Sukhothai's restaurants serve up some great local delicacies at reasonable prices.
In our Sukhothai restaurant guide below you will find information about great places for eating out in Sukhothai. The town is also known for some great Sukhothai shopping opportunities complemented by its quality Sukhothai restaurants. Our Thailand Restaurant Guide gives more information regarding food and cuisine in Thailand.
Food & Cuisine in Sukhothai
The most enjoyable way of gaining an insight into a country and its culture is to partake of the local food. South East Asia is warm the year round, so you do not necessarily have to eat indoors. Add the flavour of sightseeing to your food by relishing food at any of the several outdoor food stalls that can be found in Sukhothai. Smaller portable stalls are also put up along streets and sidewalks. These portable stalls are just functional metal boxes on wheels. They carry whatever is needed to put together a delicious repast - cooking stoves, utensils and even a display window through which you can see fresh ingredients that go into the cooking.
The Buddhist influence on Thai food has led them to stop using large chunks of meat in their food. Spices and herbs are used liberally, with the chosen mode of cooking being grilling, baking or stewing. The cooking techniques of stir frying and deep frying were introduced by the Chinese. French, Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese influence on Thai cuisine has been seen since the seventeenth century. The cuisine in Sukhothai is a good representation of the cuisine of the rest of Thailand.
Nam pla, an aromatic and strong fish sauce, is a very common ingredient in several Thai dishes. Another such ingredient is shrimp paste made using ground shrimp and salt. Several typical Thai leaves are used in the southern and central Thai regions. Kaffir lime leaf is a good example of such a leaf. Almost every Thai soup and curry is flavoured with this leaf. Taste the hot and sour Tom yam for the distinctive flavour of kaffir lime leaves. A curry paste made using lemon grass, galangal, garlic, finger root (krachai), turmeric and a generous dose of chillies is very commonly used in Thai cuisine.
Some dishes like Thai green curry stand out due to the distinctive flavour of fresh Thai basil. The other ingredients for this curry are coconut and palm sugars, tender green Thai eggplants, tamarind, lime juice and coconut milk. A few other essential components needed to put together a Thai meal are rahk pahk chee (cilantro/coriander roots), curry pastes, si-yu dahm (dark soy sauce), pong kah-ree (curry powder), pahk chee (cilantro or coriander),gung haeng (dried shrimp), and nahm prik pao (roasted chilli paste), prik Thai (Thai pepper), tua fahk yao (long beans or yard-long beans), pong pa-loh (five-spice powder),nahmahn hoi (oyster sauce), tapioca flour and rice.
Restaurants in the West serving Asian food use broccoli in dishes like rad na and pad thai. However, broccoli has never been a part of any traditional Thai dish and even today is hardly ever seen in Thailand. The closest substitute is gailan, a local vegetable.
The liberal use of spices and the influence of Indian and Chinese cuisine has given Thai cuisine a distinct identity. When you decide to have Thai food you get to choose from an exotic array of sweet and sour dishes, curries, rice and noodles, all these cooked using a variety of condiments and spices. Thai food is cooked using traditional slow cooking methods and also a few fast methods that have developed over the years.
