Street Fare

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Visitors to Southeast Asia are often told street food offers the most authentic dining experience. There is a sweaty thrill to chowing down with the locals.

Thailand, though, is the top location for Britons suffering food poisoning, according to a Norwich Union Plc survey, which might remove some of the sweetness from those roadside iced- pineapple chunks or spice from that late-night tom yam gong.

Yet you can safely savor fabulous food cheaply in Bangkok at eateries such as Suda, on Sukhumvit Road. If you're happy to pay more, Celadon at the Sukhothai Hotel serves food that is a match for any Thai cuisine I have tried anywhere. Hotel chains such as the Hilton and the Marriott aren't such good bets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... hTW_GVtgqY (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_vines&sid=a4hTW_GVtgqY)

Thailand, though, is the top location for Britons suffering food poisoning, according to a Norwich Union Plc survey, which might remove some of the sweetness from those roadside iced- pineapple chunksI have pineapple chunks and melon chunks from the street vendors downstairs most days and have yet to suffer any illness from that source for years and years

Over the years your system becomes more like the locals. If it doesn't kill you first.

[bing]

Many of us spend 2 or 3 weeks on vacation in Pattaya once or twice a year. If you are even a little bit smart, you will not eat at street food stalls. I know one of the staff at one of the top gay venues in Boystown a few years ago, (Hmmm perhaps more like 10 years ago) ate some food from a rolling cart and then spent a few days in hospital for food poisoning. His friends were not sympathetic, "Dummy ate street chicken on a stick, he should know better." It may look fine and may be, but not for the tummy of a farang visitor.

this is true..only the English who hve been brought up on the most hideous diet in the westrn world react so badly. You really should eat more of the variety of bugs and beetles available at roadside restaurants..very nutritious.

[TrongpaiExpat]

Over the years your system becomes more like the locals. If it doesn't kill you first.

Just took me a few months. I had been comming to Thailand on Holiday for years and was never with out imodium and kept an eye out for the hong nahm where ever I went.

It was not the change of diet, in farang land I cooked mostly Thai food. It had to be the water, the water used to clean food, not drink.

I now seldom have a case of the runs I must be adjusted to the Thai flora and bacteria.

You really should eat more of the variety of bugs and beetles available at roadside restaurantsAnd for all those Westerners who want to rush off to Isaan (in the hope that the boys there are more beautiful and less expensive than the Isaan ex-pats who populate the bars in Pattaya and Bangkok), the market in Udon Thani is full of gastronomic delicacies of the creepy-crawly variety

Street fare is no dirtier than restaurant fare. Often, it's much fresher since it's purchased in the morning and sold off completely before the end of the day. It's also mostly cooked in front of you, at high temperatures.

There's no telling how long that cheeseburger bun has been in the deep freeze by the time it's served to you, and whether or not the "chef" who assembled it washed his hands after using them to wipe his bum, Thai style. Anywhere you dine, it's a crap shoot (so to speak).

I tend to avoid most street food, but if the stall looks clean and the bicycle well cared for I am not adverse to a bit of charcoal grill. It's best to catch them when they are just setting out, then the vendor will have just had a good wash and you can also see how well the food has been kept, clean damp wash towels covering clean bowls of bright pink sweet smelling meat, and you should be fine. It also helps if the vendor is a tidy clean youngish man, with a lovely set of sparkling clean teeth, set in a heart breaking smile.

It also helps if the vendor is a tidy clean youngish man, with a lovely set of sparkling clean teeth, set in a heart breaking smile.If he's close by your apartment it also gives you the opportunity to make sure he's clean all over by inviting him back ... for a shower

[bkkguy]

I know one of the staff at one of the top gay venues in Boystown a few years ago, (Hmmm perhaps more like 10 years ago) ate some food from a rolling cart and then spent a few days in hospital for food poisoning. His friends were not sympathetic, "Dummy ate street chicken on a stick, he should know better."

I have had more cases of food poisoning from major Boyztown and Silom venues than I have had from food stalls!

bkkguy

I recall that a popular Soi 4 bar had an outbreak of food poisoning a year ago. I've made it a practice to avoid ordering food at any of the Silom bars and clubs.

[bing]

Well guys, it would seem prudent to be careful of all food, always be aware of food that has been sitting around for a while, even if it is free. A word to the wise, I used to travel with a Doctor's script for Lomotil but Imodium seems to work as well for me. I would suggest tourists bring some tummy medicine so you don't spend your vacation tied to a bathroom. (This is unless being tied to a bathroom is your thing.)

I have pineapple chunks and melon chunks from the street vendors downstairs most days and have yet to suffer any illness from that source for years and years

Judging from your postings here, I'd venture a guess that you're troubled with constipation more often than with Toxin's revenge...

Soon you will see street vendors who sell deep fried bugs and bees introducing Bugburgers available exclusively for farangs -- someone has got an idea, anything burger will go well with farangs.

They'll have to put them on "bakery fresh" buns before I'll get anywhere near them.

[dab69]

my favorite is chicken on a stick

Probably just depends on your constitution.

I always get ill - my friend never does.

So if you tend to get ill - make sure all food is hot/well cooked.

Try to avoid salad/fruit and drink bottled water.

... problems with Thai food here in Thailand. The only problem I have had was a sore stomach, much wretching and a sore arse after having a steak at one of Boyztown's eateries.

As for the food stalls, I really do recommend you give them a go. So many restaurants aimed at Farang's just completely tone down the 'taste' factor for Farang (with a few exceptions {Niddy's/Non Cafe to name but two} or if you ask for spicy). Spend a few days just eating proper Thai foood from vendors and then go back to what you thought was Thai food in a Farang Restaurant and spot the difference.

Never had any problems with fruit or salads, although the Thai diet does tend to make me a litle more looser than the heavily breaded and starchy western diet. As for the insects, which my friend calls something like 'Tak-a-Thong', try it, but make sure you are with a Thai friend who can show you how to eat the little bugs, if you don't snap off the head and the heavily serrated front legs/claws, you will end up with a mouth torn to shreds and a throat that feels like its been scratched by the red painted finger nails of a vengeful Thai ladyboy.

Golden rule, avoid anything and everything that is not freshly cooked in-front of ya over a high heat or is not peeled by yourself after first washing, whilst washing your own sticky fingers, and avoid ice. This means tuck in to any number of delicious street or market food, but avoid all salad or raw items and anything that is sold buffet style, unless this has been thrown into the wok over the heat first. Thai salads are delicious but any number of restaurants sell them, no need to get that off the street. Though sometimes I wonder if the risks are not worse in restaurants because in the street you can at least see what is going on. I can never resist a little fresh chilly relish, and it has done me no harm.

Some people avoid all shell fish and this is wise,especially on holiday. But for those that can't resist, good luck, you have only a slight risk of ending up in hospital for 2-weeks or so. Even if the sea food is fresh or alive the water it came from could be tainted, this is the same the world over. A good alternative to the hospital thing instead of a holiday, is to treat yourself to a slap up sea-food at any-one of the top end hotels or restaurants, here the sea food will have been tested for bacteria, who can resist jet fresh oysters, even here make sure they are alive before you swallow. A small wedge of lemon will do the trick, it should recoil with just a drop if it is alive and well.

Try not to eat with your own bare hands, they carry by far the worst collection of bugs you are likely to encounter in Thailand. Dip your chopsticks or spoon and fork into freshly boiled water or tea. Throw the tea into the drain and order some more, be discreet about the last action you don't want them thinking they are insane and it could be insulting as they are more than likely cleaner than you are after a day on the street.

Let your nose be the guide as to what is good or not, and you wont be disappointed.

I am assuming your last post was a little tongue in-cheek, however, if not, I refer back to another forum topic and am now suspecting that you are infact Howard Hughes reincarnate, true? The only thing you missed out on was laying the paper tissues from your hotel room to the restaurant. As for the no ice 'rule', I was one of those foolish things that used to believe this nonsensical misconception. I think you will find that in any major city, all the ice comes prepacked and sealed and delivered clean & fresh to the eatery/hostelry of your choice. Go on, I dare you, next time you have a tea, have an ice one :geek:

Sometimes I take the chicken from the street, never been a problem for me, maybe a sore arse, but never a problem for everybody

Last year I had a breakfast buffet at JW Marriott on Sukhumvit, saw 1 dead fly lying in the fruit cocktail on the buffet table. I told the waitress, she used a spoon to pick up the dead fly, smiled at me and said: it's ok now. :idea:

What did you want her to do, through away the whole bowl of fruit salad? What harm could one dead fly do to anyone?

It was last April I was flying home from Thailand. On the tv screen in the plane came a report that said after reviewing the preparation methods and contamination found in somtam at street vendors and restaurants, the street vendors were more sanitary and overall safer to eat than restaurants. i don't know if this is true only for the papaya salad, but I certainly wish someone would have told me that before I landed. Most nights here I have eaten at food stalls and have yet to have a problem. Doesn't mean I'm throwing the immodium i brought with me away though.

HWT

[bkkguy]

the last report I saw on somtam street stalls from the BMA said that 90% of them had peanuts and/or chillies contaminated with aflatoxin and/or dried shrimp with illegal food colouring. the report didn't cover restaurants.

bkkguy

fatman no tongue in cheek. All this becomes second nature for the seasoned traveller. I thought it quite practical sensible advice. Surely I have ice in my Vodka, but not the crushed kind in plastic bags sold filled with sickly sweet liquid on street level. Just being sensible. Not even in Hong Kong would I touch the ice unless I was in a five star hotel. At most restaurants and bars in Bangkok ice is fine of course. But not all ice and not every-where in Thailand??
I like nothing better than stopping on the side of the road in the hot season and having a slap up Thai meal with a tall drink, I just order sensibly that's all.
Toilet seats are cleaner than mobile phones remember.

Toilet seats are cleaner than mobile phones remember.

Mobile phones are cleaner than their owners' mouth.

[dave_tf-old]

I've always read that immodium and the like were 'bad ideas' when suffering from the run-of-the-mill runs. Something about not allowing the body to flush the nasties enables them to multiply even more.

I almost always have a day or two of the bangkok-boogie, but mostly early and mostly when coming off of an intense work-schedule, so it's not always been the food, imo, but attributable to time-change and maybe the whole awful airline experience.

Issan grubs, btw, are delicious and very, very juicy. I can see them eventually replacing sweet-corn in the more adventurous Christmas dinners.

If your mobile phone is dirtier than your toilet seat,
might you be misusing the vibrate feature?

In my opinion immodium is essential on any trip. It all depends on the severity of the diarrhoea. If it is just mild, charcoal tabs are fine. If it is bad and you do not have any re-hydration sachets with you, and you have cramp, then immodium is excellent. No it won't delay the removal of the nasties. A half a tab max, to start, that is mostly enough to cure it, rather build up, than try and build down to avoid constipation, which can be equally unpleasant.
The best cure for food poisoning is to throw up, that usually stops it in it's tracks. Mostly one vomit is enough. However if you are projectile vomiting get to the hospital.

I am very sensitive to coffee, especially fresh brew. I would even suggest avoiding it on holiday especially the local stuff. I take a bottle of instant Nescafe decaffeinated to my hotel, they rarely have it on offer as it is rightly inferior to fresh stuff, but it allows your tummy to acclimatise. You can get Nescafe most other places. A tin of tea is also a good idea, they are so light, and hardly any-one even 6-star hotels in Thailand serves orange pekoe.

I have never been ill in Thailand, even eating outdoor raw meat chicken fondu. But I got violently ill after eating a kebab in London once. Many ways it is just the luck of the draw. But there are certainly ways to minimise the chances of getting sick.

[Aunty]

the last report I saw on somtam street stalls from the BMA said that 90% of them had peanuts and/or chillies contaminated with aflatoxin and/or dried shrimp with illegal food colouring. the report didn't cover restaurants.

bkkguy

Aflatoxin, now that's nasty. It's a potent mutagen and typically causes liver cancer. It's a metabolite from a species of fungus that grows on things like peanuts and rice that has been stored improperly (damp).

many cases of food poisoning is caused by E coli, a bacteria that lives in our gut. There are regional variants of E coli, so while we are quite tolerant of our own local E coli, we are not to one from a different region. Hence the runs which we get when we travel to a new destination. We need time to build up a tolerance to the new strain. There are also nasty strains of E coli and other bugs like Camplyobacteria which, if we are infected with these, give us a genuine case of food poisoning. (There are many viruses which do the same such as norovirus, prevalent in shellfish throughout Asia). These are disease causing bugs and in some instances they can be deadly. All cases of food poisoning can be traced to poor hygiene and/or insufficient cooking. It's basically food contaminated with human shit, and can result from something as simple as a food handler not washing their hands after taking a crap.

Hmm never touch peanuts! Planters are OK out of a sealed tin. I am just realising that maybe Fatman is correct, I might be the re-incarnation of Howard Hughes. Good point aunty, so many people eat peanuts, those soggy ones served as a light snack in restaurants before the meal or drink has arrived, they just don't stop to think.
Cholera is a nasty, and so easy to pick up from shell fish it's really not worth the prawn. Especially bearing in mind they are farmed in ditches.

With all the things you can get from ingesting simple faeces, I suggest people wear a plastic bag over their heads next time they off a Thai man and ask him to wear a pair of marigold gloves. This will also save him from having to clean up later. Remember even under your finger nails could lurk a potentially lethal dose of little brown matter.

Speaking of "under-the-fingernails", the worst ever hygiene lapse I've seen in Thailand: a kai yang vendor pausing to help her naked, infant child scratch his itchy anus...then going back to turning over the chicken pieces with her fingers.

[Aunty]

Speaking of "under-the-fingernails", the worst ever hygiene lapse I've seen in Thailand: a kai yang vendor pausing to help her naked, infant child scratch his itchy anus...then going back to turning over the chicken pieces with her fingers.

Eeeewwwwwww, how gross!



With all the things you can get from ingesting simple faeces, I suggest people wear a plastic bag over their heads next time they off a Thai man and ask him to wear a pair of marigold gloves.

As you rightly point out Cedric, no matter what happens, or whatever the circumstances, there's always fashion!

Laughter is so good for soul.

Just trying to think of the very worst hygiene laps I have come across in Thailand. I can't think of any, they are a very clean lot on the whole. Now China, well it would be easier to think of the only case of hygiene I have ever come across. That would be during the SARS epidemic, from behind my giant mask I caught someone coughing into a tissuet and neatly depositing it in a bin.

I mean to put this question about, because it might directly affect my health and that of a fabulous fuchsia frangipani from Mexico. Can chlorine kill the H5N1 virus? I don't see any info on this anywhere?
Every evening a tiny flock of tiny emerald and scarlet birdies roosts in a trees, which I purposely planted overhanging the pool so it scatters it's scented flowers across the water. However the birdies make tiny shits all night long and in the morning their tiny efforts leave a considerably large carpet of dung on the pool floor. They are obviously fruit eaters as it breaks up so easily when I swim past. I wonder if the virus is present, has it been killed already?

All info highly appreciated.

[Aunty]

I don't think you'd have to much to worry about there. It's likely the chlorine would deactivate the virus, and besides if the birds themselves are not infected then there's no way they can infect your pool.

Since you are living in the city where the current H5N1 strain first appeared and of course SARS could come back at any time (also in your area), do you have protection at home? You know a little survival kit with canned food, water, gas stove etc (enough for at least seven days so you don't have to leave the house at the height of an epidemic), masks, surgical gloves and shit like that? A stock of tamiflu to treat yourself in the event a bird flu epidemic does actually break out and you start to feel sick? It's likely the hospital system will rapidly be overwhelmed by sick people in the event of an epidemic and the system will collapse, and don't forget the doctors and nurses won't have any protection so they may become unwell and die too. Business may close down and utilities may stop functioning for periods, so you need to be able to support yourself at home. By the way the face mask you actually need is what's known as a respirator and it should have a N95 rating. (3M make them) Don't rely on a surgical mask they don't provide protection from viruses. And if there is an outbreak when you go out wear your mask, surgical disposable gloves and goggles that seal and protect your eyes. When you get home dump the gloves in the trash, wipe your hands with alcohol wipes, wash and dry them, and then take the mask and goggles off. Oh and buy a lab caot.

You are so right Aunty, what ever happens and what ever the circumstances there is always haute couture.

No there is no bird flu here only in Thailand of course. All those magnificent cocks on the chopping block. I am an expert on "Bush tucker" I believe it's called or Bushmens platter, so I will never starve, just root up the odd tuber and trap a wild pig or three.
I can train one of the pugs to snort truffles, it could all be quite exciting gastronomically, should the virus break out. Even porcupine will find it's way onto my barbecue.
I will head for the hills, i.e. stay exactly where I am, and continue gnawing on tree trunks. Let every-one else wear body bags, they are so 17thC and in this heat very impractical.