Thailand for Foodies – Nemo Guides

hua-hin-restaurant — Hua Hin has some of Thailand’s best seafood restaurants.

If you are a dedicated foodie and looking for great culinary experiences, there are few things you should keep in mind when choosing your destination in Thailand.

Even if it is almost impossible to find bad food anywhere in Thailand, it can be surprisingly difficult to find authentic tasting Thai food in some places. In the most popular beach destinations the Thai dishes tend to be tuned down for Western tastes, and the menus are more or less copies of each other. Surrounded by the same old padthais and green curries you will have hard time experiencing the wonderful diversity of Thai food.

Gourmet-wise the top destinations are without a doubt the big cities Bangkok and Chiang Mai. That wouldn’t have been hard to guess. But if you want to find excellent food on a small paradise island, we have a surprise for you. Keep on reading.

See our Thailand Map for the locations of these Thailand’s best food destinations.

Bangkok, Culinary Heaven

In Bangkok you will find the most famous Thai restaurant in the world, Nahm, and a countless number of other finger licking delicious restaurants. Beside just Thai food Bangkok’s restaurants excel also in Japanese, Korean, Indian and even Italian cuisine.

Besides its famous street food culture, Bangkok has also lately gained reputation as a high-end gourmet destination with several restaurants awarded in Asia’s best restaurants reviews.

Delights of the Northern Cuisine

Northern Thailand has its own culinary tradition with delicacies hard to find in the rest of Thailand such as Thailand’s best noodle soup, khao soi. The best place to enjoy Northern cuisine is Chiang Mai. Northern Thailand’s biggest city is also an enjoyable place to learn cooking Thai food in its many cooking classes.

Chiang Mai is definitely a place not to be missed for foodies.

The Tastiest Beach Resort

Thailand’s best beach resort to find authentic Thai food, especially seafood, is Hua Hin close to Bangkok. Hua Hin has a number of famous seafood restaurants and the level of cooking is high, since the main customers are Bangkokians who are extremely fussy about their meals.

Please do not get turned away when you find out that the most famous restaurants are often very modest from the inside and outside. That is the Thai way; when Thais choose restaurants, they care only about the taste, not the white tablecloths.

In Phuket and Ko Samui you can find better beaches, but they cannot really compare with Hua Hin when it comes to the authenticity and quality of Thai food. Though, both Phuket and Ko Samui are good choices, if you are more in to international cuisine where they excel.

Gourmand’s Island

Tiny and remote island Ko Bulon Lee is a surprise foodie heaven. Ko Bulon Lee makes an exemption to the rule that remote, almost inhabited islands are usually not great culinary destinations (Trang islands, this is for you!).

Ko Bulon Lee’s ticket to the culinary stardom is its small sea gypsy village. The men catch fresh fish every day and the ladies cook it incredible well.

The best proof of Ko Bulon Lee’s culinary achievements is the fact that a surprisingly big share of this island’s few visitors are French. And the Frenchmen tend to have a great nose for spectacular food.