[Abbylovi]

Has anyone been to cooking classes in Thailand?

This one was mentioned in Gourmet:

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School

[Ron Johnson]

Abbylovi, on May 24 2004, 01:56 PM, said:

Has anyone been to cooking classes in Thailand?

This one was mentioned in Gourmet:

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School

My sister has and loved it. I will email her forthwithly. All I remember is that it was in the mountains someplace.

[Ron Johnson]

It was Chiang Mai, and she recommends it.

[pim]

I don't really know much about cooking schools in Thailand, but my friend Ethan has been to that particular one in Chiang Mai, and wrote about his experience for the Boston Globe.

You can find the article on his site at http://perso.wanadoo...ethan.gilsdorf/

[boaziko]

I can highly recommend a cooking class I was attending, with Chef Chom at the Tongsay bay hotel in Ko-samui. The cooking classes are only when she is visiting her (great) restaurant in the Island. Most of the time (if I got the picture right) she is situated in what she described as Boutique Inn in Bangkok. She is very knowledgeable and kind lady, I enjoyed every second. My family likes the "outcome" I practice here at home.

http://www.tongsaibay.co.th/chom.htm

[Sleepy_Dragon]

I just returned from my first visit to Thailand, including doing all 10 of the classes offered at Sompon Nabnian's Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. My overall experience there was very good, albeit with a healthy dose of being able to sift through and work around the IMO understandable steps they take to make the food appealing and more goofproof to people with no tolerance for spiciness.

I say understandable because the majority of the students there were tourists, with significant representation from Euro countries like Germany, Netherlands, the nordic-scandi countries, etc., basically, places with people who'd request all of the chili be left out of the dish they made at their station, easy on the fish sauce and shrimp paste, and so on.

There were a small handful of us from the restaurant industry, and it was no problem for any of us to doctor our dishes for bigger hotter flavors, along with advice on how best to deploy it. We'd always be done and eating our food long before everyone else, so it was easy to tell who were restaurant cooks and chefs! But what was easy for us was a good pace with some challenge for most others who are there on vacation.

I'd recommend TMTCS, though with reservations with regard to the level of familiarity and goals a person brings with them. For some people, it's fine to do all of the beginner classes (read: little or no experience working with Thai ingredients and cooking); for others, just one or two would suffice (read: you know the ingredients readily available in your neck of the woods but want to expand on that, already know what to do if given coconut milk, a tub of Mae Ploy curry paste, and some meat and veg, but want a little more).

For folks who want to get to the more interesting and challenging stuff right away, the master classes are the way to go, provided you're comfortable just being thrown right into it: no class lectures, just non-stop prep with some light butchery, running around from station to station, and cooking, with running commentary and guidance from Chef. The kitchen at his house accomodates 25 students during the day, but a mere three master class students will use all 25 of those stations for any of the evening classes. It really is a lot more work, and while I loved it, I can also see it being unsuitable for people who want to feel like they're on a relaxing vacation.

I also have to say I ate a lot of khao soi in Chiang Mai, but IMO none of it was as good as what we got to make for the Northern Thai menu at the school. This menu was my favorite out of the five offered in the evening, though I enjoyed all 5.

Feel free anybody to ask more specific questions and I'll do my best to answer. Overall I had a great time and I learned a lot, definitely the highlight of my trip. Well, along with a day at the Elephant Nature Park, but that's auf-topik! (still, check it out, those of you who want to spend time with elephant rescues while giving something back during your stay).

Pat

[edited Feb 27 to further add:

I altered my wording a bit in the first two paragraphs. Mostly, what I want to get clear here is the school will accomodate different preferences, even if it means the experience is made less authentic, but if you make it clear you want it how the locals like it, you'll be taught that too, though you'd still have to do some inferral yourself. Ex: Have som tam made by a street vendor, take note of what's in the condiment jars. The version of som tam taught at school can be made as hot and tangy as you like, but because you indicated to the street vendor to make it Thai style and watched what they did, you'd also know from looking at your mise en place in class that the school version is missing pickled crab and anchovy paste. Et voila, knowledge of the complete recipe not catering to fraidycat palates. Chef will also explain how to make those condiments too if you ask.

My opinion and observation is it's not possible to run a profitable Thai cooking school which is strictly for the professionals and devout foodies of Thai cuisine, though who knows, maybe somebody will prove me wrong someday. While I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed my time at CMTCS, I'd say it's a plus to include eating elsewhere and observing carefully how the food is made to get a more complete picture. Even better, and what I'd wished I'd done, is study some Thai language first, so you can read all the menus not translated, as well as communicate with the street vendors and restaurant staff to avoid the farang menus.]