RE: My Road to Steemfest – The Thai Life
carbs are tough to avoid here since as you said, almost everything involves rice or noodles. However, there are a ton of "snacks on a stick" available all over the place where it is basically just meat prepared a number of delicious ways.
There is a type of food called Isaan food (sometimes spelled Esaan) which is basically the cuisine of the north-east of the country. Almost all of this comes without rice as the rice aspect is "sticky rice" which is served on the side. I normally just skip the rice altogether if i am trying to avoid carbs. The most famous Isaan dish is papaya salad or "som-tum" and although a tiny bit of sugar is used in the process, this is only a small amount.
Virtually all of the delicious curries can be eaten without the rice or it's up to you how much of it you use. I don't think you will have as much of a problem as you might be thinking. It is just a bit more expensive (still cheap) to eat this way.
Careful of most Thai beverages as it is extremely common for a LOT of processed sugar to be added in the form of what the thais simply call "syrup" (it's just melted sugar)
Mainly i think snacks on a stick are going to be your "go to" there are lots of them and they are available pretty much everywhere, especially in BKK.
Thank you for the super helpful comment!!! I’m screenshotting this and adding it to my BKK research. The snacks on a stick sound perfect! Good point about being able to avoid rice because so many curries and other dishes have it on the side too.
Also - thanks for the warning with the iced beverages. I will proceed with caution there. 😬
oh, i should have added that there are fruit shakes available friggin everywhere. This is where they sneak in the liquid sugar, sometimes without telling you. While it does make it taste better (as sugar tends to) you are basically consuming three teaspoons of sugar in your nice healthy "fruit shake"
I'm not saying avoid fruit shakes, but just make sure they don't add sugar because at most places it is added by default.
Just reading this comment after I made mine, I second the motion on papaya salad!
papaya salad is one of those things that no matter how many times i have it, I still want to eat it again a few hours later or so. The mix of sour and spicy, in the hands of someone who really knows their stuff, is just divine.
Thanks @gooddream now I'm hungry!
It's also cool as there are many variations you can make.
I always ask my partner to add peanuts into mine as it adds some extra crunch!
I'm lucky as we have a papaya tree out the back of the house so it means we can get them fresh at 1 am in the morning when the late night hunger calls!
There is an art to cutting them up into fine pieces when she is preparing with a large knife in the kitchen I make sure the kids stay well clear.
I've added a video below for anyone wanting to see how we cut a papaya for the salad.