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Appon’s Thai Food (www.khiewchanta.com) features a wealth of authentic and well-organised Thai recipes, written by a native Thai.

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TASTY TRAVEL

Thailand’s cuisine is intensely regional and virtually every town is associated with a specific dish not available (or at least not as tasty) outside the city limits. To help you look (and eat) like local, we’ve listed a few of the more delicious regional specialties:

Ayuthaya: gŏo·ay ěe·o reu·a (‘boat noodles’) Rice noodles served with a dark, intense spice-laden broth.

Chiang Mai: nám prík nùm and kâab mŏo (roast chilli ‘dip’ and deep-fried pork crackling) Available at virtually every market in the city, the two dishes go wonderfully together, ideally accompanied by par-boiled veggies and sticky rice.

Hat Yai: gài tôrt hàht yài This city’s namesake fried chicken is marinated in a dried-spice mixture, giving it a distinctive red hue.

Khon Kaen: gài yâhng Marinated free-range chicken (gài bâhn) grilled over hot coals – a northeastern speciality said to be best in this town.

Lampang: kôw ŧaan Sticky rice cakes made with watermelon juice and drizzled with palm sugar are a popular treat in this northern town.

Nong Khai: nam neu·ang This Vietnamese dish of balls of pork served with rice paper wrappers and a basket of herbs has found a home in northeastern Thailand.

Phetchaburi: kôw châa This odd but delicious Mon dish of chilled fragrant rice served with sweet/savoury sides is said to be best in this central Thai town.

Trang: mŏo yâhng Roast pig, skin and all, typically eaten as part of a dim sum brunch, is a speciality of this southern town.

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(CON)FUSION CUISINE

A popular dish at restaurants across Thailand is kôw pàt à·me·rí·gan, ‘American fried rice’. Taking the form of rice fried with ketchup, raisins and peas, sides of ham and deep-fried hot dogs, and topped with a fried egg, the dish is, well, every bit as revolting as it sounds. But at least there’s an interesting history behind it: American fried rice apparently dates back to the Vietnam War era, when thousands of US troops were based in northeastern Thailand. A local cook apparently decided to take the ubiquitous ‘American Breakfast’ (also known as ABF, fried eggs with ham and/or hot dogs, and white bread, typically eaten with ketchup) and make it ‘Thai’ by frying the various elements with rice.

This culinary cross-pollination is only a recent example of the tendency of Thai cooks to pick and choose from the variety of cuisines at their disposal. Other (significantly more palatable) examples include gaang mát·sà·màn, ‘Muslim curry’, a now classic blend of Thai and Middle Eastern cooking styles, and the famous pàt tai, essentially a blend of Chinese cooking methods and ingredients (frying, rice noodles) with Thai flavours (fish sauce, chilli, tamarind).

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Rice is customarily served alongside main dishes like curries, stir-fries or soups, which are lumped together as gàp kôw (with rice). When you order plain rice in a restaurant you use the term kôw lòw, ‘plain rice’ or kôw sŏoay, ‘beautiful rice’, and the grains are usually served by the plate (jahn) or in a tŏh, a large bowl, lidded to keep the rice warm and moist.

Noodles

It shouldn’t take too long in Thailand before you get your tongue around gŏo·ay ěe·o, the intimidating and all-encompassing word for noodle soup. Despite being an import from China, noodles have been entirely integrated into the Thai repertoire of foods, and for most Thais, a day hardly passes without a bowl or two.

You’ll find four basic kinds of noodle in Thailand. Hardly surprising, given the Thai fixation on rice, is the overwhelming popularity of sên gŏo·ay ěe·o, noodles made from rice flour mixed with water to form a paste, which is then steamed to form wide, flat sheets. The sheets are folded and sliced into sên yài (flat ‘wide line’ noodles 2cm to 3cm wide), sên lék (‘small line’ noodles about 5mm wide) and sên mèe (‘noodle line’ noodles only 1mm to 2mm wide). At most restaurants or vendor