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Thai cuisine reflects the geographic location of Thailand. Having China on the north, In-donesia and Malaysia on the South, and India on the West, it contains elements of all these regional cuisines. Reminiscent of the Chinese cuisine is the impor-tance of soups and noodles in Thai cooking; Indian and Indonesian influence is felt in the curry dishes; with Indonesia, Thailand shares peanut sauce.

When describing Thai cuisine in English, one first encounters a technical problem. Like China and Japan, Thailand has its own script. But as Thailand is of less importance internationally, there is no standard transliteration into Roman letters. As a result there appears to be a lot of divergence in the menus of Thai restaurants even if they serve the same dishes. To give just one example: wide flat rice noodles (practically the same as the Chinese Ho Fan) are listed in Thai restaurants in Metro Manila as Gwaytio and also as Kui Tiao; spring rolls appear on Thai menus as Porpia or Popiah.

But not only the transliteration causes a problem when classifying Thai dishes; the system of how dishes are named in Thailand doesn't make the job an easy one. While in Western cuisine many dishes have proper names such as "Wiener Schnitzel" or "Lobster a la Thermidor", dishes are named in Thai rather in a generic manner - as a sequence of the words for the ingredients used. And that leaves some leeway for individual name creations. Sauted broccoli with beef and oyster sauce, for ex-ample, is listed on Thai menus in Manila as Pad Kanar Nua Nam Man Hoi or as Neau Naman Hoi.

The dishes in Thai restaurants are more similar to each other than the transliteration of Thai into Roman letters used in the restaurants. And Thai dishes are so unique in the world that it is always easy to classify them correctly even in blind tests. The uniqueness of Thai cuisine comes primarily from the predominant spice combination which is sour and hot - a combination hardly found in any other cuisine of the world.

The sour and hot combination results from two ingredients frequently used in the preparation of Thai food: lemon grass for the mild sour taste, and curry paste or chili for the hotness. The most famous hot and sour Thai dish is Tom Yum Goong, a shrimp soup with a resemblance to the Philippine Sinigang (which, however, gets its sourness not from lemon grass but from tamarind). In Thailand herself Tom Yam soup accompanies most meals.

Soups anyway occupy an important position in Thai cuisine - a fea-ture it shares with Chinese cuisine. Actually, cheap Thai meals often consist mostly of a soup, prepared in Bangkok and other Thai cities in countless street kitchens. Taken as a meal in itself, however, one doesn't choose a Tom Yam soup but rather a noodle soup.

Similar to Chinese cuisine, the soups are classified according to the different kinds of noodles they contain. Rice noodles are more common in Thai cuisine than wheat and egg noodles. Rice noodles are Guitiau (for other spellings, see above), wheat/egg noodles are Bamee.

Noodle soups, however, are not as predominant on the menus of Thai restaurants in the Philip-pines as they are in Thailand herself. The reason: Thai cuisine is something fairly exclusive in the Philippines and the Thai restaurants here therefore rather concentrate on the more elaborate Thai dishes. The market for cheap noodle soup meals in the Philippines is firmly in the hands of Chinese restaurateurs with their Mami and Ho Fan soups.

Accordingly, while ordinary Thai cuisine uses a strong fish sauce, Nam Pla, in almost all meals, the Thai restaurants in Metro Manila use the finer oyster sauce instead.

Resembling Indonesian and Indian cuisine are the curry dishes. Rather than curry powder, Thai cuisine uses a curry paste. As there is a great difference in taste between freshly mixed curry mixtures and pre-prepared ones, the Thai restaurants in the Philippines commonly prepare their curry mixtures themselves. The basic spice, of course, is coriander.

Thai cuisine considers the eye appeal of dishes as much more im-portant than do most cuisines of the world. Parts of dishes are of-ten nicely arranged, and attention is but to the colors of the foods as well. It's therefore no surprise that Thai cuisine class-ifies its curries (Kaeng) according to the color: yellow curry, green curry, red curry. In very fine Thai cuisine cucumbers or carrots are sculptured before being served.

A common use of meats in Thai cuisine is in salads. The best known is the beef salad. Meat salads are also often spiced in a hot/sour combination with chili and lemon grass.

Where to eat:

Thai Restaurants

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