{"id":13920,"date":"2019-07-29T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=13920"},"modified":"2019-07-18T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T17:39:10","slug":"ordering-vegan-at-a-thai-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/29\/ordering-vegan-at-a-thai-restaurant\/","title":{"rendered":"ORDERING VEGAN AT A THAI RESTAURANT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Kristen Nyampong <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thai food is by far\nmy favorite cuisine to eat as a vegan because it\u2019s so flavorful and versatile.\nI loved it so much that I had the opportunity of working at a Thai restaurant\nfor a couple of months. Through my job I learned about the different flavors\nwithin the cuisine and most importantly what vegans should be aware of when\nordering. In this article I will give you tips and tricks to make sure your\ndish at a Thai restaurant is vegan-friendly.  \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thai food has a very\nunique flavor within the sauces and curries. Its aroma has a lot of lemon\ngrass, chili sauce, Thai Basil, and unfortunately fish sauce. Moreover, fish\nby-products are extremely common within Thai cuisine, especially its street\nfood. Thus, if you are planning to dine at a Thai restaurant, call ahead to\nmake sure they have vegan options. They may say yes, but do not really\nunderstand that you mean no fish along with no meat, dairy, and egg. So make\nsure you emphasize no fish sauce. Authentic Thai restaurants should be able to\ncater to your needs because they make all their sauces in house and some house-made\nsauces usually do not have any fish by-product. However, some Thai restaurants\nuse premade pastes that usually have some sort of fish by-product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way to tell if a\ndish has fish by-product is by its smell and color. A dish with fish may have a\nfishy aroma and it will be darker due to the presence of some sort of fish\nsauce or paste. For example, Pad Thai is a very common dish in Thailand. It is\nbased on tamarind and chili sauce that gives the dish a sweet and spicy flavor.\nIf the Pad Thai is vibrant orange\/red it will likely not have fish sauce, but\nif a Pad Thai is a dark reddish brown color, it likely has fish sauce. This is\nalso the same for Green Curry. Green curry is based on green chilies, lime\nleaves, lemongrass, coconut milk, and traditionally shrimp paste. If the curry\nis vibrant green it will likely not have shrimp paste, but a curry that is a\ndark green does.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is very important\nto make sure your waiter is aware you are vegan and ask MANY questions about\nthe dish you are ordering. Don\u2019t be afraid to ask them to check with the\nkitchen before you place your order. Thai restaurants always have tofu options\nand some dishes can be made vegan if they don\u2019t add fish sauce. So ask if they\ncan make a certain sauce dish without the fish sauce. This is true with stir-fries\nas well. Always ask if the curries do not have any fish paste in them because\nit will not be noted in the menu item. Although fish sauce is more commonly\nused in Thai dishes, egg is commonly used in all fried rice dishes and almost\nevery noodle dish. Moreover, you must tell your waiter you do not want egg in\nany of your noodles or fried rice dish. Some common noodle dishes with eggs are\nPad Thai, Pad See Ew, and Drunken Noodles.  \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to a lot of\nchilies within Thai food, for some it can be very spicy. There is a spice\nsystem that many Thai Restaurants use. It is a five star rating, five star\nbeing extremely spicy and one star being mild. Usually if you don\u2019t ask for it\nto be spicy, they will assume you would prefer it to be mild and won\u2019t add\nextra spice. Moreover, use the five star system if you don\u2019t want it to be mild\nand would prefer a little spice. If your food is already prepared and you would\nprefer more spice, you could ask for the spice condiment rack. Don\u2019t use just\nany spice on the spice rack because some do have fish sauce like the Nam Pla\nPrik, which is more liquidity than the other spices. However, the Prik Namsom,\nwhich is a vinegar based red chili sauce, and the Thai dried red chili flakes,\ndo not have any fish sauce.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are planning\nto go to a Thai restaurant, be sure to use these tips! Some usually vegan\nfriendly dishes are Red Curry, Pad Thai ordered without egg, and Massaman\nCurry. But as previously stated, don\u2019t be afraid to ask if they can make a certain\ndish vegan without fish sauce. Happy eating! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information on\nvegetarian restaurants around the USA and Canada, see: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/restaurant\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kristen Nyampong Thai food is by far my favorite cuisine to eat as a vegan because it\u2019s so flavorful and versatile. I loved it so much that I had the opportunity of working at a Thai restaurant for a couple of months. Through my job I learned about the different flavors within the cuisine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13922,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13920\/revisions\/13922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}