Thailand Thai Food vs. American Thai Food
I was in Thailand for nearly 3 years before ever coming back to the United States.
I eat loads of Thai food in Thailand. And I LOVE it.
Upon returning the US for a quick few weeks visit, I noticed that Thai food is quite popular in America now. Nearly all neighborhoods have their very own “Thai Basil” or “Siam” restaurant at the nearest strip mall.
Many Thai restaurants in America are even owned and operated by real authentic Thais…
… but Thailand Thai food is different from American Thai food.
Not only are there differences in the ingredients or what’s available, Thai restaurants (despite attempting to remain authentic sometimes) simply have to adapt and then abide by to American style and taste.
Unfortunately, a lot of the strategies for predicting an outstanding Thai restaurant (before ever eating there) are useless in America – largely due to regulations.
Here are 9 major differences I noticed while sampling American Thai food:
Of course, I could break down the differences between each and every dish (like pad thai in Thailand and in America), but for the sake of this article, I’ll stick with the food in general.
Mountainous American portions!
1. Portion Size
There’s a radical difference between American sized food portions and Thai sized food portions… and I had completely forgotten about it after living in Bangkok for so long.
America loves HUGE.
It’s not that I eat less in Thailand, it’s just that the the portions are smaller so I order multiple plates of rice per meal. In Hawaii I ordered a plate of pad gra pao (lad khao – on top of rice) in Chinatown and it was a massive plate – double or even triple the size of a normal Bangkok street food portion.
2. Price
There’s no surprise at this one. Living expenses are naturally more expensive in America than in Thailand.
While in Thailand a normal plate of rice topped with a single dish and possibly a fried egg costs 30 – 40 THB ($1 – $1.30) and in America the same dish would probably run $7 – $10. However (as mentioned above) the portion size is 2 to 3 times larger.
Maybe I should have done a weight to price comparison?
3. Spring Rolls as Thai Food
Thai restaurants in America serve lots and lots of spring rolls – just like everyone in America must eat an egg roll with Chinese food, so Thai food is always served with a deep fried spring roll.
I think it’s because Americans like deep fried things (and Thai restaurant owners have figured this out).
Thailand does have deep fried spring rolls, but I could easily spend months in Thailand eating at only local street stall restaurants without ever touching spring rolls. In fact, I only know one food cart in Bangkok that even serves por pia tod on a regular basis.
4. Lots of Meat
America has long been famous as a large meat consuming nation, so it’s not surprising to find American Thai food is generous on the meat.
A normal dish in Thailand will come mixed with a little meat, but just a skimpy amount compared to the amount of chicken or pork served in a single Thai dish in America. The chicken in America is just bigger and the pork is just bulkier.
Thai amount of herb use
5. Skimp on the Herbs
Pad gra pao (stir fried holy basil) should be packed with basil. One thing I noticed is that Thai food in America is that meat is heavily prevalent, herbs are scarcer.
Not sure if this is due to the price of the herbs in America or because lots of herbs means lots more flavor, which could be unappealing to some consumers, maybe?
Nevertheless, the best source of the delicious repertoire of Thai ingredients is within Thailand itself. If you plan a trip, check out AsiaWebDirect.com where they always have promotions and great discounts on Bangkok hotels.
Som Tam in Thailand and America
6. No Dried Shrimp
One of the fundamental ingredients in a good som tam (green papaya salad) is salty dried shrimp (goong haeng). Not only do the little guys provide extra flavor, but also extra saltiness and a little bit of a chewy texture.
After eating som tam twice in America I discovered that they don’t include dried shrimp in their recipes – not sure if it’s because it’s hard to get in America or again if it’s too different for most American crowds?
American Thai Green Curry
7. Flavor Level
Speaking honestly, Thai food in America is often bland and just about all Thais I know would put it into the “jued mak mak” category.
It’s not that all dishes are lacking completely in flavor, it’s just that some are lacking the proportionate amount of flavor – not hot enough, not sour enough, not rich enough, not herbaceous enough – all the pillar tastes combined into the authentic flavor of Thailand Thai food.
Note: I didn’t mention spicy chili level here because you can order things chili hot in America… same like you can in Thailand. However the mild is probably milder in America.
8. Not Sour Enough
While Thailand Thai food does have a range level of sourness, even ordering dishes less sour in Thailand will land you with a dish or soup that’s more sour than a sour dish in America.
Sourness is one of the pillars of Thai cuisine and it’s one that has been toned down a couple notches to cater to the American palate.
Green Curry in Bangkok
9. Sticky Rice Mix-Up
There are lots of things you may not know about eating Thai food until living and eating in Thailand. Along with learning Thai food etiquitte, there are a number of unwritten Thai eating rules.
For instance, in America it’s possible to eat a dish like green curry along with Thai sticky rice. This combination would be unheard of in Thailand. Green curry (gaeng keow wan) is eaten with steamed white rice. Som tam (green papaya salad) and other Isaan food dishes are often enjoyed with sticky rice.
This is just the surface. There are many many more differences between Thailand Thai food and American Thai food. As the awesome Thai food writer Pitchaya Sudbanthad explains, it’s all about learning to love Thai-American food.
“When I eat it, I know where I am,” says Sudbanthad.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment!
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Mark Wiens – has written 357 posts on Thai Street Food and Pictures | Eating Thai Food.
Mark Wiens is a Thai food fanatic. If he's not devouring something on a neighborhood street in Bangkok, he might be on a pilgrimage to locate durian. Visit his travel food website at Migrationology and follow him on Facebook.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Sure, there’s lots of terrible Thai food in the United States.
But there is also some terrific, wholly authentic Thai food to be found here, especially in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City (particularly in Queens), and even Portland, OR. Specifically, I’d encourage you to check out Lers Ros in SF, Ganda in LA, Ayada and Zabb Elee in NYC, and Pok Pok in Portland.
Re #6: dried shrimp are cheap and easy to find in the US. Every halfway decent Asian grocery stocks them. So if you’re not seeing them in Thai restaurants here, it’s likely because the owners believe US diners are afraid of fishy flavors. Too bad. The restaurants I mentioned above all use dried shrimp, as well as all the other typical authentic ingredients (holy basil, galangal, etc.).
Finally, one of the main problems I find with Americanized Thai food is that it’s far too sweet. At the worst joints, every dish is overloaded with sugar (and not even palm sugar!).
Agreed! Love to see restaurants still being innovative with the cuisine, but the far majority have their hands tied somewhere between what sells and what ingredients are available. Honestly, we believe this is partly due to so few patrons knowing how diverse the cuisine is, something we’d love to see changed!
Very true about fishy and sweet tastes, thanks for contributing.
Thanks for all the added input JL! Yah, I did also notice that quite a bit of the Thai dishes I samples in the States were quite sweet as well.
Mark Wiens recently posted..Pettah Market: Walk Through Colombo’s Most Hectic Shopping District
Completely agree! I love Lers Ros in San Francisco. I have lived in the States for over 16 years and in my opinion the closest to Thai food at home.
Thanks Lauren and Apirida, we’ll have to check them out next time we hit SF!
I totally agree with JL on Pok Pok and Zaab Elee (if you can, go to the Queens branch over the Manhattan branch). In fact, my favorite Thai restaurant in the world is Zaab Elee.
Thanks Bruce! There’s more great Thai food in the US that isn’t as well publicized.
The tom yum goong in America is never sour enough. I’ve never had good tom yum goong outside of Thailand.
Go for the homemade versions!
All so true. I’m not sure we have it quite so bad in the UK – I find that Thai food here is truer to Thai food in Thailand than say our Chinese food is to ‘true’ Chinese cuisine (not that I’ve been!) – but there is a great deal of variation between food quality and, at the worse places, I would say pretty much all of these ring true.
Glad you mentioned the sticky rice conundrum as, though it’s very true, it’s the only one of these differences that didn’t spring to mind when I saw the title of your post. Again, I think it’s less prevalent here as dishes are generally sold without rice, which is ordered separately (steamed or sticky as per the customer’s possibly ill-informed wishes) but what I do find is that supposed food writers suggest dishes in magazines etc which comprise curries, stir fries etc and sticky rice. Just makes you wonder whether some of these people have ever travelled to the source of their dishes. (And don’t get me started on the Philadelphia advert which recommends making green curry with Philly cheese – and not a hint of coconut!)
On the ingredients front, sure some ingredients are harder to come by, but just about everything – dried shrimps, pla rah, horapa, krapao, baby and pea aubergines etc) can be sourced if the restaurant owner is worth their salt and knows where to look. I agree that, far more than a procurement issue, it’s a case of catering to dumbed down tastes. Interestingly, I have found som tum has only really begun to make an appearance on menus in the last couple of years – it was difficult to find (or at least done well) before that. The UK suffers the spice problem (or lack of it) probably more than the US, too – dishes can be bland and underspiced unless you make a point of asking for them otherwise.
A long time until we see dishes more typical of everyday Thai eating habits on menus over here rather than just generic red and green curries and pad thai, I suspect – and even longer until we see more ‘daring’ dishes like kung che nam pla, pad phet gob etc etc. Great article – thanks.
Thanks Chris for such a thoughtful comment and for giving us a perspective from the UK!
Thanks for the message Chris and really cool to read about your observations from the UK. Interesting that “som tam” just recently began making it to menus – I wonder if that’s the same in the US?
I can’t wait until we start seeing “pad phet gob” on the menus in Europe and the States!
Mark Wiens recently posted..Pettah Market: Walk Through Colombo’s Most Hectic Shopping District
After I traveled to Thailand (and Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam had something to do with it too), I made a huge change to how I cook Thai food at home — I stocked up on a few essentials. Dried shrimp (as you mentioned) dried radish, palm sugar, and fish sauce in large quantities.
We’re lucky here in San Francisco. Lers Ros Thai restaurant opened and they make dishes that seem (to my limited experience, at least) very authentic. It’s the only Thai restaurant in San Francisco I bother with when I’m in charge of choosing.
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Best of the Best Thai food are more differrent tasty. Just not only spicy dish also many herbs good for health such as some food can be anti cancer.Decorate dish is very wonderful like carving some veg. or fruits. Awesome >>>>>
We agree! Thanks!
I have to agree with the Tom Yum… I have never had it in a restaurant as good as my Thai mom cooks it at home (in her US kitchen) so a Thai restaurant should be able to make it a little more authentic if she still can! I worked in Thai restaurant in PA, the other thing I noticed about the Som Tam, they didn’t prepare it in the mortar in pestle like my mom does or like they do in Thailand. One restaurant we went to made Pad Thai with ketchup!!! And US Pad Thai is usually soupy instead dry like you find in Thailand.
Thanks for this extra information Suthanya. It’s great to hear your perspective as a Thai living in the US. Mmmm… pad thai made with ketchup… doesn’t sound so good!
You should check out the Thai food in France (where I lived before)…with one or two exceptions, it ‘s really, really sad! Often it’s just Chinese masquerading as Thai. Luckily I live in Thailand now
Hmm, yah, is Thai food popular in France like it is in the USA? Glad to hear you can now enjoy Thai food in Thailand!
what is jued mak mak? googled it but no help…
This is the Thai phonetic spelling of the Thai word (จืด) that means very mild or flavorless. If you’re familiar, there’s a soup with a similar name called “gang jeud.” It’s number 17 on our 100 Thai dishes list here: http://migrationology.com/2010/03/100-best-thai-dishes-to-eat-in-bangkok-ultimate-eating-guide/
Hi, I just returned from my trip to Thailand. Yes, you are right. The portions served in Bangkok are 1/3 the size of what they serve in USA. But then, consider the price which is relative to the portion served. I noticed that the food portion is even smaller in Phuket. They were more the size of appetizers. This works out great because it gives you the opportunity to try a variety of foods. Besides, if you should find the food not cooked according to your taste buds, at least you don’t have a mountain to finish off….esp. since one really should not waste food. So far, we never did encounter that problem.
Have enjoyed reading your posts. Yaowarat is a very large Chinatown. Which part were you in? Sampeng area? Phahurat area? How recently did you take the videos?
Hi Victoria, thank you for the comment. I agree, the smaller portion sizes in Thailand area a good thing. It depends on the video, but many of them have been filmed within the last year. The Yaowarat video was just a few months ago as was the main 25 things to do in Bangkok video. Thanks for you support!
Nice article, I agree on the differences and have struggled to find any decent Thai food in the US. I have lived in many countries and found that the Thai food is usually average at best, but in the US I actually find some of it to be inedible, so far removed from what I have in Thailand that I’m not sure you could call it Thai.
In Australia, where I currently live, the Thai food is generally a bit similar to Thailand except that it tends to be sweeter and less spicy. Luckily we have a few places that do make authentic Thai food, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, and I think the larger number of people holidaying in Thailand means more people do want the authentic tastes. We also do have a lot of very poor Thai places and Chinese/Vietnamese run places that seem to want to be trading off Thai food because it commands a higher price than their cuisines.
In the UK I found it similar to Australia, except the UK Thai food never had some of the freshness that we have over here. Much of this will be down to the fact that herbs, vegetable used all have to be imported and I do think they lose flavour being transported. I think this is probably one of the big reasons food in Thailand tastes better too, most of the food will be fresh and grown locally.
Europe was very poor, I’d put this down to lack of ingredients or demand from local Thai communities. Quite often the sort of place you see in Europe is someone who has brought a Thai wife back and bought a restaurant for her, without her being a proper Thai chef so naturally the food is poor.
As a frequent traveller to the US, particularly LA, I was especially disappointed in Thai Town though, I could not find any place decent and the ones that had good ratings were actually awful. Much of the famous Thai smile seemed to have disappeared too in those restaurants.
Definitely gotta agree with you about Thai town!
Thai food in Houston is fairly americanized. However, there’s one restaurant downtown that does the American Thai but has a soup on the menu that’s to die for, Sour and fishy goodness.
Hey, great to hear that, sour and fishy is a great combination!
I LIVE IN THE SILICON VALLEY IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND I AM ABLE TO FIND ALL THE INGREDIENTS TO MAKE PAD KRAPOW GAI / THAI BASIL CHICKEN.
I CAN FIND FRESH HOLY BASIL AT MY LOCAL FARMERS MARKET AND THE REST I CAN PURCHASE AT A VARIETY OF ASIAN SUPERMARKETS . IN MY PART OF THE WORLD INGREDIENTS ARE NOT A PROBLEM FOR THAI RESTAURANTS, IT’S THE CLIENTS WHO COME FROM VASTLY DIFFERENT FOOD BACKGROUNDS. IF MOST OF THE RESTAURANTS CUSTOMERS WERE THAI, THIS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICAN THAI FOOD WOULD NOT EXIST. I’M AN AMERICAN- FILIPINO SO I’M OK WITH FISHY AND SOUR, MY WIFE IS THAI AND SHE IS A VERY GOOD COOK , YET SHE HAS TO ADJUST HER COOKING SOMETIMES FOR MY TASTES. ALSO ALONG THE SAME LINES I WAS IN PATTAYA AND I SAW A BELGIAN OWNED RESTAURANT HAD A SPECIAL FOR MUSSELS AND FRENCH FRIES. I AM VERY FAMILIAR WITH THIS DISH AS I USE TO VISIT ANTWERP, BELGIUM WITH MY DUTCH FRIENDS JUST TO EAT MUSSELS AND “FRITES”. WELL TO SAY THE LEAST, THE MUSSELS TASTED LIKE
GINGER WITH FISH SAUCE NOT ANISE AND BUTTER…I ATE THEM ANYWAY AS THEY TASTED THE WAY MY FILIPINO MOTHER PREPARES MUSSELS. IN SHORT THE HOME LAND IS WHERE YOU GET THE REAL DEAL!
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