Thai Dinner Party Ideas to Wow Your Guests

Thailand Inspired Dinner Party

Think Thailand and you imagine the ancient temples in Chiang Mai, the Chao Praya River reflecting the glow of the Wat Arum temple during warm evenings, white sandy beaches and blazing sunsets, Bangkok's chaotic traffic, graceful bamboos, and the history rich sacred city of Ayuthaya. The food is glorious too! Hot and sour soup with shrimp, sumptuous fried rice with crab, Thai summer rolls, and the heavenly mango ice-cream. You can bring Thailand to your home in your next dinner party.

Recreate the Culture

Dinner party ideas can be successfully executed if carefully planned; and if you have been giving dinner parties with the same food and party theme, it is about time to try something exciting to delight your guest or better yet, surprise them with a Thai dinner party.

An element essential to a captivating Thai themed dinner party is the setting. Do not plunk the food on serving dishes and convince your guest you are having a Thai dinner party this way. Your guests will surely go home unimpressed.

The Table

Dinner party ideas always bring focus to table preparation. For your Thai dinner party, use an embroidered (if available) green or red silk runner to give the table the exotic Asian look that echoes the mystic of the East. Bamboo placemats in their natural color will enhance the vibrant silk runner.

As a centerpiece, orchids floating in low celadon or jade green vases and scented candles arranged beautifully will perfectly perk up your table. You can also arrange shiny pebbles on or around the vases. For table napkins, use raffia tied with ribbon matching the color of your table runner. For music, find Thai traditional instrumental music to enhance the ambiance of the setting.

Lighting

The dining area should not be brightly lit but illuminated with soft lighting to dramatize the scent of incense and heighten the Thai inspired dinner. Setting and lighting makes the dining experience a delightful one.

Food and Drinks

Thai party dinner ideas for the festive fare is not complete without rice and Thailand's famous spices - curry, cayenne pepper, saffron, cilantro, and chili powder. Some Thai recipes can be easily prepared in advanced or brought in stores. You have several choices, pork, poultry, noodles, fish, and greens.

The flavors range from hot, sour, sweet, bitter or salty and the food is prepared with the freshest ingredients. When choosing the menu select ingredients available in Thai food specialty shops or order the more tricky recipes from Thai restaurants.

For the drinks, you can introduce Thai Iced Tea to the women, a sweet concoction of black tea, evaporated milk, sugar, cinnamon, cardamon, and tons of crushed ice. For the gentlemen, give them the full bodied Singha Beer and they'll get a kick out of it.

Use a Thai theme for your next dinner party and enjoy the compliments that are guaranteed to flow your way. It is easier than you think.

Kitchen Gadgets

Are you one of the many individuals who likes kitchen gadgets? Most people who cook are very fond of or even hooked on kitchen gadgets. Naturally, some kitchen gadgets are more useful than others and some are positively essential.Who could do without a cooker, a kettle or a coffee maker? Mixers and blenders are common items too and electric tin openers and knife sharpeners can be found in many kitchens. How much cooking would you be able to do if the electricity was cut off?

Cooks have always loved gadgets, the only thing that has altered is that the majority of the contemporary kitchen gadgets are electric these days. We had a water-driven potato peeler when I was a child. It was attached to the tap by a hose and the water drove a wheel which span an abrasive wheel which took the skin off a pound or two of potatoes.

We also had a manual apple corer and a garlic squeezer, but that was about it. On the other hand, our kitchen has quite a few electric gadgets, including a juicer, a rice cooker and a bread-making machine.

My wife's favourite kitchen device is the rice cooker, but then she is Thai and eats quite a bit of rice. In fact, the rice cooker is only switched off to wash and refill it. It leaves a beautiful sweet smell in the air which is not dissimilar to fresh bead, if you use Jasmin rice, which is Thailand's finest.

When I lived in Britain, my kitchen was full of labour-saving devices, but some of the things I used to use just once a month over there, I now see being used every day. For instance, I had a wok and a bamboo steamer which I used once in a while, now all my food is cooked either in a wok, in a bamboo steamer or on a barbecue.

Similarly, I had a pestle and mortar which looked good on the top of the cupboard. It gave the impression that I was a proper cook, but I never truly found a use for it. Now my wife uses a huge granite pestle and mortar to prepare every meal. It weighs about ten pounds and is large enough to mix a cake in; the broad end of the pestle will fill half an orange (I use that as a juicer, that is how I know).

My favourite kitchen gadget is the bread maker, but then I am European and am very partial to bread. Where I live though, in northern rural Thailand, the bread is quite sweet by Western standards and took me a few years to get accustomed to. Now I can bake my own and I love it, although obtaining strong flour is not so easy.

I like to put the ingredients in the bread machine before I go to bed and set the timer so that the bread is cooked when I wake up. You do not need an alarm clock with the smell of fresh bread wafting from the kitchen! Now all I miss is cheese, but I have not seen a cheese-maker yet.

Chiang Mai Deals - 10 Ways to Eat Cheaper in Thailand's Cultural Center

Known for rock-bottom eating expenses, most visitors to Thailand nevertheless overspend on food, but in Chiang Mai, deals are just around every corner. The more adventurous traveler who seeks a more authentic Thai experience or wants to make his/her travel money go even further can find cheaper, and often tastier, alternatives if they know what to look for. Many other long-term visitors are baffled when I tell them of my favorite venues, where I get a huge plate of yellow rice with fried chicken, a cup of fish soup, half of a sliced cucumber, and ice water for 50 baht (1.43 USD). And that is on one of the most Westernized islands in Thailand!

In Chiang Mai, it gets even better. There is no reason why you cannot eat a full meal for 30 baht (86 cents) in this town, but I have also managed to hunt down places where you can eat a full meal with ice water included for 10 baht (10 cents) or get noodle soup for 3 baht (9 cents)!

After living here for eight and a half months, I have come up with these ten tips:

1: Take a Hike--
Forgo the motorbike or tuk tuk your first day or two in a new location. Skip the taxis and walk. This slows you down and gives you a feel for the place like no motorized transport ever can. The cheap eateries are often barely noticeable, as they are often in people's homes, and signs which whizzed by on the bike are attention grabbers at a walking pace. Whoah--noodle soup for 20 baht! Know your surroundings, and you will know how to best take advantage of them.

2. Avoid the Tourist Traps--
This should go without saying, but most people are too tempted by the wide array of options in the main tourist junctions to bother venturing beyond the action. Even in chaotic Bangkok, all one has to do is walk one block either direction from Khao San Road to find delicious meals for around 30 baht and walk away full (free water or iced tea included). Did you come to Thailand to eat Thai food or hamburgers and pasta?

3. Don't Judge a Book by...
Yawn. That age old adage once again...If you have heard it once...Ahem. Anyhow, it rings true yet again. In Thailand, the extra dollar or two in pricier restaurants is usually a reflection of increased decor rather than increased quality. In fact, the vice versa is sometimes a better rule of thumb. When you pay more, you are paying for ambience. That's is great if this is what you want, but if you are looking for better food at lower prices, look for establishments with the bare necessities. Plastic furniture that doesn't match. An absence of music. An antique television set blaring Thai soap operas. Hokey thrown-together decor. Many of these places are just extensions of the Thai entrepreneur's home, and dining there will give you a much closer look at Thai culture.

4. You Just Can't Beat the Streets--
The entire world over you will find open-air street food, and it is usually the best value in any given area. This is particularly true in Southeast Asia. Sometimes you will find the usual collection of plastic furniture out front and full service, but often you will just get a small, disposable dish or be expected to eat out of a plastic bag. If it is close enough to finger food, I tell them to save the plastic and eat it out of my hands, but of course it depends on if I'm eating a piece of barbecued chicken or chicken curry.

5. Forage at the Food Markets--
Chiang Mai's cheapest venues offer an amazing culinary adventure, and the markets are a revelation to anyone who has never had the pleasure. Pick your way through the various stalls, sampling new dishes, or hit the collection of cheap roadside eateries which often accompany traditional markets. My favorite part about the markets is they stay open until the early hours of the morning, so if I am on my way back from the disco I can stop and fill up. I'll tell you what--it's a lot better than pulling through the late-night Burger King drive-throughs in America...The best Chiang Mai deals are found in the marketplaces.

6. Compare Prices--
Do not be shy about walking in to a restaurant, browsing the menu, and then leaving. Thais appreciate competition. If you feel guilty, simply smile and say, "Pop kan mai (see you again)." Do this on your walking tours to get a grasp of the local prices and to see what your options are.

7. Be Adventurous--
Try new things, even if they scare you. You might be surprised. Many foods which seem alien to Westerners will be cheap because tourists avoid them. Also, reconsider your notion of cleanliness. In your home country clean may mean pretty, but, to Thais, clean is simply clean. If a lot of people are eating there, you can rest assured the food is likely safe. Don't blame me if you get Bangkok belly--it is going to happen to you whether you follow my advice or not. Stomach problems in Thailand are an initiation every Westerner experiences, but it is far more often the result of bacteria or spices your body is not used to rather than sanitation issues. Don't worry. :-)

8. When in Rome...
Ah! Not another cliché...Go where the locals go! This is probably the most important, and most often overlooked, guideline to eating cheaply. Many of the local Thais are living on less 10,000 baht or less a month, and even those with more money naturally seek out the best food at the lowest prices. If I want to find a new place to eat with delicious and sanitary food, I just drive around and look for a small crowd of Thai people eating outside, but it is even better if you have a Thai friend from Chiang Mai to show you around.

9. Speak Thai--
In Thailand, there is almost always a Thai price and a "farang" price. No matter how long you stay, this will apply to you as well--you will never "become" Thai in any sense. However, open up to people and try to speak their language and you may often receive a discounted price or larger portions, especially if you're a regular customer. One time at the Chiang Mai Aquarium, I received a major discount off the stated entrance fee after attempting broken Thai. "Raakha thourai (how much)?" I repeated, thinking I had misunderstood. "Speak Thai--get Thai price," the young girl said with a smile.

10. Manipulate the Menu--
Do you really have to eat meat with EVERY dish? I opted for a pad thai with vegetable instead of with chicken one time, and it was topped with an omelette so big it covered the entire dish to compensate (not exactly vegetarian, afterall lol). It ended up being one of the best pad thais I've ever had. Do they offer special dishes served on rice for individuals (always a fantastic bargain)? Sometimes, there is no apparent price motive between different dishes, and the reasoning is a mystery. If you are on a budget, choose wisely. Let's face it-everything on the menu is delicious!

And one more, just for good measure...

11: Eat with the Thais--
Though you should never purposely take advantage of this, Thais are some of the most generous people in the world. Stumble upon a Thai party and you will be ushered into a chair to be force-fed Thai whiskey and delicious food, even if you have no reason to be there. Say you are full and you're plate will be repeatedly refilled. If this happens to you, DO NOT offer to pay. It would be an insult, although, if you accompany less well-off Thais to a restaurant you are expected to pay. One night, while waiting to catch the morning boat across the river to Laos, I crashed a Teacher's Cub karaoke party and ended up buddying up with the school director. We got wasted, sang "Stand by Me" for the crowd, and he invited me to come stay with his family for an extended period. If you really get in well with Thais you may have the pleasure to attend a delicious Thai home BBQ. Bring a bottle or two of beer. If you are settling in for the long-term, you may even end up throwing a few of these at your place. Not to worry--there are plenty of places to purchase heaps of cheap meat and vegetables.

In Chiang Mai, deals are not hard to come by, no matter what kind of bargain you are looking for. Even if you prefer fine dining, classy clubs, and luxury hotels, you will surely find a value that far exceeds the money you spend.

Chok dee khrab!

Recipe Chocolate Cake