Usually tourists are afraid of eating pavement food in Thailand. However, if the stall is clean, you should not hesitate to try out some house specialties. In fact, the best and most authentic dishes of Thailand can be tasted at pavement stalls. The basic Thai meal has rice, soup, a steamed dish, fried dish, fruit and salad. You will get the same food even at a stall along the pavements and it will be lip smackingly delicious! The dishes are all served at once and there is no particular order in which to eat. The locals eat the food with a fork and spoon. The fork is used for pushing the food into the spoon. They have soup all through the meal. Salt and pepper is hardly on the tables, but they have ‘phrik nam pla’, which is a fish sauce with added lime juice. This sauce is always served with meals.

The spices used in Thai cuisine are usually garlic and coriander. These are the basic spices used in Thai cooking. Then comes salt and pepper followed by chilies. The cook can add any spice which he may think will enhance the flavor of the dish. The salads of Thailand are not at all similar to western salads. Thai salads include cabbage, raw vegetables and cucumber pieces. The country has many regions and every region has its own specialty. In places like Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son and Chiang Rai, you can have unique dishes like fried grasshopper and field rat. Of course, it would require a strong disposition and stomach. In Isram, the food is in Laos style and you can get food like fermented black crabs with sticky rice and also the papaya salad. If you go down along the Malaysian border, you can have the hot and spicy curries. The dishes have cashew nuts and also coconut milk. You can drink anything you want along with Thai food. Beer and whiskey are preferred by the locals though.

Thai food is by now fairly well known in many parts of the world and this is due to several reasons. Before explaining why this is so it is important to first say that the term Thai food is hard to define because there are so many varieties of Thai food to consider. This itself is due to several factors, the most important being the fact that the population of Thailand is made up of many different ethnic groups. Since all ethnic groups have food that is particular unto themselves this has given Thailand a very large base of cuisines to work with and defining a national cuisine is therefore a bit difficult.

Examples of different regional cuisines in Thailand include the deep southern dishes that have their roots in the Muslim-Malay cuisine of northern Malaysia, the far northwestern dishes that come from the Chiang Mai and Chiang areas with their hill tribe influences, the dishes of Isaan in the northeast that have Lao and Khmer roots and the many dishes in the central area of the country and in Bangkok that have numerous Chinese influences.

Thus, Thai cuisine is a true melting pot of influences, ingredients and cooking styles and this has created a national cuisine that has hundreds and hundreds of different dishes that draw on these varied roots. This is one of the reasons, as mentioned above, that Thai food is so well know around the world and so popular. There are so many different dishes and flavors associated with Thai cuisine that it always appears fresh and interesting to diners the world over. This variety undoubtedly contributes greatly to the universal appeal of Thai cuisine.

Another reason for the popularity of Thai food is the perception that it has of being healthy, at least healthier than most western cuisines. This is due mainly to the extensive use of rice and vegetables in many dishes as well as chicken and seafood. Pork is popular in many dishes too, and is also used in many decidedly unhealthy ways, such as very fatty sausages, but beef is not as prevalent. Also, many of the herbs and spices that are used have healthful qualities. So, overall, Thai food is quite healthy and with the trend towards healthier eating in the past several years this has contributed to its popularity all over the world.