Ordering Thai seafood
Thai seafood is a catch sold by weight. You point at the fish, ask the price per kilo, and only then choose how it is cooked, whether steamed with lime and chili, fried with garlic or grilled in a salt crust.
Photo: Takeaway (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Point at the fish, ask the price per kilo, and only then choose the cook. Pla nueng manao is steamed with lime and chili. Pla thot krathiam is fried with garlic. Pla pao is salt-crust grill. Pla yang is over coals. Prawn and crab follow the same rule. If the answer is a shrug, walk.
A town seafood meal can be 200 to 600 THB a person once you add rice and a soup. Islands cost more because the catch and the ice move by boat. Koh Kood and Koh Lipe pages on this site name the rooms. Do not stack a by-weight grill and a buffet the same night.
What to say
- Tao rai means how much. Use it before the grill.
- Kilo is the unit. A whole fish is not a 60 THB snack.
- Nam pla prik is the fish-sauce chili dip. Ask for it if the table is plain.
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- Is the displayed fish the price?
- Only if a number is on it. Otherwise ask. The board can be per kilo, not per fish.
- Cheap islands?
- No. Phi Phi, Lipe, and Kood all cost more than a mainland town.