Steet food - do you eat it?

[khun_lung]

In bkk and all over Thailand you can find what I call "street food". Food that is prepared on sidewalks or from push carts. And if you've been around for awhile you've seen the pork or fish hanging in the open air, no refrigeration, and a few flies on it.

So would you/do you eat it?

I for one do! There's a lady on my soi who prepares sum tom and charcoal roasted chicken. Delicious! And yes, I've eaten the pork (moo dang) hanging in the open air with no refrigeration. NEVER have I had a problem with any of this food!

So what do you think? Do you stick with conventional restaurants or are you more adventurous and willing to try street food?

[Zombiedriven]

As long as the spices are not over board I am fair game for street food. I eat the local food here in AF and I have yet to get sick I get sick more often from the UGRA packs in the DFACT.

[CocoaBrotha]

Yup...but the smoke that comes from them cooking burns the hell out of my eyes and also burns the hair from my nose!

[kennyke]

offcourse i eat it i like to sit there and have some quick food before going to sleep

[Namralf]

µÑê¡áµ¹ (grasshoppers) from a certain street vendor are one of my favourite dishes...

[happydayz07]

WHY NOT TUCK IN AND ENJOY

SOME OF THE BEST FOOD I HAVE EATEN IN BKK HAS BEEN OFF THE STREET FOLK AND I HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WISH THEY HAD SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN THE UK!!

[khun_lung]

WHY NOT TUCK IN AND ENJOY

SOME OF THE BEST FOOD I HAVE EATEN IN BKK HAS BEEN OFF THE STREET FOLK AND I HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WISH THEY HAD SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN THE UK!!

Most of the governments in Europe and the USA "protect" us from that sort of thing.

[inamorato25]

Noodles or fried chicken (it is chicken, isn't it?? ?? yes.

There's not much that will be left alive in boiling water or charcoal fried food. This kind of street food is good anytime, anywhere! But mostly at 2AM after a good night out.

Pre-cooked stuff? Never again.

I've had mild food poisoning twice in the Kingdom: The first was at a set of covered roadside stalls in a town on the drive back from Chiang Mai. I had pad gaprau gai that had been sitting there long enough to be white on top. Got what I deserved.

The second time was with the owner of the hotel I was living at in Grabi. She insisted it was the best somtam in Thailand. Her treat. Got there and it was just a stall in front of one of those ubiquitous we-sell-everything shops you find in the country. Knew what I was in for, but I thought it would be too rude to refuse. Besides, a 4 day course of norfloxacin is pretty cheap, so I dug in.

This kind of street food should be served with a bucket of ice cubes and a roll of toilet paper.

[Down2Earth]

I love some street food as long as it's clean enough and got a good taste

[khun_lung]

The worst case of food poisoning (well, second worst) was on a flight from bkk to Phuket on Thai Airways and I got spoiled orange jiuce. I couldn't get off the toilet for three days and had a doc coming to the hotel every day! Obviously it spoiled my holiday. That's not street food, but you can get sick from sources you least expect!

[duanja]

I am feed by street food ka. I still do not know where should I take my bf to eat out when he comes to bkk.

But don't assume that restaurants in thailand are more hygiene than our street food vendors naka. There is no quarantee coz there is no regulation for restaurant in Thai ka.

[vacanti373]

In bkk and all over Thailand you can find what I call "street food". Food that is prepared on sidewalks or from push carts. And if you've been around for awhile you've seen the pork or fish hanging in the open air, no refrigeration, and a few flies on it.

So would you/do you eat it?

I for one do! There's a lady on my soi who prepares sum tom and charcoal roasted chicken. Delicious! And yes, I've eaten the pork (moo dang) hanging in the open air with no refrigeration. NEVER have I had a problem with any of this food!

So what do you think? Do you stick with conventional restaurants or are you more adventurous and willing to try street food?

I LOVE street food here!

Tourists are so afraid to eat it.

I haven't got sick here from street food in 20 years!

[Kitschiguy]

Yup, I eat sreet food almost daily. From the night market, push carts and from P'Nee, the lady who prepares gai yang, moo sam chan and som tam outside of my friends shop. It's simply the best I've never had a stomach problem in Thailand. Except when I'm being punched or kicked there

[khun_lung]

Except when I'm being punched or kicked there

TF parties, right?

[Kitschiguy]

Except when I'm being punched or kicked there

TF parties, right?

Haha, not so far. But I've only been to one . . .

In the gym!

[ling_dtua_khaao]

I eat everything. Generally no trouble. (I've heard that the incidence of illness from street food in Bangkok is going up, but it's pollution related not food hygiene related... no idea if it is true.)

I got food poisoning, not too bad, once from hoi pao that weren't pao-ed enough I guess (or some of the hoi were bad to begin with), from a night market in Hua Hin. I make it a policy never to eat smelly hoi :twisted: but sometimes it is hard to tell.

This trip, just before Songkran, I got a parasite and mild food poisoning (might just have been the parasite manifesting itself initially) after an everything kind of meal outside Chiang Mai. We were eating at an open-air restaurant on a canal, not street food. It could have been the somtam puu, which I ate almost all of because it was too spicy for the others. It could have been the jaew bong, a nam phrik which has something like pla ra in it, some kind of fermented but uncooked fish. After the food poisoning-like symptoms had cleared I knew I had a parasite, from prior experience and the symptoms that continued. A five day course of Flagyl took care of the little buggers. (Note: when treating your own parasites yourself, it's always a good idea to have your **** tested when you get back to your regular doctor!)

I got food poisoning from some laab pla in Vientiane once. I knew it was exactly from that because looking back, later in the day, I could picture the bits of uncooked fish in the laab that somehow had not set off any alarms while I was eating it. Unfortunately the restaurant (again, not street food) had not taken the same care with its raw fish that sushi places usually do!

Got a parasite trekking in the hills of Shan state in Burma. I took care of that one myself too - no doctors around anywhere, but I had come prepared. No sense ruining a good hike by heading home early just because you feel like crap!

Once I got food poisoning in BKK, again not bad, from a beautifully prepared dish with prawns, made by my dad's wife who is an excellent cook. That's pretty much the opposite of street food, but just goes to show, you can get sick any place. The worst food poisoning I've ever had, painful stomch and really violent vomiting on and off for six hours, then two days totally wiped out, was from a fancy restaurant in Toronto. (The likely culprit: prawns again.)

In general, I find street food/rural cooking/market food in SE Asia to be of good quality in terms of hygiene (Burma possibly excluded - wasn't impressed by their food much). I can't say the same for India, Pakistan or Nepal - bring some armour for your alimentary canal before you go.

But if you're a first time visitor to SE Asia you might experience a little travellers' diarrhoea eating and drinking on the street/at markets just because the local "flora" is different from at home. You'll get used to it soon enough. The more you dive in, the faster you'll get used to it.

--Ling

[Grezzzy_Grezzzy]

In bkk and all over Thailand you can find what I call "street food". Food that is prepared on sidewalks or from push carts. And if you've been around for awhile you've seen the pork or fish hanging in the open air, no refrigeration, and a few flies on it.

So would you/do you eat it?

I for one do! There's a lady on my soi who prepares sum tom and charcoal roasted chicken. Delicious! And yes, I've eaten the pork (moo dang) hanging in the open air with no refrigeration. NEVER have I had a problem with any of this food!

So what do you think? Do you stick with conventional restaurants or are you more adventurous and willing to try street food?

I really love street food especially Somtum- must be just street Somtum and look a bit dirty and strong smel plara !! Oh...fantastic. And another thing I would like to recommend is street Thai noodle, take your plate from scruffy trades-women to the table with bowl of veggies at the middle, put some chilli powder and some more fish sauce to make strong taste....Oh yummi yummi.

[GoldMember]

Hard to travel/live anywhere in SE Asia without tucking into street food.Its just the way it is and one of the great pleasures of the region.Not eating it is simply missing out on a big part of indigenous culture.I'll have my locusts 'al dente' garcon.

[koolbreez]

I like street food. My favorite for a snack is the steamed corn. I also eat a lot of bbq chicken. Never gotten sick on anything I've eaten in Thailand.

[Simmo_V2.0]

I stick to the smaller soi vendors.

Many times on the main roads you'll see spraying up dirty water that settles on the food vendors stalls.. disgusting...

[bigKus]

.. Once i welcomed my sister who just arrived my house from UK by buying Som tam from foods street cart... she enjoyed it while compliment that its the best som tam ever.. I said you would enjoy it as long as you dont see "the procedure"..lolz ..

[Grezzzy_Grezzzy]

BBQ chicken is Ok.

Somtam is OK too

Noodle i don't really like that much but i could eat it if i had to.

But i just can't bring myself to eat the bugs....well not yet anyway.

In 2 years here only one case of food poisining and it was in a restaurant, one bad hoi man poo, and i was done for 2 weeks, lost 5 kilos, vomiting for 12 hours solid, the another 12 hours of crapping every 10 minutes, three visits to the hospital, blood test, stool samples and three different courses of medication over 14 days and i finally came out of it. 5kg lighter, which was also OK, but a hell of a way to lose weight.

:roll:

Oh I love bugs so much...steamed Mang Da !!! high protein and yummi hehe

[Stu_thailand]

yes, love it. Most of it anyway.

As for food poisoning, the only place I have ever had it in Thailand, was out of a 5* well known hotel in Phuket years ago. Serious poisoning, that is.

I have had upset stomach's since, but that was caused by eating seafood which I have an allergy to, so only one person to blame for that.

Mike, yes, I love the Chicken that the lady downstairs cooks in our Soi!!

Randy, I don't think tourists are actually afraid to eat street food, I think it's a case of ignorance, not knowing WHAT they are eating, and being afraid to take that step of ordering something outside of the major restaurant envelope.

[Dave40]

When I went to Phuket last year I got a bad dose of the Jimmy Bricks, I was on the toilet for 2 days every 5 to 10 mins, really knocked the wind out of me, I don't know what I ate but someone gave me a glass of water (probably tap water) needless to say I am careful what I eat and drink when I visit there, not the first time I have been ill either!!!!

[i_love_som_tam]

never had a problem with it. some of it's better than restaurant food.

[afook06]

No, but I do stop to buy chicken wings and make sure they reheat them in the frying oil again for me.........just in case to maybe kill any bacteria? Ate once on the street, a bowl of noodles, but mostly in restaurants with air-cond, maybe because of the mosquito bites that I get eating outside, don't like the flys driving me crazy flying around on my food! :x