Best Thai Street Food Recommendations – Chef Seefah & Karan Bane

Are you planning to travel to Thailand or love visiting Bangkok often – what have been your favourite eating places?

To taste Thai street food that’s how it should be – full of flavours, spicy, tangy, sweet with the heady taste of the galangal, lemon grass…

Expert Thai Chef Seefah Ketchaiyo and Japanese Chef Karan Bane share their favourite Thai Street Food hangouts. The food court on the top of the Central World Mall is where we always take our guests when they are in Bangkok says Chef Karan. Yet another street food destination they recommend is the market near Siriraj Hospital. We call it the Siriraj Market and it’s a very local place. You get every thing there and we pretty much like all the food there. There is the Hainanese Chicken Rice from the Patunam Market. It’s a must try. He adds.

Seefah and Karan say that the trick to finding authentic taste in Thai street food is to try the older areas, “The new city is order to cater to the international tourists try to strike a balance – the food may be bland because of that” – And, this will answer the question that many tourists to Thailand ask – which is the best place to have street food when in Bangkok?

Now when we say authentic one has to be ready for the fiery bird eye chillies to dance on your tongue even while you taste the pungent soya – which incidentally is again unique in its flavour only when it is procured from Thailand – and the sweetness that tries to add variety to your taste palate even while the tamarind add the delicious tangy.

On that note Chef Seefah vouches for the Kikkoman soy sauce that they carry with them from Bangkok – they do not use any other soy sauce which they say could vary in consistency and taste. Each cuisine uses a different variety of Soy sauce evidently.

 

For Chef Seefah and Chef Karan its marriage made in the kitchen. Currently based out of Bangkok – they curate food promotions, pop-up menus – sit down dinners across India and beyond.   

Recently they took over the kitchen and bar at Sega Hyderabad – the popular Asian restaurant at Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel – which was more about recreating the street food with a bit of Seefah touch.

Mostly I try and stay closer to the authentic taste says Seefah whose sauces on the side of her dishes vouch for it – the variety, the flavour and just the way its paired to the dish is by far the best part of her outstanding menu. “Mostly people talk about Nam Chim sauce. But there are so many ways to make Nam Chim. We do get these sauces in Thailand – but you need to go to the right places,” she reiterates.

If you eat grilled pork or grilled chicken – it should be good without dipping also. The sauce gives a nice variation but must not over power the dish the Chef says.

The trick is in the ingredients used, says Seefah. “If we use the right ingredients we don’t have to do anything much. For example, Jasmine rice already has good flavour. Even the mango sticky rice it cannot use any other rice, not even Jasmine rice, it has to be Thai sticky rice so that the flavour is coming right.”

That explains the simply delicious Mango Sticky Rice served at the Zega Hyderabad under the stewardship of Chef Seefah – it was the right amount of sweet, and chewiness with a bit of crunch and the Indian Alfonso mangoes on the side. The other street food delicacies served on the menu included – Assorted Tempura, Southern Thai style Grilled Chicken, Grilled Chicken wrapped in pandan leaves, Prawn Cake Thai Style, Grilled Pork with Tamarind dip, Thai Fried Rice with Minced Chicken, stir fried tofu with cashew nuts, green curry red curry and more.

Chef Karan added his touch to the bar menu where he made a tequila cocktail – which he calls as his take on Paloma served – the Antz Cocktail, and yet another cocktail that used raw papaya salad. Adding a touch of galangal and lemon grass, raw mango, and at times the bird eye chillies surely add the Thai Zing to cocktails.

The travelling chefs are next headed to Goa where they are curating sit-down menu at Elephant & Co.