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​​​Pailin Thai Restaurant

​Something you should know about Thai Dishes

Thai cooks have never been in the habit of recording measurements or ingredients nor times of cooking. They cook by experience and "feel" and the art is handed down in families, and amongst close friends, and by practice.

The Thais make much use of condiments in their food. Typical seasonings are, sauces and flavourings such as fish sauce (Nam Pla), Shrimp paste (Ka Pi), curry powder, soy sauce, coconut milk and cream, tamarind, limes, and many kinds of spices, including cardamon, coriander, anise, and other seeds, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. We would like to point out that none of our recipes contain Monosodium Glutamate other than found naturally occurring in tomatoes, cheese and other foods.  We do not add any other chemical additives what so ever. 

These highly seasoned dishes are locally called "with the rice" dishes, for rice is the main dish, being to the Thais what bread is to Western tastes. For centuries, the Thais have naturally enriched their polished rice by serving it with their many sauces and condiments, some of which are exceedingly rich in vitamins and proteins. For instance, fresh tamarinds and limes are rich in vitamin C, and other naturally healthy vitamins. Shrimp paste is almost all protein.

A proper Thai meal consists of steamed rice with Gaeng Chued (a clear soup), a steamed dish, a fried dish, a Yam (Salad), and Krueng Jim a very strong hot sauce served as a dip for vegetables and fish. To follow, at least two kinds of dessert, one of which should be liquid and the other dry, and finally fruit.

People rarely eat this much now, and certainly not three times a day as they used to. Breakfast is usually Kao Tom, is rice cooked in twice the normal amount of water so that it is soft and soupy, in fact a rice porridge or "Congee" as the Chinese call it. This Kao Tom, can be cooked with chicken or pork or fish or served plain with an egg dish, or salted fish and pickles. Lunch is a light meal of noodles or fried rice. The main meal, one of rice with two or three dishes, is eaten in the evening. The dishes are not courses and are served all at the same time with a plain steamed rice. You are meant to take a mouthful of this and a mouthful of that, some rice in between, in whatever order you like, enjoying the different tastes and textures of each mouthful.

From the management and staff of the Pailin Thai Restaurant.... Enjoy.