When you are in this land of smile, one of the very top things that you cannot miss is to try Thai food. Thai cuisine is famous across the world. You can probably find Thai restaurants in your country, but they cannot compare to the original taste you can experience in Thailand.

Last year we posted an article of the Top 10 Must-Try Thai Food. This time, we narrowed it down to Top 5. And to make it even more exciting for you, we included a video tutorial of how to make each one of them so you can still enjoy it even when you are back home, after your travel.

1. Tom Yum Goong


Tom Yum Gung or spicy prawn soup is one of the most well-known Thai dishes. The main ingredients of Tom Yum or spicy soup include mushroom of your choices, meat of your choices, galangal, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaf. Some restaurants might also add tomatoes to add more sour flavor to the dish.

Tom Yum Gung can also be enjoyed with either clear soup or cream soup – both are delicious equally. As the name suggested, Tom Yum Gung can be a little too spicy for foreigners’ tongue. To be safe, you can request Tom Yum to be foreigner-friendly taste so that you will not end up drinking water in the fish tank.

2. Som Tam


Are you a salad lover? If yes, Som Tam might be your new favourite menu. Som Tam or papaya salad is a northeastern Thai food which is very popular among locals. Its refreshing taste will make you feel like you will never get bored of it.

Som Tam is rich in veggies. It has raw or green papaya, tomatoes, string beans, garlic, dried shrimp and chilli. All the ingredients will be mixed in the mortar and then seasoned with fish sauce, lime and coconut sugar.

Again, Som Tam is spicy and you should warn the cooker to make it less spicy. Another thing you should be careful is the hygiene as it is raw food, so pick the proper restaurant to try. Unless it is prepared by a world-class chef at one of our luxury villas in Phuket or villas in Koh Samui, or perhaps prepared by Pai from Hot Thai Kitchen, then you are certainly in good hands.

3. Pad Thai


Pad Thai or stir-fried noodle is the friendliest Thai meal for foreigners due to its sweet and sour taste. This delicious eats is influenced by Chinese noodle but later it transformed through time and became Pad Thai.

The main ingredients of Pad Thai are rice noodle, dried shrimp or prawn, chopped firm tofu, garlic, shallot and bean sprout. The key of its playful taste is the tamarind sauce which gives soft sour flavour to the noodle.

Pad Thai is not spicy, but you can always add more chilli later (at least that’s what Thai people do).

4. Massaman Curry


This aromatic Thai dish has a huge influence from Persian food. It is rich in spices with a touch of spiciness. Massaman ingredients are quite fancy, they consists of meat of your choices (chicken is the most famous one), coconut milk, onion, peanut, potatoes, bay leaves, cardamom pods, cinnamon, star anise, palm sugar, fish sauce, chili and tamarind sauce.

It goes very well with either rice or bread. Massaman is very popular among tourists that in 2011 CNNGo ranked this dish as number one in an article World’s 50 most delicious food.

5. Tom Kha Kai


Tom Kha Kai or Thai coconut soup has similar scent as Tom Yum but the taste is much softer. This is because they share several ingredients such as galangal, lemongrass, kaffir leaves lime leaves, mushrooms and chicken.

The special ingredient added in Tom Kha Kai is coconut milk which made the soup becomes milky but still easy to sip along with the meat.

Tom Kha Kai is usually not spicy but it really depends on each recipe so you can feel free to try.