fuenf neun scaling the alps

For some reason, I had heard a lot of remarks about Thai food that generally went along the lines of, “You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten Thai food in Thailand.” It got to the point that I was under the impression that Thai food, something I’ve enjoyed for many years while living in Seattle where Thai restaurants are almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks, was some phenomenally different creation in Thailand than it is anywhere else in the world. Having lived in China for four years, where the cuisine is actually remarkably different from its incarnation anywhere else in the world, I found this completely believable. Afterall, the Thais have their own basil which is completely unlike the sweet basil that gets substituted elsewhere. It just makes sense that the food would taste different.

Well, after two weeks in Thailand, I must tell you that Thai food in Thailand tastes remarkably like Thai food in Seattle… or Denver… or Feldkirch, Austria. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still delicious (it is Thai after all), but it ain’t no Sichuan.

What is fabulous about Thailand, though, is the street food. Once I discovered it, I used every eating opportunity I had to order a papaya salad from any street vendor I could find. Freaking fantastic! I haven’t been this excited about a street food find since liang pir. Between Papaya salad and freshly made coconut ice cream, I think I could happily exist for the rest of my life with nothing else. Christian, for his part, fell in love with another Northern Thai concoction, Khao Soi, which consists of egg noodles in a thick coconut curry soup, laden with chicken, and topped with crunchy fried noodles. He was also a fan of Thai iced tea (consisting of tea, sugar, and condensed milk… Thailand must be what keeps Nestle in business with all the condensed milk they used in their tea and coffee).

Some of the most surprisingly amazing things we ran across, though, weren’t even Thai. I had the best Palak Paneer of my life in a little Thai-Indian restaurant right by the Night Market in Chiang Mai. I also came into an absolutely brilliant banana-coconut-ginger smoothie, which was just heaven on earth (as was the organic fruit and yogurt I was eating it with). And then there was this great feta-spinach wrap in a whole wheat tortilla that was so delicious, I’ve forgotten what Christian had at that meal (though I do remember that there were two monks at the restaurant). On Ko Samui, we came across some amazing seafood at a French-Thai fusion restaurant.

And then there were the bananas! There exist these little fat, ugly bananas in Thailand that are sweeter and more custardy and just better than any banana you have ever bought from the supermarket. One awesome dessert involved cutting them up and putting them in a soup of coconut milk, but they’re brilliant raw (and also fabulous in smoothies, which everyone in Thailand calls shakes for some reason).

So as far as I’m concerned, go to Thailand for the street food and the bananas, then grab a couple awesome foreign meals while you’re there. The Thai food might actually be overrated (though admittedly fifty times better than anything we can get in Dalian).