This is mussels fried in a batter with egg (hoi tod). It is very crispy which is the way I like it. Normally it is a bit gooey and undercooked. Best eaten with Sriracha spicy sauce. The shops that sell Hoi Tod often also cook Pad Thai.

If you enjoy eating Thai food like myself then you probably have dozens of Thai cook books at home. Another kind of book that I have is for Bangkok restaurant reviews. However, what I am most interested in these days is Thai Street Food. Luckily, there are a few good books out there on this subject. Most notably the beautiful book by David Thompson: Thai Street Food. I have already bought that massive book from amazon.com as well as another wonderful book called Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls by Chawadee Nualkhair.

Although I love these two books, they are not exactly the kind of book that I have been hunting for. The former devotes a lot of space to recipes and the latter to restaurant reviews. What I have always wanted is the ultimate guide to Thai street food. I am sure other people feel the same. Most people only eat a rotation of about four or five different dishes. This is mainly because they are nervous about ordering something new or unknown. What has been desperately needed is a guide to buying street food.

Well, the wait is now over. Mark Wiens from eatingthaifood.com has just launched an extensive ebook called “The Eating Thai Food Guide” which you can download now from his website. I had already started writing and photographing my own Thai Street Food book. But, I think that Mark has done such a comprehensive and thorough book on how to order Thai street food that there is probably no longer a need for me to continue. I have been reading through his book the last few days and it has just about everything, if not more, of what I would have put in such a book.

Any good food guide must have pictures. And plenty of them. I am not talking about the studio shot pictures that we usually see in the cook books. I mean food pictures shot on location. The Eating Thai Food Guide is filled with colourful pictures on every page. Mark gives you a number of suggestions of meal combinations that you can order as well as information on individual dishes. He has also done pictorial lists of the most popular Thai street food as well as his own personal favourites. If you are an expat living in Thailand, a tourist visiting the Kingdom, or a foodie that has already fallen in love with Thai food, then I highly recommend that you download the Eating Thai Food Guide today. You won’t regret it.

Egg Noodles with wonton (บะหมี่เกี๊ยว ba mee gieow)

Squid with fried garlic (ปลาหมึกยัดไส้ผัดกระเทียม pla meuk yat sai pat gratiam)

Noodle Soup with Pork balls (ก๋วยเตี๋ยวหมู Guay Teow Moo)

Stir-fried Bamboo Shoot with Chicken (ผัดหน่อไม้ไก่ Pat Nor Mai Gai)

Soup with Squid (ต้มจืดกระหล่ำปลีใส่ปลาหมึก Tom Jeut Gra Lam Plee Sai Pla Meuk)

This is Bamee Gieow Gung (บะหมี่เกี๊ยวกุ้ง) which is egg noodle soup with shrimp wonton. The wontons usually have pork and a dish like this would cost about 35 baht. However, shrimp is more expensive and this was 50 baht.

This is one of my favourite Thai desserts. It is called Khanom Tuay (ขนมถ้วย). I bought it at Wat Takien Floating Market. However, you can buy it from almost everywhere. Ingredients are basically rice flour, coconut milk and sugar. The recipe does vary a bit. I prefer the one with the second green level which comes from the juice of the pandanus leaf. The lady here told me that she steams them for only 5 minutes.

When I walk home home for lunch I always pass this lady selling fruit from a cart. She takes the same route each day and we often meet at the same place. Today I chose papaya (มะละกอ ma-la-gor) which cost only 20 Baht. It is very cheap and convenient as she has already peeled the fruit for you. But, on a hot day, make sure that you buy in the morning as the fruit might spoil if out in the sun all day.

Thailand is famous for its food. It is one of their best exports. You can now find Thai food in almost every country. It is popular with people who haven’t even visited Thailand yet. And when they do come to Thailand, one of the first things they will most likely want to do is try some of the authentic Thai food. Ask anyone who has ever been to Thailand what their highlight was, they will most likely include Thai Food in their top five. It is certainly one of things that I like most about Thailand.

Thai food is every. Almost every street corner has a collection of food stalls. Many shop houses also sell food on the ground floor. However, for the newcomer, ordering genuine Thai street food may be a bit daunting. Just take a look at the menus on the wall of this food shop. Everything is in Thai. You will also find that many of the food vendors don’t speak much English. Of course, you could just try and point to what you want, but quite often, all that is on show are the ingredients.

This is where the people at the newly formed Bangkok Food Tours come to your rescue. They have tailored made walking tours of Bangkok where they give you an easy introduction to Thai street food. At the moment, they have put together two different tours: “Historic Bang Rak Food Tasting & Culture Tour” and “Chinatown Foodie Walk & Culture Tour”. I joined the Bang Rak tour the other day and had a really great time. It was a new area for me and I will certainly be going back on my own to explore some more.

For this tour, we met our guide, Jan, at the exit for BTS Saphan Taksin. She gave us a fact sheet with information on the five places that we would be sampling food as well as a map of the local area. Handy if you want to come back by yourself to try the food again or something else on the menu. On the fact sheet there were also some useful phrases to help you when meeting food vendors. In the picture above, you can see some of the food that we tried. Each time we were only given a small portion so we never filled up at one place.

During the food tour we stopped at five different places to sample the food. There was enough of a gap between food shops to give us time to digest the food. The walking tour took 3 hours in total and the route was about 1.9 kilometres long. There was about 350-400 meters between each stop. The tour started along Charoen Krung Road and at one point we crossed the Chao Phra River briefly to eat papaya salad on the other side. We also walked up Silom Road into Bangkok’s business district.

One of the things that I liked about this walking tour was that it was more than just Thai food. We also had an opportunity to learn about the culture and history of the area. For example, Jan told us that Charoen Krung Road was the first road in Bangkok. She showed us some old pictures so that we could see what it used to be like. She did the same when we reached Assumption Church. Another stroke of genius was the use of personal ear pieces for each person on the tour. This allowed us to hear our guide even if we lagged behind a bit to take pictures.

If you want an easy introduction to Thai street food then I would highly recommend that you join one of the Bangkok Food Tours. You will not only be introduced to some great dishes, eight in total, you will also learn how to order the food for yourself. The knowledgeable tour guide will help answer any of your questions about how to eat Thai food. Visit their web site at Bangkok Food Tours for more information and to book a tour. If you are still not sure about joining the tour, then check out some of the reviews over at Trip Advisor. I think all of them agree that it was very worthwhile.