🇹🇭 Authentic Thai Food you’re missing when you order Pad Thai 🇹🇭

Do not just order the thing that you recognize. That is a whole fried mackerel in there. Do not just order the thing that is trending. That is pungent, man. Go outside your comfort zone and find something new. Now I'm pretty guppy. He's going to stay on my breath for days. I am so pumped because I am on my way to Jinda in Abbotsford, one of my absolute favorite Thai restaurants in all of Melbourne. I'm going to pick up three lesser-known dishes and share them with you today. Success! I have a proper takeaway feast spread out before me from Jinda Thai in Abbotsford and I'm going to take you through three slightly lesser-known dishes from Thailand. Let's start with the Yen Ta Fo. So this is an amazing bright pink broth. Oh yes! Congealed blood at the bottom. What a bonus! Yen Ta Fo, pronounced Yenta like a gossiping Jewish woman and Fo as in how you're not meant to say Fo, the Vietnamese soup, is this amazing pink broth and it gets its color from a fermented tofu. When I was in Bangkok eating Yen Ta Fo, it was sort of this student-y hangout. It was a bit grimy and people were just piling up their bowls as much as they possibly could because if they reached a certain number they got a free Pepsi. I'm going to use my fingers. So that's some really bouncy looking white fungus. We have tofu, some thin bits of pork, fish cakes. Fish cakes are a big one and fish balls. These are really, really, really good when they're made in-house. Usually people will have rice noodles with their Yen Ta Fo. What I love about this is now the noodles look really pink as well. Finishing touches, fried wonton skin, green chili vinegar. I'm gonna hold off putting that on because you season to your own liking and some chili flakes as well. It's very sweet but it's got that slight fermented funk to it from the tofu. It does need a little bit of vinegar, chili vinegar, to even out those flavors and that's not a reflection of the soup being good or bad. That's just how it's done in Thailand. Everybody's allowed to add whatever they want to their soup. That's why you see the little condiment caddies on the table. The idea is to present the base and then let people adjust. Fish cake is so bouncy. Chili in the back of my throat. So this congealed blood has pretty much no flavor. It's all about texture. Blood is used in noodles all the time to thicken them without you knowing. So you may as well just try it. One of the only words that you need to learn in Thai before going is aroi which means delicious. There are places in Bangkok that specialize in Yen Ta Fo but you can also find it at a lot of the boat noodle vendors. I feel really funny about boat noodles because that's the hot thing here in Australia at the moment. People go on a hunt for the best boat noodles and not all the Thai restaurants have it and there's this understanding that if you're eating boat noodles then you're eating the most authentic dish. But if you're actually in Bangkok, everybody eats boat noodles. It's not the new exotic thing coming out of Thailand. We were just slow to catch on. Boat noodles are this like quick really really accessible dish that are about 10 to 12 baht for a bowl. It's a real leveler of a dish and here we are in Australia acting like we know everything saying yep boat noodles. I love boat noodles. They're the most authentic dish out of Thailand and that's just because we don't know what the most authentic dishes are in Thailand. Thai boat noodles have been around for far longer than Pad Thai. Pad Thai was only invented in the 1930s by the prime minister and it was this sort of attempt to encourage Thai nationalism. Finances weren't so hot so having this cheap noodle dish that actually has Chinese origins was a way to make sure that people could affordably fill up. The government was actually the one who came up with the recipe and then distributed it to all the street food vendors and then outside of Thailand that dish Pad Thai became popular. I think we just need to approach everything with an open mind. When you're ordering takeaway, when you're ordering at a restaurant, when you're ordering anything, have a look for the thing that you don't recognize. Don't go straight to the boat noodles because they're cool and authentic. Don't go straight to Pad Thai because it's familiar. Scan a menu and look for the thing that you don't know and then ask about it because people are all too happy to share their culture and that's the thing that food does the best. It connects us and helps us learn about each other. Okay, the enta pho can go. Next up I'm going to try the curry gangsam. Usually the curry would just be served over some normal rice but I love sticky rice. They always come in these little plastic baggies. I didn't eat gangsam when I was in Thailand recently and I don't know much about it to be honest. All I know is that it's a curry that Prem, who owns Jinda Thai, says reminds her a lot of home and that's why they're making it at the moment. And they use a vegetable broth and they spike that with tamarind and chili. They've served this with bits of fish, put some beans in there, prawns, cauliflower. Oh that's good. Because of the chili and all the herbs and spices in there and of course the tamarind with that sourness, it gives it a real lift. So it actually feels quite light compared to a real heavy curry that has a lot of coconut milk in it. I could eat a lot of that. Last but definitely not least is nam prik guppy. Swim little mackerel, swim. Some little bits of cucumber. What's this? Is it cabbage? The actual nam prik guppy, the sauce. My superpower is perfectly filling little ramekin dishes with liquid. All right nam prik guppy, do your worst. That's good. If you don't like strong flavors, that is not for you. I love them. Take a bit of rice, a bit of veg, and a little bit of mackerel and dip all of that in the nam prik guppy. You'll notice I eat a lot with my hands. I was taught table manners. I just think it tastes so much better. It sort of tastes like it's been buried underground next to a few bodies for about 100 days but in a good way. I just truly love Thai food. I love the strong unapologetic flavors, how everything's prepared with such care but also so simply. I could never get bored with it. I'm polish probably all of this off by myself. Be impressed, not disgusted. But if you are inspired by this video, I encourage you to go and support your local Thai restaurant and instead of ordering pad thai or boat noodles, try something new and support them that way. Not just by helping them financially but by making an effort to really connect with the culture and learn something new as well.