favorite thai food.

[hhfarang]

I was just going by the name of one of my favorite Thai dishes, "yam nuea", which is spicy beef salad (and it's always been beef without specifying anything else); if I want it with pork, I have to order "yam moo". I guess if I don't want the fat I should order "yam nuea moo".

[E-Dork]

HHFarang said..

I was just going by the name of one of my favorite Thai dishes, "yam nuea", which is spicy beef salad (and it's always been beef without specifying anything else); if I want it with pork, I have to order "yam moo". I guess if I don't want the fat I should order "yam nuea moo".

I am no expert on this but from what I have experienced it very much depends on the dish you are ordering. Some dishes, like may fave 'Nam Tok Moo', are more often than not served with the fat of the meat as a Thai preference so once ordering I need to say "Ow pben Nueua khrap" (I would like the meat/flesh please) to avoid a plate of chewy fat.

Other dishes are never served using the fat so no need to say anything. My converstional skills are fairly good in Thai but for some reason I still haven't grasped the food side of it all!

HHFarang, in America do you eat the fat or throw it away. I was always brought up to cut the fat off the meat and give it to the dog. I do admire the 'waste not want not' attitude of the Thai's though. A chicken, for example, will go a lot further here (feet and all) compared to England.

[hhfarang]

HHFarang, in America do you eat the fat or throw it away.

Most people trim the fat around the edges of a cut of meat... marbling, or small streaks of fat through the meat is ok as it makes for a better flavor. Like you said, the fat usually goes to the dogs. Maybe that's why they rarely live past 15.

[TypicallyTropical]

HHFarang, in America do you eat the fat or throw it away.

Most people trim the fat around the edges of a cut of meat... marbling, or small streaks of fat through the meat is ok as it makes for a better flavor. Like you said, the fat usually goes to the dogs. Maybe that's why they rarely live past 15.

Considering that one dog year equals seven human years, that's 105 years, much more than most humans live, so give me the fat!

[barrys]

E-Dork wrote: "I have used 'Neua' when asking for the meat not the fat, and also used it when ordering a beef steak. If there is a difference between the intonation of the two it must be slight as both seems to work the same."

Korkenzieher wrote: "I think neua is also used for beef, barrys. You certainly get beef if you ask for neua, though 'neua moo' would be pork meat."

To try to summarise this:
There is no difference in the tones - it is the identical word.
As I mentioned, néua (เนื้อ) actually means flesh and, consequently, flesh consumed as meat.
A good analogy here would be the German word "Fleisch", from which the English "flesh" is derived, i.e:
Schweinefleisch (pig's flesh) = pork = néua moo,
Rehfleisch (deer's flesh) = venison = néua gwaang,
etc.
English is out of synch here because it was only with the Norman French invasion in the 11th Century that cultural culinary terms started to be introduced into English, i.e. the Germanic term for the animal (cow, swine, calf, etc.) followed by the (derived) French word for the animal to denote the flesh/meat (beef, pork, veal, etc.) in its prepared state.

My gf maintains that, where she comes from, it is normal to always precede the term for the animal by the word "néua" when referring to meat.

She does not know why "néua" is accepted in some areas as automatically referring to beef, but it could be historical, i.e. this being (having been) the most widely consumed form of meat, thus leading to a mutually understood linguistic contraction.

[Jack the lad]

have tried some of the recommendations and found them all to be good ( bambam, kims makham ) bambam best for seafood and makham for duck. What about issan food? where is the best issan food in hua hin ?

[hhfarang]

What about issan food? where is the best issan food in hua hin ?

I think it's Seb Nuer that I mentioned in an earlier post. It's a typical open air Thai restaurant located on the railroad tracks two or three hundred meters south of the train station.

[Francois]

There is now a sign up under the flyover south of town pointing to the driveway to the dirt road that Tamarind restaurant is on, but it says Ma Cham. I have heard people call it by both names but in the past the signs were only in Thai. Is that (Ma Cham or Ma Kham) phonetic for the name of the Tamarind fruit in Thai?

That's the Baan Makham. I was there the 1st time invited by Thai friends. That's a safe bet...