Banana blossom salad, sour-and-spicy prawn soup, Chiang Mai curry – Thai food culture is best discovered on the streets of Bangkok, in the city’s countless small food stalls.

12 noon in Bangkok – and the street becomes a kitchen. Everywhere, food is being steamed, fried and grilled. Passers-by drift from one delicious cloud of aroma to the next. Satay skewers sizzle over glowing charcoal; an old woman cooks fish balls à la minute for a traditional noodle soup in a huge pot of broth; at the next stall, grilled banana blossoms and steamed corn cobs with freshly shaved coconut tempt those passing by.

Around the corner, a queue begins to form. Dozens of hungry eyes watch as the most delicious Khao Pad, fried rice, is prepared in a huge, dented wok over an open flame. The scent of charcoal hangs in the air and flavours every grain of rice. Guests crouch on colourful plastic stools at stainless-steel tables along the pavements, season their food with fish sauce, palm sugar and chilli pickled in vinegar – and find themselves in seventh culinary heaven.

Some of the street cooks have become true stars in recent years. One example is Jay Fai, also known as the “Mozart of the noodle”. Her unassuming corner restaurant, tiled in pastel green and lit by bare light bulbs, is one of those typical tiny places known here as “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants. Yet among food lovers, it had long been held in the highest regard; quite a few regulars arrived with a chauffeur. Since 2018, Jay Fai has held a Michelin star. Rightly so, for what she creates in her wok over the open fire is more than worth spending an hour in Bangkok’s rush-hour traffic at 38 degrees.

The flat, wide rice noodles, which look a little like Asian pappardelle, have the perfect bite. The vegetables are tossed in the wok: baby corn, large leaves of Thai basil and fresh hearts of palm, which add a gentle sweetness. As for the prawns – thick, meaty and with a sweet, nutty flavour – they are cooked in the wok for only a few seconds, so that they arrive at the table wonderfully juicy. The chef calls this delicacy of her Thai-Chinese cuisine Drunken Noodles.

Many famous dishes of Thai cuisine originated on the street and were later refined in restaurants. Som Tam, for example: a salad of green, unripe papaya, seasoned with garlic, chilli, dried prawns and roasted peanuts. Or Phad Thai, thin rice noodles from the wok, flavoured with palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind juice. And, of course, sticky rice – the Thai dessert par excellence: ripe mango with ultra-sweet glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk.

To this day, one thing remains true: nowhere does one come closer to Thailand’s culinary soul than on the street, in the country’s improvised food stalls and tiny shophouse restaurants. It is precisely this cuisine from which the menu at Boom Boom Restaurant at Bussi Baby on Lake Tegernsee draws its inspiration. When crispy spring rolls with Chinese cabbage and homemade sweet chilli sauce or red curry with coconut milk, Thai basil and vegetables are served here, an exotic cloud of fragrance drifts around the table – and for a brief moment, one feels transported to the streets of Bangkok.

NELLY BARANCO