The waitress will lose face if you return the item. Next time you have that waitress/er make sure they repeat back what you ordered.

Thailand Tips #2: Best Beer

Personally my all-time favorite beer isn’t from Thailand, it’s “Beer Lao Dark” which god must make in Laos because there’s no way such an amazing beer comes from Asia. You can find some Beer Laos regular and dark in bars in Thailand but sometimes the flavor isn’t so great because it was transported in non-air conditioned trucks. The flavor dies in the heat. Best to get it at Chong Mek Border - the Beer Laos Brewery is within a few kilometers of the border and the beer is great tasting.

Beer Lao is imported to the states in Massachusetts and California. Finding a bar that has it might be a chore. Here’s the Beer Lao website >

Thailand expats seem to drink Heineken (Thailand brewed), Singha, Leo, and Tiger beers the most. Out of these I’d say Leo is the best of the bunch.

Beer Chang draft has been exceptional on occasion and again, I guess this relates to whether it was subjected to high heat in transit from the place of origin to the bar I’m drinking it at.

Similar to Corona Light in the states… there is some that tastes heavenly, and some that tastes and smells like they used toilet water to brew it - which I think is what happens when it sits in the sun for a few hours or days. Or weeks.

Thailand FAQ

I’ve been meaning to do a Thailand FAQ for a long time. There are many questions visitors and expats alike have about Thailand and most visitors I’m sure end up using a TH FAQ before coming to LOS. I wanted to make one that’s useful and that combines not only my knowledge but other resources as well.

Thailand FAQ is a pool of information from a number of sites - and I’ll be adding to it over today and tomorrow as well. There are many subjects that deserve a whole FAQ for themselves. The Full Moon Party was one of them.

If you have written a FAQ about some part of Thailand - the culture, attractions, anything really - shoot me a link and let me see if it will fit with this Thailand FAQ collection.

Gwit Diao - Chinese Noodle Soup… 2 Questions

I eat this soup almost daily. I just love it - it’s got protein, carbs and I don’t seem to gain weight from eating a huge bowl everyday - no matter what else I eat. For 42 months I’ve been lazy about looking it up on the internet - what is IN THIS STUFF?

First, what is in these big pork balls? They are almost the size of golf balls and I eat 5 to 8 of them with every bowl. They fill me up. They MUST have a huge fat content, but as I said - I’m not porking up (fattening up) so maybe that’s not true. Anyone know?

The other thing is - what is it about the dry pork skins they put in this stuff that makes a regular bowl of soup so damn extraordinary? What is it that’s so irresistable about dried pork skin pieces? I hate to eat fat on a slab of meat - or even fish. It makes me feel disgusting, like I’m shoveling on calories and re-appropriating the chemicals that have stored in the animal’s fat over it’s lifespan - into mine. You’ve seen the food cycle charts. The chemicals plankton eat are eaten by shrimp which are eaten by the thousands by game fish which are then eaten by the dozen each year by each fish-eating person in the world. The chemicals must be oozing out of us by the time we’re in our forties.

Anyway - one more question. What in the world is in the paste that LOOKS like Tom Yum paste, but when eaten - is obviously different. It’s spicy and has a taste of it’s own - it’s not Tom Yum paste. Is it?

That’s all - a quick note as I eat.

Thai Engrish: When Your Recipe Calls for Outrageous Ingredients

More Thai Engrish funny translations.

I was looking through a Thai travel magazine and came across something interesting in a recipe.

I was thinking the recipe might be good for the Try Thai Food blog we have on ThaiPulse! but inspection of the ingredients showed otherwise.

You’ll have to click on the picture to zoom it to full size to see which ingredient I’m talking about…

In this case the fermented shrimp paste is actually “normal” here and not the ingredient I’m referring to!

There are some great signs in Thailand that if you look you will see them and laugh hard too! I really should make more effort to take more photos of them, but usually I’m not thinking about it. I’ve gotta change that because there are hundreds just in one town.

Look for Thai Engrish in your town in Thailand. Some of the best are in restaurants…