Thai Street Food: Authentic Recipes, Vibrant Traditions [A Cookbook] Hardcover – September 21, 2010

I read the other reviews before purchasing this book. While I understand the few low scores, it's still the most beautiful, accurate and helpful book on Thai cooking that I've ever seen. I lived on and off in Thailand for years and this book absolutely captures the essence of Thai street food. While a few of the ingredients can be a challenge to find, the overwhelming majority are easily found at any Asian market like the ones in any big U.S. city. There are also online Thai grocers that will ship harder to find items. While there are a great many pictures that are unrelated to the specific recipes, they capture the feel of what it's like to eat on the street in Thailand. Moreover, the Thai transliteration of ingredients is hugely helpful to me - something I've wished I had for a long time. I've cooked several things from this book and they're all delicious. My wife (who is Thai) insists that if she didn't know a farang was cooking, she'd have assumed it was a Thai cook.My only complaint is that the book is far too big and heavy to be practical in the kitchen. However, I think the fact that there are large color pictures of *every* dish is fantastic and something that I wish all cookbooks had. Add in the healthy Amazon discount and buying this book is a no-brainer...

David Thompson, the author of "Thai Food", the English-language "bible" of Thai cooking, has done it again!I lived in Thailand for 3 years, and found the street food to be wonderful. You will find delicious morsels for sale on every street corner in Thailand - many Thais graze all day while running around getting their shopping and work done. This is the first cookbook I have ever found, even in Thailand, that captures all these delicious recipes in one place. The recipes are very authentic and approachable for the home cook. This is Thai "comfort food" at it's best. And mixed in with the excellent recipes are tons of outstanding photos that really capture the essence of the Thai street scene. As a photography book it could stand alone, even if you never cooked anything from it. But that would be a shame - I tried a couple of my street favorites this week, and the recipes were EXACTLY like I remember the taste.An outstanding book - but I didn't expect anything less from David Thompson. If you don't have his other book, "Thai Food", you should consider adding that to your collection also. It's full of recipes that you rarely find in cookbooks outside Thailand (as well as all the old favorites), and some of my very favorites came from that book. Buy them together and you will never need another book on Thai cooking!

This book shows you the most complete Thai street food available with a good indication of all ingredients per dish needed and the step by step instructions on how to make it. It also shows many elaborate pictures of all various places where street food comes from and the scenes how they are consumed. Most impressive, are the stories that make Thai street food the complete bible on this subject is the descriptions of where dishes come from on the history behind it. In the back of the book are the thumbnails of the pictures and the description where they are made, this might give you inspiration which markets to go when in Thailand.Pictures are of fantastic quality and so are the recipes. The other book by David Thompson (known to me as being the English speaking guru on Thai food and a capable man who know to prepare Thai food better than many Thai themselves) is a complete bible on almost all recipes from Thailand, however being more technical and being more a recipe book. This is besides a very good recipe book also a fantastic coffee table book to show off. Well done!

This huge and heavy book will be of interest to anyone who wants to know and revel in the experience of Thai street food. For those who have traveled to Thailand, it will be worth having because of the authentic recipes and fabulous photos. For those who haven't been there but love Thai food as they know it in restaurants, it will be an educational experience in what the real food of Thailand -- at least as it is eaten in the markets and street stalls -- is all about. For people interested in the culture of Thailand, it is also a great book. David Thompson is as much an anthropologist as a chef. His book Thai Food is also as much an investigation to the history and culture of Thailand as it is a recipe book. It was a real work of scholarly research and of preserving the Thai haute cuisine. This book is similar except that as a study of street food it is at the other end of the culinary scale -- but not any the less delicious.My one negative comment -- and the reason for only 4 stars instead of five -- is the weight of the book. It is huge and heavy. It can't be held comfortably to read -- it needs to be on a table and as such wouldn't be easy to work with in the kitchen when cooking any of the recipes. I would have paid extra to have the book have a companion text for just the recipes. As it is, I have to say its size and weight are a significant drawback. Perhaps Thompson and his editors and publisher expected that no one would actually use it as a cookbook, but even reading it is a challenge -- and I'm no dainty lightweight!

Looked interesting. "100+ recipes" claimed. The Kindle version only has 3 or 4 recipes. Amazon wouldn't give me a refund.