Southern Thai Cooking

Southern cooking is the hottest in Thailand and the most direct about it. Fresh chilli and turmeric dominate rather than dried spice, coconut is everywhere because the trees are, and the seasoning leans on shrimp paste and budu. Gaeng tai pla is a dark, salty curry built on fermented fish innards. Khua kling is minced meat fried dry with curry paste until nothing is left but heat and aromatics. Sator, the flat green stink bean, goes into both. Khanom jeen means fresh rice noodles served with a choice of curries and a tray of raw vegetables to cut them. In the old port towns, Peranakan dishes such as moo hong and Hokkien noodles sit alongside roti.

What you actually see

• Gaeng tai pla - the dark fermented-fish curry that defines the region.
• Khua kling - meat fried dry with curry paste, no sauce and no mercy.
• Khanom jeen trays - fresh noodles, several curries and raw vegetables.
• Sator - the flat green bean that flavours half the menu.

When to go

Curry shops are a morning and lunch business across the south and the trays are picked over by early afternoon, so eat early. Khanom jeen is a breakfast dish and is gone by ten in most towns. The peninsula runs two weather patterns and neither stops the kitchens, but the Andaman side is wettest from May to October.

Honest expectations

The heat here is not negotiable, and the versions served on the resort islands are a different, milder cuisine altogether. Fermented fish and shrimp paste dominate the flavours and are an acquired taste at best. Curry-shop hygiene varies with turnover, the trays sit out for hours, and almost nothing carries an English label.

Nearby

Phuket's old town lanes and the market halls of Nakhon Si Thammarat.