2 comments about Modern Thai Food: 100 Simple and Delicious Recipes from Sydney's Famous Longrain Restaurant.

1. MODERN THAI FOOD gathers innovative Thai dishes from Sydney's Longrain Restaurant and the creations of Chef Martin Boetz, who provides 100 of his favorite dishes adjusted for home cooks. From a Crisp Roast Duck and Lychee Salad and a Stir-Fried Squid with Light Curry Sauce to Smoked Trout Salad with Sweet Thai Dressing, this packs in many recipes created by chef Boetz, not to be found in any competing Thai cookbooks, and is a top pick for any who already cook Thai cuisine and seek new directions, especially for lending libraries strong in ethnic cuisines.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



2. Nothing essential to add to the other positive comments. This is much more than a cookbook - you have to look at it as an opus about Thai history and culture too. Recipes are elaborate and ingridients sometimes hard to get - but the results pay off! A must-have for Thai fans.

2 comments about The Elements of Life: A Contemporary Guide to Thai Recipes and Traditions for Healthier Living.

1. The Elements of Life may look like a coffee table book, but it is so much more. It serves as a doorway into the Thai way of life and traditions. Follow the steps and the adventure begins. For the interested reader, this book enables an uncomplicated method of incorporating Thai recipes for food and health/well-being.
   
   The first step is to use the included Elements of Life wheel to determine the reader's applicable Home Element. This step took only a couple of minutes. The elements are earth, water, wind and fire. An individual may have one or two home elements. Once the home element is determined, the Basics Chapter offers general guidance. Read that section first and then turn to the applicable home element chapter for specific guidance for eating and well-being. The entire process is fascinating and encompassing. After using the Elements of Life wheel my home element result was approximately 2/3 water and 1/3 earth. Both the water and earth chapters apply to me, with a stronger emphasis on water.
   
   I first checked the Earth chapter. The contents include Food for Health, Hot weather recipes, Rainy weather recipes, a chart that incorporates the aromas and flavors of the element making it easy to see how to add items most beneficial to me in my cooking and life based on my home element(s). The Bliss section of the chapter offers advice to optimize physical being and includes recipes for facial masks, a foot rub, hair conditioner along with a section of special scents (like cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, juniper berry, etc.) that are complimentary, massage oils, sachets and finally traditional remedies for minor ailments. The Water and other home element chapters are similarly organized.
   
   The book is lushly illustrated although every dish is not pictured. Not surprisingly, the user should be willing to search out specialty ingredients for the recipes. I prepared the Cambodian Salad with Chicken, Smoked Salmon, Mushroom and Arugula Salad, and Cool Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp, Fire-Roasted Anaheim Chile, and Sweet-Sour Sauce. The recipes were delicious and instructions clear.
   
   This is much more than a cook book, it is an introduction to Thai traditions. The book is carefully crafted by Su-Mei Yu and her desire to share her wonderful culture with the reader is evident on each page. I treasure my copy of this beautiful book and recommend it to all.



2. //The Elements of Life,//by San Diego chef and restaurateur Su-Mei Yu presents an exhaustive, and somewhat exhausting, guide to eating according to the Thai concept of home elements. The theory basically contends that the four elements of the universe-- earth, air, water and fire--are also found within each individual, with one element typically having a stronger presence. Once you identify your specific home element, you are then supposed to plan your diet around those foods that are most compatible with your element, as well as those which best balance out your vulnerabilities.
   
   Confused? Understandably so. The concept is a bit complicated to grasp, and even though the recipes in the book are organized according to their corresponding element, the process of planning a meal can be downright daunting.
   
   Don't be entirely put off, however. Even if the home element concept isn't for you, this is primarily just a cookbook containing dozens of authentic Thai recipes and lovely photographs. The pages are filled with fragrant soups, crunchy salads, stir fries, curries and refreshing desserts. Most of the recipes are surprisingly simple in technique and yield dishes with the delicious, vibrant flavors that you expect to find in Thai cuisine.
   
   Reviewed by Andrea Rappaport

5 comments about Vatch's Thai Street Food.

1. What a remarkable book! There is as much space devoted to conveying Thai culture and food history, as there is recipes... complete with both genuine snapshots of Thailand eateries, as well as gorgeous pictures of finished products.
   
   Book offers a nice selection of ingredient introductory material, history, cultural snippets, and cooking tips. Recipes are easy and unfussy, but not geared toward novice cooks (i.e., directions include "Fry until golden brown," doesn't tell you over what heat).
   
   If you want a taste of Thailand cuisine, this is the book to get! Real, everyday dishes that are simple to prep.



2. I've never been to Thailand but feel as though I have. The descriptions of Thai culture and communities is wonderful. Very vivid in my opinion. The photography is excellent as well. I haven't yet tried the recipes (a procrasinator) but they look as if they will be very pleasing. I'm really looking forward to trying out the Dim Sum recipe.
   
   In all I'd say this is a top-notch book and can wholeheartedly recommend it. Passport not needed!



3. Having lived in thailand for a good two years I learned to love thai street food. Ive wanted to recreate a lot of those recipes for the longest time but wasnt very impressed by the other cookbooks in my collection. and then along came this gem of a cook book! have tried the raddish cake, isarn sausage and a couple of other recipes and i can highly recommend this cookbook for its simplicity of instruction and the authenticity of its recipes!a must have for every thai food enthusiast! you will not regret buying this cookbook!



4. I used to travel on business to Thailand freqently, so I'm always looking for authentic tasting recipes. In this book, I finally found a perfect recipe for Laab (Larb or Larp).
   
   Plus, I really like how he tells you what region the dish is from, and many have a little history with it. Like Thai Dim Sum, for example, was an attempt of the street vendors to attract the Chinese immigrant workers in the area.
   
   Many of these 'street' dish recipes just aren't found in other cookbooks. I enjoy just browsing through this book:)



5. As a Midwesterner, I am new to Thai flavors. I can't just go to the corner and have a choice. As someone who loves new flavors, this book provides! I love hot, sweet, spicy and wow in my food and I can actually find doable recipes that I can make at home. While lemongrass is out of my reach, this book provides ideas and tastes that I can make here and that transport me to the Far East. That I might actually duplicate some of the delicious Thai street foods here is a real treat. I invite you to use this book as a guide and make your own "street food"!

5 comments about The Everything Thai Cookbook: From Pad Thai to Lemongrass Chicken Skewers--300 Tasty, Tempting Thai Dishes You Can Make at Home (Everything Series).

1. Purchased this book with high hopes based on other reviews. I was very disappointed in the fact that there are NO PICTURES at all. I am a visual person, and enjoy seeing pictures of dishes; especially ones that can be a bit complex. The substitutions of Thai ingredients completely change the dish. Ginger is not the same flavor as Galangal....I could go on and on. The authentic ingredients are not too difficult to find these days. You can order online or just go to a specialty Market. It IS worth the trip to get the right stuff to cook these dishes with. If you like more authentic books with pictures, pass on this one. Try templeofthai.com for a great website and supplier.



2. This book is super easy to follow and has tons of great tasting recipies.



3. I have not yet tried any of the recipes but felt I must respond to the critic who lambasted fish sauce-how ridiculous. Does he (she) not know that all Thai and most Vietnamese dishes have fish sauce in them? Perhaps the reviewer would be happier having a Thai dish from McDonald's or someplace similar.



4. Personally I thought this was a waste of money. Majority of the recipes are Americanized, which I wasn't really feeling.
   But, on the other hand, if you're not too picky on authenticity, or live in a smaller community where exotic produce and spices may not be available, this would make for a perfect cookbook. It's easy to follow and has plenty of recipes.



5. I've tried over two dozen recipes in this book and they all work, taste great, and are reasonably authentic Thai flavor. A book worth having if you like cooking Thai food at home.

5 comments about Quick & Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes.

1. I LOVE this cookbook. I am being completely honest in saying it is my favorite cookbook ever. We've tried about half the recipes by now, and everything has come out amazing, delicious, wonderful. One of my favorite things about it is how she makes it "customizable" for different cooking abilities and different ingredient availabilities. For instance, "if you don't have xx, you can use yy." All the instructions are clear, simple, and fool-proof. I love the pictures, the descriptions, and of course, the amazing dishes that result. You won't have any regrets in buying this book -- it is a treasure.



2. I am not a chef, I am a mom on a budget with a Thai marketplace less than a mile away from me. I love Thai food, but the various ingredients overwhelmed me. (Do I use lemongrass with wild lime leaves? How is yellow curry different than red curry? Is fish sauce really as yucky as it sounds?) This book is PERFECT! I actually love the photos because it helps me identify things I know on sight but have forgotten the name. The recipes are simple but diverse and she gives enough insight into the process so I can vary the spice according to my family's tastes. I have done a variety of recipes for a "feast" and have thrown together one dish of noodles as a one-bowl dinner. Everything has been astonishingly delicious, even foods we've never been huge fans of.
   
   The only down side: My husband won't order delivery Thai any more. The results from this book are better than anything we have found, and I'm in Los Angeles.



3. The pages in my copy of this book stick together. Why? Because I've used it so much over the past few years that it's peppered with spots of curry and sauce and all of the goodness that I've made from the book. Is it completely authentic? Probably not. But does that really matter? The dishes are flavorful, quick and easy enough for a week night meal and when you're busy, that's important. I'd consider myself a relatively advanced home cook, I own other thai cookbooks that contain much more complex and "authentic" recipes than this one. Those are great when you have the time, but if you want to eat consistently good thai food on days when you don't have hours to spend, this is the book I turn to time and again.



4. This was my second cookbook by author Nancie McDermott (I have had the Curry Cookbook for several years and am in love with it!). I found this to be truly quick and easy. Again, every recipe I have tried is amazing, with ingredients easy to find. I have made the Green Chicken Curry with Zucchini (be sure to follow the recommendation to serve with the Tangy Cucumber Pickles for an amazing taste combination). After tasting it, a friend went out to a Thai restaurant and promptly voted this recipe better than the restaurant! You won't go wrong with this gem of a cookbook if you want delicious, easy to prepare Thai food.



5. I use this book several times a week! I have always loved Thai food and was always too intimidated to try and cook it at home. This book has changed my life in the kitchen!! I love cooking the recipes in this book! They are delicious and you can follow the directions to the letter and it is still spicy and flavorful. Most cook books need doctoring but not this one. I have made many of these recipes and every one has been a success! Thank you to the author!!!!

5 comments about Thai Food.

1. After hearing about this book on The Splendid Table, I bought it for my husband for his birthday about 3 weeks ago and he's already made a bunch of different meals out if it. The recipes include a lot of ingredients but they aren't too complicated. We found an awesome Asian grocer near our house and have become regulars there. I definitely recommend this book if you are interested in authentic Thai cooking.



2. this is a beautiful book.
   almost destined more for the coffee table than for the kitchen library.
   
   recipes are there, but there seems to be a very strong emphasis on recipe context. not an exhaustive resource by far - but is very nice to have anyway.



3. This book is from one of the great Thai food chefs in Australia and provides not only a large array of recipes, but also an education about the culture behind the food and the way the ingredients have come into use by the Thai people. I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about Thai cooking.



4. I just bought this as a gift for my father and now I want one of my own. I recently spent time traveling in Thailand and this book had recipes for all of my favorite foods.



5. I got this recommend from Savuer and is it ever a home-run for Thai Cooking. The ONLY book you will need on Thai. For the novice I recommend a trip to your local Asian market, you have a 95% chance of finding all the ingredients and they will be fresher and cheaper. The beautiful thing about our Asian market is that not only can you locate hard to find ingredients but we also discovered FRESHER vegetables and fish then in our local upscale market.
   
   This book is easy to follow and quite intuitive. My 13 year old daughter has had no problems following the recipes, and neither will you. Enjoy!

5 comments about Buddha's Table: Thai Feasting Vegetarian Style.

1. This is an excellent cookbook. I love all of the recipes in this book. I especially love the fact that it's completely vegetarian, I would definitely recommend this book to a friend.



2. For some reason, I thought this book would be bigger (physically). I was kind of surrised how thin / compact it is. But, for its size, it does seem to pack a pretty good compendium of information inside its covers. It lists the various ingredients endemic to Thai cooking, and pretty quickly gets down to the business of how to put them together into wonderful sounding dishes. I haven't tried them yet, but have no doubt that they will be fabulous. I love Thai food. It's tasty, pretty and relatively healthy (however, I've yet to find a truly low-fat Thai cookbook; if you're looking for that, this probably isn't it as it still seems to use various vegetable oils for cooking / frying).
   
   I also recently got The Vegetarian Table: Thailand, which I think is a pretty excellent reference as well. I also think it's perhaps slightly more polished than Buddha's table, as its pages arein color and it provides a far larger selection of color photos showing the finished products of the recipes. Still, Buddha's table is a good entry in its own right and the two might make good shelf companions.



3. bought as a Christmas present. My husband is an awesome chef and he is picky about the cook books he uses. This one is a keeper.



4. This is a quiet, unassuming little cookbook - small size, no glossy pages, almost no pictures - but it's become one of my favourites. I've probably only cooked about 10 things from it so far, but that's partly because many of those things are so tasty that I keep making them again. The curry pastes are authentic and delicious, some of the salads are electrifyingly flavoursome, and the Coconut Galangal Soup blows me and my wife away every time (and never fails to impress guests). I've had one recipe misfire on me so far (it was a curry mousse dish, which came out too runny), though I suspect that it was my fault, and not the recipe's. Overall, Buddha's Table is a little gem that definitely deserves a place in your cupboard if you like to cook Thai from time to time.
   
   Vegans please note that although it isn't mentioned on the cover, this cookbook is vegan. Or at least, I haven't found any animal products in its recipes yet. Dairy is practically non-existent in Thai cuisine anyway, and I've found one or two recipes where the author has purposefully used a vegan substitute instead of egg.



5. My partner loves Thai food but we are vegan. This book allows us to create all the thai dishes we love but sometimes order with trepidation now because of fish sauce etc. what's amazing is that these recipes taste so much better! (especially the currys and tom yum soup which is criminally easy to make- who knew?!) The recipes are easy to follow and i love that the thai names are listed. sorry for all the restaurants that will miss our business but hello to all the markets that we will now visit.
   
   and yes i did the write the author who wrote me right back!- nice

5 comments about Thailand: The Beautiful Cookbook.

1. I have lived in Thailand and this book is the best cookbook I have found in the US. It made me very happy to be able to see Thai foods that are not offered in Thai restaurants in the US and not seen in other Thai cookbooks. Now I can finally have my Nam Gabi and Soup No Mai. (The spelling is different in the book.) I was happy to see both the Roman lettering and the true Thai word for the dish. It helps me figure out what the dish is and jogs my memory when reading the Thai. Thai food is great and I'm happy to see the recipes and the Thai regional information included.



2. This isn't my favorite Thai cookbook for recipes. There are several good recipes, and many that are not terribly authentic. But, if you love a cookbook with outstanding pictures, this is a wonderful book. There are so many terrific pictures of places I visited in Thailand, I had to get the book.



3. This is a great cookbook. My girlfriend is Cambodian and we like to eat alot of that style of food and I can't wait to try EVERY recipe in here. All of the recipes have great flavor and the pictures in here are gorgeous. If you are a fan of this type of food, (as I'm sure as everybody else has already stated) then try this cookbook out. You won't be disappointed. Some of the recipes call for some unusual ingredients, but that's what makes this cookbook great. More authentic type of stuff.



4. I owned this cookbook once before; My wife gave it away while I was in Iraq in '04 and decided we would lead a raw food lifestyle. That lasted only so long... So I had to find this book again. I would recommend for everyone who loves Thai Cuisine.



5. After owning this book for a while I wanted to provide an update. LOVE this book! It has become one of my favorites and my family makes requests all the time. My new sister-in-law is Thai and her parents came for a visit, they speak almost no English. I made a couple of the dishes from the book and they were a bit nervious but appeared shocked when they tasted the food. Said that it was VERY authentic and they wouldn't have believed I made it from scratch if they hadn't seen it. Very inspiring book and if you have an Asian market nearby you are in for a real treat.
   
   ===============
   This book is beautiful, the photos are pleasing and I like the fact they give you the Thai name as well as the English translation. The recipes are not too complicated and after trying out a number of them they are incredibly favorful and simiple to make.

5 comments about Quick & Easy Thai Cuisine: Lemon Grass Cookbook.

1. The instructions are fairly easy to follow, and the recipes I have tried are great. However, the pictures of marinated dishes don't show the marinades as mixed together, which is weird. Also, I wish the author(s) were a little more clear on exactly which cuts of beef to use on the dishes...it just says "sliced beef" or "tender sliced beef". I'd like to know which cuts they would recommend.



2. I have other cultural cookbooks that I've purchased in the past: Thai, Indian, Mexican, Chinese. In which, the recipes don't come out tasting like how they taste in the restaurant. This little gem provides pictures of the ingredients, so you can go to any Thai grocer and know what to get. The dishes I've tried came out perfect, like in the restaurant;even my family enjoyed the recipes. It's also perfect for first timers. Definetely get this one.



3. This cookbook is full of flavorful and simple recipes. It includes a picture of every dish and all ingredients. If you are able to find fish sauce, oyster sauce, and curry paste, you'll be able to make the majority of recipes. Fish sauce and oyster sauce are fat free too, so for those on a low-fat diet, here are some exotic alternatives. I've given copies of the book to two friends in two months. You'll overcome your fear of curry.



4. I love this Thai cookbook. The recipes are easy to follow, there's a picture of every dish, and they even include a picture of the ingredients for each recipe. These meals turn out as good as the Thai restaurant we used to go to often. I have a 3 year-old and a 1 year-old who both love the satay, cashew chicken and Thai noodles. I strongly recommend this cookbook for anyone who is just beginning to cook or is looking for easy Thai recipes.



5. The step by step directions with full color images and short ingredient lists will have you cooking Thai in minutes! Even my children enjoy the recipes! This books gives you the "short" version using bottled sauces available at your local grocery store whenever possible, replacing hard-to-find and expensive spices.

4 comments about Complete Thai Cooking.

1. First off, let me say that I am a "foodie". I search out prime ingredients. I fuss over my equipment like a mother hen. I read cookbooks in the bathtub.... You get the idea.
   
   "Complete Thai Cooking" is a great cookbook with the following key attributes:
   - dishes which are seriously tasty and "feel" Thai (see below)
   - clear instuctions
   - non-complicated prep work
   - findable ingredients, with helpful substitutions
   - excellent Thai spice/herb overview
   
   I have the specific need of cooking Thai food in a location where I have limited ingredients and time. At the same time, I am unwilling to spend time cooking anything where the tastes are watered down, and the dishes uninspiring.
   
   I have not been disappointed by anything I have made from the book.
   
   Mild disclaimer:
   I must admit that I am not qualified to speak about the authenticity/thru-Thai of the recipes. I do know that they taste wonderful, and I'd be happy to pay for them at a Thai resturant.



2. Do not hesitate on this one! It's absolutely amazing! Wonderful recipes, colorful photos. I LOVE IT!!!!!



3. Without question the finest of the 37 Thai/Asian cookbooks that I own.
   Very highly recommended not only for the clear and concise instructions and techniques, but world class and profoundly tasty recipes. Have made several of the dishes and have never been disappointed.
   A MUST HAVE VOLUME.



4. i LOVE this cookbook. i was shocked by the authenticity and the detail put into it. Very well done. i use it to do Cambodian food because it is very similar in many ways and i love thai food, too. Nothing has matched this book to date. Well worth the investment