r/Thailand • u/LungTotalAssWarlord • 3h ago
Food and Drink Long term expats: anybody else feel like Thai food isn't nearly as good as it used to be?
I'm only referring to like street food and small shops, regular daily food kind of stuff. I think foreign food offerings and nice restaurants and such have greatly improved over the years, but I feel like simple street food has suffered some pretty big enshitification in the time I've lived here. I wonder if its just me.
This thought struck me this weekend for a couple of reasons:
My favorite place to get Thai pork sausage closed up. I'd been going to this shop occasionally for nearly 20 years, and it was locally well known and well regarded. I realized that I really don't have a replacement for it. This was sort of the last old fashioned place in my area that was really good, none of the other shops even come close.
And I visited a shop I seldom go to (because it's a bit far in a direction I don't go that often), but they sell my favorite pad krapaw gai. This place is honestly just as good as the first time I ever tried it, literally the same. Almost every other shop in my area just isn't nearly as good as they used to be, but this shop seems like they haven't dropped quality at all. I once asked the owner why it was so good, and he just said something like "because we cook everything old style", whatever that might mean. Its not like its any special kind of dish, its just regular pad krapow, but for some reason it has consistently remained good over the years, while others have not. The main thought that struck me is that I still like Thai food just fine - but maybe the quality I was accustomed to just isn't common anymore.
I've been here almost 20 years, and I wonder how much it might be me just getting old and how much is a real-world thing. It seemed like for maybe the first five years or so, I could basically choose any random shop from anywhere and there would be a high chance it would be really good. Now it seems like I have a short list of favorites that is shrinking all the time, with old favorites falling off quicker than new ones are added. I used to basically count on getting pretty good food from anywhere, only occasionally making a mental note that someplace isn't good. Now is seems entirely the opposite.
Anybody else who's been here a while feel the same? Or am I just 'memberin' the good ol' days that weren't actually real?
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u/mironawire 3h ago
I've been here for quite a long time, too, but I haven't seen a dip in quality when going to random food spots. My favorites are still great and I'm finding new favorites all the time. Now, I usually cook at home, so maybe my cooking is just so bad that everything else is really good, comparatively 55
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u/breakola 3h ago
I noticed meat in dishes like krapow is more gristly then it used to be.
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u/mobfather 3h ago
It’s gristly because they use bear meat nowadays because the price of pork has skyrocketed! 😉
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u/PSmith4380 Nakhon Si Thammarat 3h ago
"back in my day..."
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u/Ok-Contribution-3541 3h ago
Women were more beautiful, beer was better, beaches were cleaner. Mate - look in the mirror…….
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 3h ago
I think Thai food is just as good as it used to be. Eating it every day just gets boring, as there's relatively little variety (thai cuisine has a rigid culinary philosophy). And, at least for me, I'm really annoyed that everything is with sugar. Like why they have to put it in really everything? That's why I personally rarely eat Thai food anymore and have been cooking at home almost every day for some time now.
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u/LungTotalAssWarlord 2h ago
"Eating it every day just gets boring" - Ah but that was my point! I had thought the same - that I was just bored - but I noticed that one of my favorite dishes at a shop I really like was still just as good as it ever was. I would think if it was just boredom I would be bored with that as well.
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u/ChristBKK 2h ago
Too much oil used I only eat own cooked (thai) food nowadays
Once you live here a bit you have a rice cooker and a kitchen imo
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u/LungTotalAssWarlord 2h ago
Of course, but I'm also lazy. Sometimes you just want to eat something else, or try something new. It is getting harder though.
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u/PimsriReddit 2h ago
I'm Thai, lived here all 30 years of my life, and I agree. It has to be the quality of ingredients, for sure.
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u/OneTravellingMcDs 3h ago
I've found lately that the amount of veg included in dishes is much less than before.
I also think the biggest difference is the change that many places have changed over to cheaper palm oils for high heat stir frying when before far more places used peanut/rice bran/soybean oils previously.
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u/Possible-Highway7898 3h ago
It was always palm and soybean oils for at least the last 25 years. Rice bran oil is a newer product, and I've never met a single Thai person who cooks with peanut oil.
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u/MathematicianNo948 3h ago
I do think most of our food stalls especially in the touristy markets are shit.
Maybe it's just me because I despise food that's doused in any kind of sweet sauce (especially the "mayo") or is on the sweet front.
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u/These-Appearance2820 3h ago
Few factors.
Your pad krapao probably tastes good and is made 'the old way' means he/she cooks the ingredients into each other piece by piece, rather than throwing everything in the pan together, frying them sloping it onto the plate.
Takes a little longer and marginally more effort but the taste difference is clear.
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u/lily23222 3h ago
Not expat but local.
One thing that also happens a lot is that some street food or small townhouse-style restaurants are run by families. Sometimes for several generations. It does happen that the next generation isn’t taking up the mantle and let the whole business close down, or they just don’t cook the same way as their parents/grandparents. My parents have their favourite places that are abandoned now that they changed the chef!
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u/LungTotalAssWarlord 2h ago
I agree. In my two examples this is exactly the case. The older couple that made that sausage every morning for the past 20+ years just got too old to keep at it, and their kids just didn't want to continue the business. They opened a clothing shop on that same spot, but when I stopped by, there was two other people stopping to look for the sausage vendors to see if they moved somewhere else! But I suppose that business is too much hard work, even if it is a popular shop. Alas, my favorite morning sausage shop is no more.
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u/blackth0rne 2h ago edited 2h ago
Yes yes and yes. Thai food has gotten worse because the cost of living has gone up and wages have remained same for two decades. Vendors can’t afford to raise prices and are forced to lower costs of raw materials. Corporations fill the void.
An example would be the humble som tum from a cart: limes are expensive, so bottled artificial lime juice (citric acid) is used instead. Fresh chili is replaced with dry chili. Factory cane sugar replaces slow-churned palm sugar. Fish sauce replaced with refined third or fourth press fish water with fish flavor and caramel coloring added back in to make it look like the real thing. And as a young person or visitor trying it for the first time: how would you ever know the beauty of the real thing if this is all you’ve ever known?
Granted this decline is most prevalent in street food and cheap restaurants but has moved up the ladder.
Supply chain paradigm shift: Corporations have replaced small suppliers with one-stop shop megastores with premade sauces meatballs etc full of preservatives, substitutes, and additives. The natural oyster sauces, soy sauces, chili pastes and fish sauces that form the basis of many dishes are now fully diluted with flavor enhancers and substitutes, most vendors don’t even realize that the food has been completely subverted. It’s literally impossible to get additive-free Thai food at a restaurant anymore unless they make their own sauce bases. These will usually be the mom and pop shops that have been in business for generations, and they are dying. Treasure these because they will not be around for another generation.
Generational loss of knowledge: Take traditional Thai desserts for example, i remember a time when aunties and old ladies would sell an incredible variety of banana leaf wrapped desserts at the market, made by hand in the most delicate and labor intensive ways. This was a way of life that went extinct around the turn of the millennium. Most vendors now are just out to make a living, no one wants to spend all their time doing what their parents and grandparents did in the traditional way, and you can hardly blame them. It’s easier to buy premade things and assemble it for sale without prior experience. Thai cooking is arguably a story of passing knowledge within family generations because so much of it is never written down; once lost it’s gone.
Morphing tastes: Widespread msg and sugar. Central Thailand is known for its sweeter flavor profile, but widespread msg consumption and a sugar epidemic that has infected Thai society has led to record levels of obesity and diabetes. The amount of sugar in traditional drinks now considered ‘normal’ has become insane. The Thai food Overton window has shifted.
Prevalent use of chemicals: Another area is fruits and vegetables. Ironically they generally taste better now than 30 years ago, because of the amount of unregulated pesticides. The farmer who doesn’t use it suffers a loss of income. The woman who doesn’t use msg risks her neighbor making a more ‘aroi’ kuay tiew. Incentives.
As a consumer there is still joy in Thai food in rural provinces, where tradition is maintained and supply chains are intact. Chumpon is my favorite, the food is simply unbelievable.
Also, Thai people need to demand more govt regulation and enforcement. Support brands and restaurants that care. Educate oneself about food. Social media is a powerful tool for change. Stop buying from CP and support little guy.
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u/PSmith4380 Nakhon Si Thammarat 2h ago
MSG has been a very standard ingredient in nearly every Thai dish for decades.
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u/dismatch 3h ago
There are expat areas and non expat areas. As much as expat don’t want to believe it but your money will attract vendors who want money🤷🏻♂️
Wherever you are as an expat, i doubt your experiences would be anywhere close to normal or authentic for Thai people.
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u/Any_Lengthiness1508 3h ago
Thats not quite true. I can go for days - weeks even - without seeing a farang. Even so, restaurant meals tend to go in cycles. They often start good then, as the restaurant ages or gets more popular the food quality changes. It's not esp a Thai problem tho. Happens everywhere.
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u/Sensitive_Bread_1905 1h ago
And in areas where only Thais live, do the restaurants cook not to make money, but for the joy of cooking?
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u/Sukhumvit_71 3h ago
It’s fair to say their margins are being squeezed by higher ingredient, cooking oil and gas costs. Penalties are more greatly enforced for illegal roadside vending than years past.
Either the vendors increase costs or use cheaper ingredients. It’s not crazy to assume some have done the latter and not the former.