A few days ago I was asked, which Thai dish is my favorite? In many ways this seems like a totally innocent question but being a typical woman I of course ended up spending several sleepless nights, overanalyzing this friendly question (Do I look fat since they are asking for my advice?)

I was going through every Thai dish I have ever tried, suffered hunger pains and trying to decide which one should be declared the “Ultimate Winner.” So… since I was both hungry and bored, I decided to resolve this quest in a scientific manner and invite a few of my foodie girlfriends to the local Thai restaurant and resolve this quest once and for all.

Alas… as all quests, it turned out to be much more difficult (and thankfully tasty) than anyone could imagine. Before you start thinking that I am exaggerating I should probably write a bit about Thai food in general. Imagine a cuisine, which has been influenced by all the neighboring countries, a royal society that expected the best of the best, an immense love of food and a belief and pride in a country, which wasn’t known by most of the world’s population.

Thai food is a unique mix of cultures, blended together into a cuisine which is rightfully loved and respected all around the world. Immigrants from China, India and the Middle East have each set their mark, as well as the countries surrounding Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia.

In a recent worldwide attempt to find the most beloved cuisine on the planet, Thai food was represented with 7 out of 100 dishes, the only country on the planet having so many dishes represented (take that France!). 

So, coming back to my quest: I have lived in Thailand for over a decade, and although I am definitely not on expert level, I think you have to be born and raised since childhood to reach the “pure chili level”. I do however consider myself pretty fluent in the magical language called Thai cuisine.

So, I did what every sensible woman would do, and called a couple of girlfriends to meet me for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. My plan was a scientific and well researched approach.

We arrived and started looking through the menu and immediately the first problem arose: There were over 200 dishes to choose from… After half an hour of intense discussion and many annoyed glances from the waitress, we decided on 6 dishes, which we all agreed were among our favorites.

So our quest was well on the way to a happy ending… but alas, as in most quests, unforeseen problems arose. Problems like a Tinder date the next date nearly disqualified one of the judges, since she decided that smelling like a bus full of garlic loving desert dwellers probably wouldn’t help her in her search of a soul mate and it didn’t help that the second judge had a (in my humble opinion, imaginary) allergy against lemon grass.

The food arrives.

We finally managed to decide on the 6 dishes, which actually turned into 7 dishes since we also ordered fried rice. However, since that is more of a side dish, we decided it didn’t really count. So the decisions were made and we were now sitting and waiting impatiently for our first dishes. The waiting time didn’t go to waste though since we decided that parsley was an age-old cure for garlic breath, which meant that Tinder-girl could eat all the dishes without having to worry about scaring away the guy she was meeting the next day.

I must honestly admit that I have no idea whether parsley really helps against garlic breath, but in the spirit of the quest, I decided it was a worthy sacrifice. It later turned out that the guy had gained 20 pounds and lost his hair since he updated his pictures on his profile, so the garlic breath ended up being unimportant since she ran away from him as quickly as possible.

By now the first two dishes had arrived. An unusual part about eating Thai food in Thailand is that there are no distinctions between starters and main dishes. Whatever the chef finishes first is what is brought out, so for your own sake, don’t order desserts before you finish your other dishes, or you will end up having to eat your banana split along with your soup.

Steamed fish with garlic and chili

The first dish that arrived was a whole steamed fish in a garlic, coriander, chili and lime sauce.

As you can see in the picture, it’s a spicy little devil, but the combination of flavors is simply amazing. The fish was cooked perfectly and could be pulled apart just by using a spoon and a fork, and the garlic/chili combination gave a nice punch to the subtle fish meat. It looks like a huge dish, but after removing bones and skin there is just enough for 3-4 nice sized portions. I am not entirely sure what fish it was, but we agreed that it was probably a snapper, since that’s the fish most often used in the Thai kitchen. We all enjoyed the dish, but quickly decided that it would probably not be the winner of our quest.

Spicy prawn salad

The next dish that was brought to the table was goong che nam pa, or translated to English, raw prawns in a spicy seafood sauce with bitter melon and tons of raw garlic.

This dish isn’t for beginners! The consistency of the raw prawns together with the raw garlic, the bitter melon, a very sour fruit I have never tried before I came to Thailand, and the spicy sauce will probably scare away anyone who isn’t used to food like this. But Thai people love it, and if the prawns are fresh (and cleaned!) it’s a lovely, although very spicy dish. This is definitely one of those dishes you can feel the next day when you burn in places you haven’t even thought about since the last time you had really spicy food!

Since we all prided ourselves of being experienced Thai food eaters, we all started with gusto and soon the plate was empty, and while licking our fingers, we all decided that this was a possible contender for the winning spot.

Green curry with chicken

Now a good old classic was brought to the table: green curry with chicken. This is one of the dishes that is known by most people who ever frequented a Thai restaurant, and since it’s one of the less spicy Thai dishes, it was a nice change since our mouths were now burning after the copious amounts of chili and garlic we had digested so far.

This green curry was nice, with the chicken being soft and tender, but to be honest, it was one of those dishes that doesn’t leave a memorable impression. So although it was enjoyable, we moved on to the next dish on the menu:

Thai beef salad

The next dish is called yam nua or yum nua, depending on how it’s transliterated, and is one of my personal favorites. It consists of tender, grilled beef rubbed in galangal, and served on a bed of salad, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes with a dressing made of fish sauce, lime, cilantro, chili, sugar and mint leaves.

As with all Thai food, this dish tastes different every time you get it, but this dish was a success. The beef was grilled nicely, perhaps a tad too long in my opinion, but the meat was still tender and juicy and the dressing, although spicy, wasn’t so spicy that it overpowered the taste of the other ingredients. As a woman who is constantly on diet, this is one of my go-to dishes, as it’s easy to make and it’s both healthy and low in calories.

Normally this dish would probably be among my personal winners, but since the meat was a tiny bit overcooked, we decided that it belonged in the top but wouldn’t get the winning spot.

While we were enjoying the beef, one of the most famous Thai dishes had been brought to the table:

Tom yam kung

This soup is by the Thais considered to be the king of soups and well, I must agree that it is a spectacular dish. This spicy/sour shrimp soup has a unique taste and is also considered one of the healthiest dishes in Thai cuisine because of the many herbs in the soup. The soup consists of lemon grass, kaffir-lime leaves, galangal, chili and coriander, and is served with prawns, tomatoes and small mushrooms with a dash of coconut cream added at the end.

Not much was said while we were eating this soup. Not because it wasn’t amazing, but because we were all too busy shoveling it inside us. It was simply a heavenly dish, each mouthful an exquisite pleasure. I have tried many variations of this soup but this one was one of the best I’ve ever had. I am not sure if it was the soup itself or the fact that it was pretty cold outside, well cold in Thai standards, around 28 degrees Celsius since its monsoon season, but we all agreed that this dish was so far the best we had had that day. Did we find our winner?

Before we could make this important decision, we had to try our last dish. By now we were all pretty full, our mouths were burning, and we had all finished telling each other about our worst Tinder experiences, so with the last dish of the day came some sort of relief.

Stir-fried pork with holy basil

The last dish of the day was another Thai classic, pad krapow moo. This is a very popular dish and can be bought in almost every street restaurant around Thailand. It can be made with almost any kind of meat including chicken, pork, beef, lamb or duck, and since it only takes around 10 minutes to mix together, it’s a stable in most Thai people’s life.

As with most Thai dishes, it’s spicy and the main ingredients are minced meat, holy basil leaves, garlic and chili fried with soy sauce, oyster sauce and fish sauce.

We choose the pork variation, since we hadn’t had anything with pork yet. It was delicious, but by now we all just had a major overdose of chili and we were so full that we could hardly stuff another spoonful inside our mouths.

I do, however, understand the popularity of the dish. I guess it can be called the Bolognese of Thailand. It’s easy to make, cheap, and loved by everyone. The taste is unique, with holy basil definitely dominating the dish, so if you ever want to taste one of the most beloved and common dishes in Thailand, this one is a clear contestant.

It was, however, not our favorite. Perhaps if we had it earlier or ordered less food (yeah like that is ever going to happen) it would have ranked among the top dishes.

The final verdict

So after several hours of hard work, we had finally eaten our way through 6 typical Thai dishes, and it was now time to decide which one we considered the best Thai dish.

We all went through our notes and then discussed our thoughts and opinions, again to the distinct displeasure of our waitress who was hovering around with our bill, and whom we all ignored totally, not being ready to leave before the final decision was made. To be fair, the restaurant wasn’t too busy at the time, and we had ordered a lot, so we didn’t feel guilty at all.

In the end we decided that the winner would be either the raw prawns or the tom yam kung. Both dishes tasted amazing, were healthy, and were filled with unique Thai flavors. In the end the decision was unanimous. The winner was: Tom yam kung!

This soup simply had it all, and although we all love spicy food, a lot of the dishes were a tad too spicy for our tender, western palates. The tom yam kung, although it also packed a punch, was more subtle than the fiery prawns, and that was why we decided it deserved the winning spot.

So mission accomplished. We paid our bill, left a nice tip to our, not that patient, waitress (who suddenly adored us) and went home with our bellies filled, terrible garlic breaths, and with the happy feeling you have when you have had a nice afternoon with good friends and amazing food.

*All images are author's own*