Thai food is one of the most beloved cuisines worldwide. Thanks to rich curries, drunken noodles, and mango sticky rice, Thai food has conquered the world. As a destination, Thailand is a mecca for foodies and Bangkok tops lists like CNN Travel as a major street food pilgrimage destination.
There are hundreds of talented Thai chefs and street food vendors hidden inside and outside of Thailand. Now, we’re offering a chance to guide you to some of them, in our sweepstake to win a free 10-day culinary trip to Thailand!
How to Enter
With so much authentic Thai cuisine available, the Tourism Authority of Thailand New York office (“TAT”) wants more people to experience it in person, and that is why we officially partnered with OpenTable to help you find an #EatThaiVisitThai restaurant easier. We’ve launched a sweepstake to give away a food-lover’s dream trip to Thailand. The Eat Thai, Visit Thai Sweepstake Grand Prize Winner will get two round trip tickets from the US to Bangkok for two 10 night accommodation for two, plenty of time to sample all that Thailand has to offer!
To enter, all you have to do is share a photo or video of a Thai dish on social media that you created. You can also enter by visiting one of our Thai restaurant sweepstake partners and photographing a dish at the restaurant, or by making your own Thai dish! Click here to see a list of #EatThaiVisitThai restaurant partners.
When you get ready to share your dish, tag @ThailandInsider, caption your media with the name of the dish, write what inspires you about Thailand, and tag one foodie friend that you would bring with you on the trip. Don’t forget to include the hashtag #EatThaiVisitThai, and make sure your page is public so we can find your post. Check the full rules and guidelines for more information!
That’s it! Once that’s done, you’re entered to win! Are you ready for your chance to make the foodie pilgrimage to Thailand?
From white linen tablecloths to humble street-side eatery, there are a swathe of places to eat authentic Thai food. While the styles range wildly, they all hone in on a few select ingredients and staples of the cuisine.
Cook to Win with Thai Ingredients!
Thai cooking uses five main flavor profiles: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and hot, and being such a large and diverse region, each area of Thailand has its own style of cooking and preference on ingredients. Most Thai recipes include as least two of the flavor profiles in order to create a complete balance, but are not limited to a selection of only two.
Many of these flavors all are commonly drawn from ingredients native to Thailand, yet a lot of them are probably already sitting in your pantry! Discover the details on how to make your at-home sweepstake entry using some of your everyday household ingredients or take the next step and discover new seasoning styles to add to your cooking repertoire.
Sweet flavors are probably some of the most easily accessible ingredients for Thai cooking. While alternatives exist, the most commonly used ingredients are cane sugar, coconut palm sugar, or coconut milk. Coconut milk in particular is an important part of Thai curries and balances out with one of the other spicy, saltier, and more sour ingredients.
Sour flavors are just as easy to get ahold of in local supermarkets. For a simple amount of zest, cook with lime, or go for something a bit more region-specific by using green mango or sour pineapple!
Salty flavors are easy to understand. Still, what many might not know is of the prevalence of fish sauce in Thai cuisine!
While it might sound strange, fish sauce is not dissimilar from soy sauce – but uses fermented, salted anchovies instead of soybeans. After the fermentation process, the fish is filtered from the sauce, leaving a delicious, strong flavor depth often used both as an ingredient, and as a condiment. Of course, if that isn’t an option, a bit of sea salt to your taste can do the job in enhancing your favorite flavors.
Hot flavors? It’s a no brainer if you love Thai food – bring on the chilies! While some chilies can capture a variety of other flavors (like sweetness) most Thai chilies fall in the spicy category and should be readily available at groceries. Play up or play down the heat and balance it out with a variety of other flavor profiles.
Bitterness has a sweet spot in Thai cuisine. While many wouldn’t think of this taste of any food as an enticing idea, this flavor is expertly blended together in Thai cuisine to enhance dishes with depth, personality, and flavor. While it may be a bit more difficult to source, a Thai ingredient that might be worth experimenting with this flavor would be the bitter melon!
We can’t wait to see what you eat and make! Make sure to tag #EatThaiVisitThai and @ThailandInsider on your sweepstake post to enter our sweepstake!
Ready to enter? Submit your entry here at https://thailandinsider.com/eatthaivisitthai/!
We’d also like to thank all our restaurant partners below for being part of the campaign:
