We’re excited to share with you an upcoming promotion we’re having with an Indian brunch restaurant in Bangkok called Cuppachai. The colorful, newly opened spot is catching the attention of Bangkokians with their unique spin on Indian favorites. This Valentine’s Day the restaurant is kicking off a special afternoon tea called “High Chai” which will benefit Courageous Kitchen.
Afternoon tea special called “High Chai” at Bangkok’s Cuppachai restaurant.
Cuppachai is interesting if you’re a foodie. The restaurant is located in central Bangkok at the base of El Patio Condominium (Sukhumvit 31) which is a part of town with an abundance of food choices. Cuppachai’s menu is funky and features Chef Vishvesh Nadkarni’s versions of favorites from around India. For example, Calcutta favorite Indori poha made with flattened rice, a vegetarian beetroot sandwich from Mumbai’s Iranian shops, and Goan pulao fused with local tastes by subbing in Chiang Mai sausage.
Cuppachai’s latest special, however, brings Indian flavors to the British high tea tradition. During High Chai you can enjoy a special tea set for two, from 12pm-5pm with all of the following:
Earl grey and date scones with clotted cream and Courageous Kitchen roselle jam
Kachumber and raita sandwich, akuri tofu sandwich, and two classic Mumbai samosas
Halwa macaroons, fruit puff pastries, coconut-chocolate ladoos, and gulab jamun cheesecake
Housemade masala chai, or the tea of your choice
Try Courageous Kitchen’s jam on your scones!
That’s right, we’ve contributed to the sweet and savory set platter with our own homemade cinnamon and roselle jam. We make a variety of jams, especially in the low season when there are fewer customers for our Thai cooking class, but one of our favorites is made from the gelatinous petals of the rosella hibiscus. We sweeten and slightly spice the petals to make a jam that is reminiscent of a cranberry jam, but lighter and never bitter. In the future we’ll contribute other flavors depending on what fruit is in season.
However, the food is not the full story in this case. The owners of the restaurant have also volunteered with Courageous Kitchen in the past to teach English, take children to the hospital, and to have fun in the kitchen with our students too. On one memorable occasion, they taught a group of students popular Indian street food snacks like vada pav and pani puris. The students had a blast getting their hands messy making the puris and always appreciate a chance to taste something new. Needless to say, there weren’t any leftovers!
A portion of the proceeds from your high tea each month will be donated to Courageous Kitchen.
We’re honored to participate in this collaboration. A portion of the proceeds from people ordering the tea sets will be donated back toward our charity work, and we hope to collaborate more with Cuppachai in the future as well. Of course, you don’t have to have afternoon tea to support Courageous Kitchen. Join us in an upcoming cooking class or make a donation in support of our work with marginalized children.
Happy eating and don’t forget to share this article with a friend visiting Bangkok!
Traveling with kids is difficult enough, don’t let meal times be any more stressful than necessary. To help you, we’ve taken the feedback from guests visiting our kids cooking class in Bangkok, to create a free menu to make ordering food for your kids easier on your next trip to Thailand.
When your children enjoy the food in the country you’re visiting, it can change the entire dynamic of your trip. This is especially true for Thailand, where many of the travelers come specifically to enjoy all of the spicy and full-flavored Thai dishes. However, for those new to Thai cuisine or traveling with small children, figuring out what to order can be daunting.
Don’t miss our recent recipe for kid’s pad thai, give it a try at home to start getting your kids acclimated for the big trip to Thailand.
How to Order Thai Food Kids Enjoy
If you’re planning your trip to Bangkok, you may already be thinking about what to order your kids. One of the common issues is ordering food that isn’t going to set flame to the tastebuds of your little ones. There is plenty of delicious Thai food that isn’t spicy, but you may come up with only a short list reading travel blogs and tips from writers who don’t stay in the country long.
You also need to understand spice in Thailand isn’t a novelty like in other countries. There are seldom chili eating competitions nor much bravado associated with your ability to eat spicy food. That’s because spicy food is the norm in Thailand, and not the exception.
Remember the crisis in Thailand when members of a youth football team were trapped deep in a cave? When they asked the trapped students (many of them from marginalized people groups like the ones Courageous Kitchen serves) what they most wanted to eat, they responded, ‘pad krapao’. This well-loved Thai dish can appear on the menu simply as ‘stir fried basil with pork’. However, some English menus may neglect to mention this dish is usually made with a healthy heaping of chili, where even the mildest versions can be a shock to those unaccustomed to spicy food!
A guest in our kids cooking class is focused on helping make ‘pad see ew’ for her family.
Now that may sound delicious to you, but unless your kids are Thai, they may not be craving a face full of chili as soon as they get off the plane. This means knowing a few milder dishes to order can be extremely helpful. Instead of ordering the aforementioned spicy pad krapao, you can simply order a plate of ‘pad see ew‘ (wok-fried rice nooodles with egg and chicken) instead. Since the dish isn’t spicy by nature, it makes it a much better choice and delicious for both parents and adults.
Knowing some Thai dishes is helpful, and any knowledge of Thai language comes in handy too. For instance, no guidebook or travel guide is complete without teaching you the phrase ‘mai ped‘, meaning ‘not spicy’ in Thai. Flip those words around and change the tones slightly, and you can ask ‘ped mai‘ or ‘is this spicy?‘ to people in restaurants or at street food stalls.
Already confused? Don’t worry, this isn’t a Thai lesson. However, we do hope parents understand before arriving, that communicating the needs of your children in local restaurants can be a monumental task. Although Thailand is a major destination for vacationers around the world, limited English ability by Thais can add miscommunication to the growing list of obstacles keeping you from feeding hangry kids.
Free English to Thai Menu for Parents
Kids Travel Menu for Thailand
Don’t struggle to order food for your kids in Thailand any more!
The kids menu isn’t only helpful for people with kids, but useful for anyone with food allergies, aversions to spicy food, and limited knowledge of Thai language.
To help ease communication issues parents are having, we’ve created a special one page kids menu that you can download. The menu is created using dishes common in restaurants around Thailand, that are also friendly for kids because they’re not overly spicy. Some dishes may even be similar to food options you have in your home country.
Of course, not every restaurant will have all of the dishes we’ve listed. However, our hope is that with a little assistance communicating you’ll find that even restaurants who don’t, will often willingly do their best to make something tasty for your kids.
In addition, with each food item we’ve included a brief English description and the corresponding Thai characters, as well as an abbreviated phonetic spelling for assistance pronouncing the words on your own.
Food Allergies in Thailand
Here’s a preview of the free menu, we hope it makes communicating food allergies easier for parents.
Ordering in Thai restaurants takes another leap in difficulty if you’re also working around your child’s allergy. This may mean, for example, trying to prevent peanuts from being added to a dish like pad thai where they are commonly used to garnish the popular noodle dish. For this reason we’ve added a section to the menu download, specifically for making special requests including common food allergies translated into Thai.
Thailand is becoming friendlier for vegan and vegetarian travelers too. Much of this is due to the growth of local businesses offering solely meat free options, or existing restaurants hoping to attract new customers with more accommodating menu items. This is great news if you’re visiting the big cities like Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket. However, when exploring out of the city centers, you should be ready to communicate your dietary restrictions to street food vendors and restaurants you visit.
This is because often Thai food includes what we refer to as ‘sneaky meat’. To get the umami flavors that make the food stand out, cooks are often using meat based sauces and stocks to season food. For example, dishes you may already love such as pad thai and pad see ew are both commonly made with fish sauce. A noodle dish may appear to be meat free, but you can’t assume it is, just because there isn’t any meat cooked in the dish that you can identify easily. Instead, using the right terminology when you order can prevent these problems!
Stir fry sauces in Thailand are often meat based. If vegans and vegetarians are clear in communicating, chefs can use meat free sauces, as in the tofu pad see ew pictured above.
Finally, we know this won’t solve every problem with ordering. You still don’t want to leave home without a smartphone with translation apps and internet access. You can also never underestimate the value of having a local friend. While this simple menu won’t replace your Thai friends, it may make you a little more adventurous on days when you’re not with a guide or friend to give you a hand.
Happy travels to all the parents reading, we hope the entire family enjoys your time in Thailand. If you found this information helpful, please consider making a donation to help us feed and educate those in need.
Thai noodle lovers rejoice! We’ve got a brand new cooking class in Bangkok we’re hoping you’ll love.
Are you ready to deepen your knowledge of how to cook Thai food at home?
Are you looking forward to move beyond pad thai, to other delicious noodle dishes?
How about needing a delicious, but vegetarian, vegan, or gluten free Asian dish to wow your friends?
Learn to make your own Thai noodles in our latest Bangkok cooking class.
We’re excited to announce our brand new class to teach you how to make your own Thai rice noodles. This isn’t your average cooking class in Bangkok, where a tour company squeezes as many tourists into the kitchen as possible. Instead we’re aiming to deepen your knowledge of Thai food, and boost your kitchen confidence, by focusing in on one of Thailand’s most beloved ingredients, rice noodles!
You’ll learn to master mixing a rice flour batter for your noodles, and steaming the batter to create the noodles with us. Once your noodles are looking good, we’ll let them cool before cutting them to your preference. We prefer wide noodles that aren’t overly thick, making them perfect for stir frying into a steamy plate of pad see ew.
Guests have their phones ready to share their Thai noodle making experience.
To help you replicate the delicious Thai rice noodles at home, we’ll share our tips for making them with as little hassle and mess afterwards. This includes making a versatile stir fry sauce that you can use with any noodle you make. This is a must do course for Thai food fans who love wok fried noodle dishes like pad see ew!
If you’re not already familiar with pad see ew, this Thai Chinese dish combines wide ‘sen yai’ noodles with soft scrambled egg and Chinese kale. You can find the full recipe for this dish in our mini cookbook (you can download it for free or give a small donation), and when you take our class, our team we will walk you through exactly how to make them. After returning home from your adventures in Thailand, we’re confident you’ll be able to put on a tasting the whole family will enjoy.
Pad see ew noodles are a popular Thai dish but, few have tried it with hand cut noodles!
Unlike egg noodles, Thai rice noodles are gluten free and vegan. This makes it easy to customize your noodle dishes for anyone with special dietary preferences. The mild tasting, slippery texture, also makes these homemade noodles the perfect backdrop for your favorite Thai flavors. You can even mention to our team that you love spice, and we’ll help you make the spicier pad kee mow (drunken noodles), as long as you’re sure you can handle the heat. The versatility of these rice noodles is unmatched!
Alina serves up a plate of spicy drunken noodles, or in Thai, pad kee mow!
We’re pumped to welcome you to Courageous Kitchen for our new noodle class. As with all of our food experiences, proceeds from your participation will help our efforts to reach and teach marginalized youth in Bangkok. So we’re looking forward to sharing a plate of noodles and making a difference with you soon!
The kitchen is a special classroom, where students can be given the power to create, collaborate, and thrive! We believe this to the core, we preach it, and try to live by it. But we are also quick to admit the kitchen isn’t the only place children can express themselves, and learn new skills. In a recent Saturday cooking and jam session, our Courageous Kitchen students welcomed children from the Khlong Toey Music Program (KTMP) for a memorable afternoon.
Khlong Toey Music Program Motto: “Playing for Change”
If you’re unfamiliar, the KTMP music program is named for one the most infamous slums in Bangkok, Khlong Toey. Despite the rough surroundings, there’s important work happening in their community, and KTMP is part of the change that’s happening in this overlooked area of Bangkok. With a similar ethos to Courageous Kitchen, KTMP believes children deserve a safe place to learn, especially because of the pernicious nature of the cycle of poverty. Instead of proselytizing the way of the wok and other culinary arts like us, their program teaches guitar, drums, and several other instruments, adding English and other extracurriculars as often as possible. Each time the students have an opportunity to perform, they earn new fans across the city of Bangkok and online!
Still kids, even the ones gaining fans each week through their music on facebook and youtube, get nervous meeting other children. For this reason, we didn’t jump right into learning to play music when our two student groups came together. First we had to get to know each other. So to kick things off, we began the day with fun ice breaking games. The games required the students to interact with one another, learning each other’s names, and teaming up to identify vocabulary words faster than other teams.
The kids begin learning about the instruments they’re most interested in playing from students their own age.
The instruments made an appearance after we got to know each other and whoa did it get noisy! The students and teachers dispersed themselves around the room teaching the same melody, with a different instrument in each group. There was an entire section dedicated to our mini percussionists, the singers and ukulele players claimed the center of the room, and the electric and acoustic guitar fans filled the gap on the other side. I’d compare the sound and fury of the activity to having a baby elephant dancing in your kitchen. But despite what it did to our eardrums, looking around at the excitement on all the children’s faces as the instrument workshop began, was incredibly rewarding.
Low thuds, random strings, and excited voices filled the room as the students began to get the hang of the instruments. The KTMP teachers encouraged the children to change groups once they had the melody down, much to the excitement of the girls torn between playing the drums, and switching into guitar hero mode on KTMP’s shiny electric guitars. Knowing the kids would be working up an appetite, our kitchen team was rendering the fat off a kilo of shrimp. They would go on to use the fatty oils from cooking the shrimp, to toss egg noodles before serving.
The guitars were the most popular instruments of the day!These crinkly yellow noodles are popular with everyone in Thailand!
If you love tom yum soup, you should try it with a shrimp laced instant noodles!
Days before this event, we held meetings to debate what to serve our new friends at KTMP. On such a fun day, we wanted to serve familiar food that the kids would gobble down, but with a Courageous Kitchen twist. Cooking up ‘mama’ noodles easily won by popular vote. Named for the most popular brand of instant noodles in Thailand, mama noodles are popular in the low key street food stalls all over the country. The noodles are well known as a nostalgic childhood snack. However, instead of making a broth full of the msg filled flavoring packets, we made our own giant pot of creamy tom yum broth to serve our hungry little musicians.
As the scent of shrimp tinged egg noodles, and lemongrass broth began to fill the house, full bars of notes were beginning to tumble out as well. The practice was paying off, and the students were becoming more confident playing the song. Soon they would play it together, Thai, refugee, and migrant kids, all strumming to the same rhythm. For the finale, the KTMP youth performed a few more songs, before everyone agreed it was time to eat. The noodles were ready to eat, but the kids quickly organized into teams, some making spring rolls to eat with their noodles, while the others were ready for a cooling dessert snack.
Thank you for visiting us Khlong Toey Music Program!
There’s more you should know about the special students from KTMP. They didn’t just show up for tom yum noodles. They have been hearing about Courageous Kitchen for weeks, selecting us as the charity they most wanted interact with and help. In the lead up to meeting each other, they used the power of their music, performing and spreading awareness to raise money for us. In a few short weeks the students, supported by their tireless teachers, raised and donated nearly 14,000 baht (about $440) to help children in our program!
Our entire team feels really privileged to find such a great organization with a similar mission. You can visit Khlong Toey Music Program on their website, and donate to fund more fun future collaborations. We hope they enjoyed our harmonizing in the kitchen, as much as we enjoyed jamming with their instruments!
Today’s shared plate is a favorite Thai street food snack! Known as ‘hoi tod’ (หอยทอด) in Thai, this concoction of batter fried mussels is hawked most commonly by street food vendors selling pad thai. While the dish may be overshadowed by pad thai’s fame outside of Thailand, in the country in can go head to head with any greasy, super satisfying street food dish you can imagine.
If you’ve never seen this dish cooking before you’re in for a treat, it looks like a savory asian funnel cake is being created before your eyes!
With the cost of all the ingredients for pad thai, most street food hawkers outside the tourist hot spots can’t enjoy much success by selling it solely. So many of the vendors you see in Bangkok, whether you know it or not, may be making this delicious snack as well. The thing to look out for when you’re roaming Bangkok’s street food filled streets, are the carts with oversized iron woks. Great for cooking at a consistent temperature, the pure size of the woks allow the most skillful vendors to be making several plates at a time, often simultaneously cooking hoy tod, pad thai, and interacting with customers.
Making the dish at home without starting a grease fire can be a task. This is because you’ll need to get the batter frying in hot oil, and as it crisps up transfer it to a pan where in can continue to cook, but only shallow frying. This makes it easier to flip and get an even fry on all side, while allowing you to add an egg to spruce it up!
Special thanks to our guest Seth who requested this dish and was so much fun to cook with!
We prefer our hoy tod omelette crispy fried and golden brown. Normally, you will serve it with a chili sauce, and if you like the heat— you’ll love it with our homemade sriracha sauce.
When you visit Bangkok, you can request this dish in our cooking class or street food tour! We’re happy whether teaching you to make it, or encouraging you to hunt down a version to try it on your own. Happy eating, and remember to share this plate!
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