Meals in Thailand are a bit different to living in the states. Because my typical day revolves around what times I’m in/getting to class, my meals follow that schedule as well. On an average day, I have an apple for breakfast (stocked up from the local Costco-esque store,) lunch at our university, and then dinner from a stand outside of our apartments. The lunch at the university is really good, and really cheap. There are a few large cafeterias on campus with lots of options to choose from, and it’s all around $1 USD. It’s mostly Thai food, with a few other options scattered around campus. Probably my favorite thing (and every other international student’s favorite thing) about the café here is the smoothies; they are about a dollar, delicious, made directly from fruit, custom made to order, and pretty much a daily undertaking.
Dinner is typically taken from one of the stalls outside our apartment, unless we go out to eat with friends or are invited out by Thai students. The stalls are very cheap (<$1 USD) and very, very good. The options are pretty varied, but the same stalls are there every day. There’s typically an omelet stand (which is normal for Thai dinner,) curry stand, two fried chicken stands, a smoothie stand, a kebab stand, and a few others that alternate by day. My go to is Khaw Yam Gai Sep, fried chicken cut up and mixed with tons of spices and vegetables with rice, all for 30 Baht (<$1 USD.) Pretty much no one at the stands can speak English, and my Thai language class has come in incredibly helpful for ordering food (mostly with telling them that I can’t handle my food as spicy as the Thais can.)
The meal etiquette, times, structure, and way of eating varies a lot by where you are. At a stand, they give you your food in a bowl in a bag with fork and spoon, and you either sit at a plastic table outside their stand or back up to your apartment. At restaurants, it can be single dish or a large communal meal. I went out to dinner with a few Thai students that ordered everything for us, and we each had rice on our plates and passed around the other dishes. Noodles are typically eaten with a soup spoon and chopsticks while rice and other meals use a spoon and fork (fork in left hand, spoon in right.)
Choosing the most interesting or delicious local food that I’ve tried is very, very tough. I’ve had tons of new food here (chicken feet, scorpion, entire squids, sticky rice, etc,) and it’s not easy to pick a favorite. The fried chicken stand outside my apartment is fantastic just for being consistently delicious, but I also love Ka Pow Mu (stir-fried pork with basil, chilies, and rice,) Tom Yam (coconut soup) and many, many other dishes here. Most of the dishes that I get, on a student’s budget, are ones that can be made with a single dish and a set number of ingredients. There’s typically noodles, rice, chicken, pork, vegetables, eggs, sugar, chilies, fish sauce, and the dishes are a permutation of these ingredients that can be made cheaply, taste delicious, and are filling.
Another thing that Thailand does incredibly well is seafood. The seafood here is incredible, it’s prepared very differently from what I would typically find back home, and so much cheaper than back home. Entire fish on plates, seafood coconut milk soup, stir-fried prawns, whole squids on sticks. The food here is endless, and so good. One of the biggest things that I think I’ll miss from Thailand is the availability of dirt cheap, delicious, readily available food from stands pretty much anywhere you go.
Another great aspect of Thailand that doesn’t really exist much, as far as I know, in the states is night markets. I’ve been to quite a few around the country, and it’s always a great time walking around with a bunch of friends, trying loads of food that you’ve never seen before and are not entirely sure what it is. There’s so much to write about food in Thailand, so I’ll stop here. Thankfully, I took a cooking class here, and learned how to make curry, coconut soup, pad thai, and mango sticky rice, so there’s an open invite for dinner once I’m back.
